In 2002, I (Jennie Jones Giles) was brainstorming ideas for a feature article to write for Memorial Day in the Hendersonville Times-News. I happened to be visiting my father, Jack C. Jones, and asked if he had any ideas. Without saying a word, he stood up, walked out of the room and returned with an old Boy Scout uniform, lovingly protected and wrapped. This was the Boy Scout uniform of H.B. Drake, he told me. The name I recognized. This was the older brother of my uncle, Everett B. “Skin” Drake. (My father’s sister, Virginia Jones Drake, married “Skin” Drake).
My father began telling me about one of his most beloved mentors, H.B. Drake. Dad was a dedicated Boy Scout and H.B. Drake was also a leader among Boy Scouts in Henderson County, and had a great influence on my father.
H.B. Drake died in World War II. His parents gave my father his Boy Scout uniform because they knew Dad would treasure it.
Dad said he wanted to give the uniform to Jeff Miller, H.B.’s nephew. H.B.’s other nephew, Patrick Drake, had the flag that draped his uncle’s casket.
A few days later, Kathryn Miller, H.B. Drake’s sister, spent a day with me going through a trunk that contained letters that her brother had written during the war, and his journal.

There were two Memorial Day stories that I struggled to write through tears. One of these was the following story on Harold B. “H.B.” Drake and the other was the story on the Gibbs brothers, Glenn and James. They were the brothers of another of my uncles, Howard Gibbs, who had married another of my father’s sisters, Velma Jones Gibbs.

The following article was published on the front page of the Hendersonville Times-News on Memorial Day – Monday, May 27, 2002. The photographs are not on the newspaper’s web site. The Henderson County Public Library in Hendersonville has microfilm of the newspaper where the photographs may be viewed.

The text of the newspaper article may also be viewed online at http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20020527/NEWS/205270301

Well, well, imagine that, it’s my birthday and me 27 years old today and what did I do but get up at 0630. Yep, we had a late briefing, took off 0930 and up to Northern Italy again. Picked up some flak, not bad, only about four holes. – 2nd Lt. H.B. Drake, 1944
Harold Bertram Drake never got to see a 28th birthday. He wrote about how his B-24 bomber got shot up on a mission June 5, 1944. Eleven days later, on June 16, his plane was shot down.
Drake was one of the men from Henderson County who died in World War II.
Known as H.B. to family and friends, Drake was the son of H.E. “Skin” Drake and Armilda Revis Drake. The same Skin Drake who owned Drake’s Grocery Store, one of the “vanishing landmarks” Frank L. FitzSimons wrote about in Volume I, “From the Banks of the Oklawaha.”
H.B. Drake grew up in Hendersonville and was a 1935 graduate of Hendersonville High School.
His sister Kathryn Drake Miller of Laurel Park remembers a young man who “was a good Christian, who helped a lot of people.
“He was just a good person,” she said. “I was the youngest, he was the oldest. When he came home, I’d go running up to him and he’d pick me up.”
Drake had another sister, Orlette, and a brother, Everette B. “Skin” Drake.
While still in school, he volunteered with the Hendersonville Fire Department.
“He later moved out of the house and stayed at the Fire Department,” Miller said.
He was active in the Boy Scouts, a member and later scoutmaster of Troop 4, now Troop 604, in Hendersonville. The troop met in one of the town’s first Scout cabins, still located in Edwards Park.
“He was about four years older than I was,” his brother-in-law, Bert Miller, said. “He was my scoutmaster and I played football with his brother.
“He got along with kids,” he said. “I always thought the world of him.”
Drake joined the Army on Aug. 21, 1941, before the United States entered the war, before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
After a couple of years in the infantry, he was accepted into pilot school at Fort Sumner, N.M. He was assigned to his first plane April 10, 1944.
His journal began on this date and ends the day before his last mission. Drake tells the story of his experiences flying a bomber in World War II.
“We got our ship today, a new one from start to finish,” he writes. “A B-24 G. She is a honey, flew too good to be true.”
April 30 he was off to Tunis, Tunisia, as part of the 512th Squadron, 376th Bomber Group.
He was flying bombing missions in May.
May 19 – “Well, I got a surprise today. At 0230 when I was not scheduled to fly I was woke up out of a swell sleep – target Spezzia Harbor flying left wing ‘B’ flight 2nd element. Target was blown to bits. Weather was rough and very cloudy and I was very tired when the day was over.”
May 24 – “Bombs away then all hell broke loose and did those boys have our range. We had 20 x 3 bursts pick us up and you could hear it bursting like toy balloons on all sides. We got about 15 or 20 holes but scattered all over the place, none hurt among crew and ship still in good shape.”
May 29 – “Thank God for taking care of us again. #2 gas tank hit, #1 engine cut off, ship full of holes, but no one hurt, looks like we go again tomorrow.”
June 11 – “Not scheduled. Went to church and rested. There was a party celebrating the 376th second year overseas. We had a special supper, ham, baked chicken and trimmings.”
On June 12, he spent the day writing letters to friends, parents and the Men’s Fellowship Class at his church, Hendersonville First Baptist.
From May 6 to June 10, Drake had flown 14 missions with bombs dropped and was credited with hitting 70 targets.

 ‘Absolutely unselfish’

On June 16, according to military records, 2nd Lt. Drake’s ship (a B-24 Liberator) was attacking targets (oil fields) in the vicinity of Brataslava, Czechoslovakia, when it was intercepted by enemy fighters. The plane was hit and several parachutes were seen.
His family received a telegram July 5, 1944, stating he was missing in action. They also received notification that June 23 he was promoted to first lieutenant in the 15th Air Force. For his ability and courage in combat, he was awarded the Air Medal.
The family was later told he did not survive the crash.
His body was identified by military identification tags and was buried June 19 in Nickelsdorf Cemetery in a small Austrian village under Russian occupation.
The bodies were moved in the early 1950s from the Austrian cemetery to a grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.
“It was a central location for all the families,” Kathryn Miller said.
Not all of the crew of 10 men died.
“2nd Lt. Walter S. Mitchell came to visit us from Morgantown, W.Va.,” Miller said. “He bought me a bracelet. I’ve still got it.”
The military held a ceremony in St. Louis for family members, and each family received an American flag.
“Mama Drake would take it out of the linen closet and I used to hold it,” Jeff Miller of Hendersonville, Drake’s nephew, said. “He was a hero to me.”
Drake is survived by another nephew, Patrick Drake of Charlotte; a niece, Pam Drake Curry of Morganton; a great-nephew, Beck Miller; and a great-niece, Mandy Schuler Drake.
The Daniel Boone Council of the Boy Scouts of America held a ceremony in the 1950s to honor Drake. A plaque was placed in the dining hall at Camp Daniel Boone, but it disappeared during a renovation several years ago.
Drake was not only remembered by family and Scouts. C.F. Jervis of Hendersonville wrote a letter to the editor of the Times-News in the late 1940s.
“Tall, erect, handsome, he held himself with a noble bearing,” Jervis wrote.
“On his last visit home he taught the Berean Class of the First Baptist Church the lesson on temperance without even realizing he was doing so.
“Nothing pleased him better than to gather a group of his Boy Scouts or Sunday school comrades and to lead them in some form of wholesome recreation.
“He was absolutely unselfish. He thought of others before himself.
“His influence will long dwell among all who knew him as a strong force and a pleasant memory.”