PATRIOTIC BOY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1942, Page 3

PATRIOTIC BOY

WHO WANTED TO JOIN ARMY.

MAKES WAY TO ENGLAND. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 1. Because he considered he was not doing enough toward the war effort, a 16-year-old pupil of the Christchurch Boys’ High School, Douglas Collier Blake, ran away from home last October and worked his way to England aboard a cargo ship to join the Army. He had repeatedly told his father he wanted to go to the war, as his two brothers were already overseas.

He secretly went to a shipping line and signed for service as a coal screener on an overseas ship, stating he was 18. He left home on a Friday to spend the weekend with friends, as his parents thought, but on Sunday his father received a note from him explaining what he had done. By then the ship had left. Te father communicated with the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, who sent messages about the boy to the High Commissioner, Mr Jordan, in London. Mr Jordan arranged for the boy to be cared for when he arrived in England. Blake arrived in Glasgow two months later to find instructions left for him by his brother, Wing Commander M. V. Blake, D.F.C., who had flown to Glasgow from, his station in Cornwall. As the ship was late, the elder brother was unable to wait for its arrival. When he reached London, the boy was persuaded to complete his education in England and study for a commission. ‘ Yesterday his father had a letter from his son in the Air Force saying that in February the three sons met in Cornwall. I The third brother is Petty Officer Nelson Blake. 1 -. /