100 Days of Heroes: Merchant sailor Ernest Drake died for the Empire’s vital lifeline

HOBART’S Ernest Drake belonged to another class of servicemen working for the defence of their country and empire alongside the soldiers, nurses, sailors and aircrew.

Torpedo damage to the side of HMAT Boorara shown after she was beached for temporary repairs after being torpedoed in the English Channel on March 20, 1918. Picture: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL

HOBART’S Ernest Drake belonged to another class of servicemen working for the defence of their country and empire alongside the soldiers, nurses, sailors and aircrew.

The British Empire’s merchant mariners of World War I included many Australians serving on requisitioned vessels such as troopships, freighters, hospital ships, fuel tankers and ammunition ships.

Among them was Ernest Drake, son of Annie and Samuel Drake, of 18 Pirie St, New Town. He was born about 1885 and educated at the New Town State School.

During the war he served as a steamship fireman (stoker) whose job was to tend the fire for the running of a boiler to power the steam engine. This was hard, physical labour, shovelling fuel into the firebox.

Logo for 100 days of heroes in the Mercury newspaperhundred days of heroes

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He was killed on March 20, 1918, aged 34, when HMAT Boorara was torpedoed by a submarine in the English Channel.

A censored report of his death published in the Mercury said he had died as the result of an accident to a nameless ship.

It went on to say that he had previously been on a ship that was torpedoed, and another that was burnt at sea.

He is commemorated at the Tower Hill Memorial in London, England, and buried in the Hollybrook Cemetery at Southamption, where he shares a headstone with two other firemen killed in the same confrontation: a Yorkshireman and a fellow Australian.

Fireman Ernest Alan Drake is remembered at tree 427 on the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue, an on honour boards at the Hobart Town Hall and New Town Primary School.

His brother, Sergeant Vernon Drake, was killed in action at Morlancourt, France, in June 1918 and is remembered at tree 443 on the Avenue.

If you have a photo of Ernest or Vernon Drake to share, please contact [e-mail]

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