DRAKE, Leslie George

Leslie was born in Newport to Charles & Florence Ethel May (nee CHAMBERLAIN) DRAKE who were living at 18 New Street in Newport around the time of Leslie’s death. In 1932 at the Newport Registry Office he married Minnie Ethel SKELTON & lived at 4 Green Street, Newport. Before the War Leslie was employed by Messrs Bright & Minns.

Leslie, aged 31, was Killed in Action (in which he was Mentioned in Despatches) on the 1st of November 1943 & originally buried close to where he fell. His body was later exhumed & reburied in the Minturno War Cemetery in Italy by the 31st Graves Concentration Unit on the 15th of March 1945. He rests beneath a Commission Headstone bearing the Family Inscription: “IN MEMORY OF A LOVING HUSBAND AND FATHER WILL BE REMEMBERED AND LOVED ALWAYS. GOD BLESS” alongside 2,048 of his Second World War comrades.

Leslie is also remembered on Newport Borough War Memorial.