- Contributed by听
- rayleighlibrary
- People in story:听
- Chief Petty Officer Herbert Youngman Drake
- Location of story:听
- HMS Wakeful - Destroyer, Dunkirk
- Background to story:听
- Royal Navy
- Article ID:听
- A3126999
- Contributed on:听
- 13 October 2004
Chief Petty Officer Herbert Drake before the war.
I am narrating this story on behalf of my uncle Herbert Drake, I never met him as I was only 4 years old when his destroyer HMS Wakeful was torpedoed at Dunkirk on the 29th May, 1940 by a German E-boat. The ship broke in two and sunk in a matter of seconds with heavy loss of life whilst taking off 600 soldiers from the Dunkirk beaches. There was only about 25 survivors.
Prior to the ship being torpedoed they had already taken 600 survivors from the beaches of Dunkirk to safety in Dover.
Chief Petty Officer Drake had been in the Royal Navy all his life, he served on the Royal Sovereign, HMS Wisteria,HMS Wakeful and other ships.
He lived in Halesworth, Suffolk and had three daughters.
HMS Wakeful went down in the Zeebrugge shipping lanes and has since proved a hazard to shipping. After much deliberation as it was a war grave, it was decided that they would remove approximately 3 metres of HMS Wakeful's superstructure effectively to remove the funnels and communication mast and secure these to the side of the ship. In July 2004 there was a ceremony on HMS Southampton when two of the survivors were present and the crest and a footplate from the ship were dedicated and are now on display in the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth.
This story was told by Colin Hall
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