Pilot Officer GJ Drake

Links of Long Standing

The SAAF Development Programme’s prewar demise influenced many young South Africans including WI Deas, PG Dexter, GJ Drake, J Falkson, AC Hamman, PH Hugo, O Hume, J Ing, AG Lewis, N Lewis, LA Lynn, Spencer Peacock -Edwards, SR Whiting and GM Wright while 26-year-old Michaelhouse educated Guy Paul Wentworth Austin arrived in England on the day war was declared, commissioned as an “acting Pilot on probation” in January 1940 and lost his life 10 months later in a No 9 Squadron Wellington shot down over Germany.

Against Unfavourable Odds

Norman LR Franks “Fighter Command Losses of the Second World War” lists 17 losses on September 9th, 1940, Francis K Mason’s “Battle over Britain” records 24. They differ on the number of No 607 Squadron Hurricanes shot down that day during the Luftwaffe’s aircraft factory attacks but confirm three squadron pilots, including Pilot Officer GJ Drake, a young South African who’s downed Hurricane was not found, lost their lives.

The Dreaded Telegram

George James Drake, born in Kroonstad and educated at Paarl Boys High in the Western Cape was one of several young South Africans turned down by the SAAF for flying training. Drake worked a passage to England on a merchant ship and was 19 when he commissioned as an “acting Pilot Officer on probation” in August 1939.

The Dreaded Telegram

On September 9th, 1940, just over a year later, he was shot down. Posted “Missing”,the Drake family experienced the “agony and uncertainty” of an Air Ministry Telegram and although subsequently informed of his presumed death, his remains and downed Hurricane were not found. However,diggings on a Kent farm in 1972 uncovered a Hurricane engine, airframe, and aircraft pieces and after finding an unused parachute, personal effects and a South African banknote, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission supervised excavations revealing a pilot’s remains in a well-preserved Hurricane cockpit.

The Dreaded Telegram

George Drake bids farewell to his siblings and Mother in Cape Town Docks in 1939. He had just turned 20 when he was posted “Missing” in September 1940.

The Dreaded Telegram

Pilot Officer George James Drake, 11 years younger than “Sailor” Malan was finally laid to rest with full military honours on November 22nd, 1972. RAF Chaplain Reverend David Barnes’s words, “This young man came from a part of the Empire like so many others only to die fighting for the sacred cause of human freedom. When he laid down his life, pursuing what is the basic right of every man, he was a long way from his South African home and family”, reserved for a young man who joined the RAF to fight “for the sacred cause of human freedom” had equal application to South African airmen who paid the ultimate sacrifice during the Second World War.