Studio portrait of 1196 Sergeant (Sgt) Vernon Hepburn Drake (left, seated) and 1195 Private ...

Studio portrait of 1196 Sergeant (Sgt) Vernon Hepburn Drake (left, seated) and 1195 Private William Thomas Abel (right, standing), 30th Infantry Battalion. Both men had experience in the naval reserve and enlisted together in Hobart in July 1915. They embarked from Sydney with the 30th Battalion aboard HMAT Beltana (A72). After training in Egypt, their unit deployed to France to serve on the Western Front. After being promoted several times and wounded in action twice, Sgt Drake was killed in action on the evening of the 22/23 June 1918. A report on his service record states: "He was in charge of a reconnoitering patrol of six men, including one Corporal, on the night of 22/23rd June 1918. Whilst patrolling the Company front they encountered an enemy post and the party became separated. Sgt Drake and four others reached our own lines, but on discovering that two of his men were missing he immediately went out in search of them and became entangled in some barbed wire, and it is surmissed [sic] that the pin of a Mills grenade he was carrying became loose, and in trying to free himself he dropped the bomb, and in the darkness he was unable to get clear of the wire before the explosion." Corporal Abel was severely wounded by a gun shot wound to the leg on the same night and was taken to hospital in the United Kingdom. He survived the war and returned to Australia in 1919.