Private Duncan Alexander Blake
- Rank
- Private
- Appointment
- Australian Army 1917 Western Front
- Service number
- 5055
- Unit
- 11 Battalion
- Cause of death
- Killed in Action
- Place of death
- France
- Date of death
- 27 February 1917
- Age
- 38
- Plaque number
- M277B
- Co-located plaques
- M277 - CAPT Harold Teague
- M277A - PTE Thomas Arthur
- Dedicated by
- His family on 28 October 2023
- More information
Biography presented during plaque dedication:
Duncan Alexander Blake, known as Alexander, was born in 1879 at Fremantle, Western Australia to parents Henry Blake and Mary Christine Blake (nee Urquhart). He was one of eight siblings. His father Henry was a convict and upon release in 1873 worked as a barber in Fremantle.
In 1886 the Blake family moved to Geraldton, again with his father setting up a barber’s shop. Alexander attended Geraldton State School.
On leaving school he was known to wander, working within the Murchison and Wheatbelt regions of Western Australia as a farmhand. He never married with his parents dying in 1891 and 1900.
Alexander enlisted into the Australian Imperial Force in September 1916 at Blackboy Hill, where he had been working as a farmhand at Grass Valley near Northam. He was 36 years of age when he embarked from Fremantle in March 1916 from Fremantle with the 16 reinforcements attached to 11 Battalion, ‘A’ Company.
He arrived in France in June 1916 and by July 1916 he was in action on the Somme of the Western Front. In late July he was wounded in action with ‘shell shock’ and was evacuated from the front, returning to his battalion in October 1916.
In February 1917, Alexander was once again in the front line and was sent forward into the trenches, at a section known as ‘Cough Drop’ near the village of Ligny Thilloy. On the night of 26/27 February, the battalion conducted patrols to ascertain the German positions. During the battalion’s time in the trenches, their positions constantly came under heavy machine gun fire and were shelled by high explosives and shrapnel. Alexander’s fate is unknown during this time.
Private Alexander Blake, service number 5055 of 11 Battalion, was killed in action on 27 February 1917. He was 38 years of age.
He has no known grave and is commemorated at Villers Bretonneux Memorial France. He is remembered with honour.
His plaque is placed alongside comrades from the same battalion, Private Thomas Arthur and Captain Harold Teague.