Hal Drake Memorial April 2013
5 March 2013

Hal Drake Memorial – Foreign Correspondence Club, Japan

Hal Drake was one of those persons who you always knew you were privileged to meet in your journey through life.

His life was spent recording the issues that gave him a clear insight in the many facets of humanity and being able to pass these to the countless thousands who could influence events for the betterment of our world of today.

I first met Hal and Kaz in Tokyo over 20 years ago at this very Club. I was a Director of a hotel company developing the Japan/ Australia tourism business and also Chairman of Events Queensland Gold Coast, owners of the Gold Coast Marathon and the Pan Pacific Masters Games.

Hal and Kaz wanted to develop a strong relationship with Australia in both education and sport. It has been a real pleasure and privilege to call Hal and Kaz friends and help them achieve their goals.

Hal was the rock of the relationship and as we know Kaz the dynamo. A combination that worked remarkably well and went on to develop those Japan and Australia relationships which continue and grow.

Today we reflect on Hal’s life and contribution – his was to his fellow man and to the need for nations to understand their responsibilities for the betterment of mankind.
He is sadly missed.

Kerry Watson
Chair – Events Queensland Gold Coast
Executive Advisor – Tourism Australia

Queensland Government Australia
2 April, 2013

Dear Kaz
Hal Drake Memorial -Tokyo , Japan
On behalf of Queensland Government Japan Office, may I extend my sincere condolences to you on the passing away of Hal, who shall be sadly missed and warmly remembered.
Hal and Kaz Drake have made a strong and significant contribution to the Queensland-Japan education relationship over a period of many years.

Japan is one of Queensland’s largest export markets and education and cultural exchanges are fundamental for the facilitation of mutual understanding and effective communication. Hal and Kaz have generously assisted many young
Japanese students when settling into their new lifestyle and study programme in Queensland.

I have known Hal and Kaz for over 8 years as Trade and Investment Commissioner of Queensland State Government based in Japan and they have been passionate supporters of the Queensland – Japan relationship.

It goes without saying that Hal will be greatly missed by his family, friends, students and all who had the pleasure of knowing him.
Yours sincerely.

Tak Adachi
Commissioner Japan

Tribute to Hal Drake
By Andrew Bode
Thursday, April 04, 2013

To know Hal Drake is to know an absolutely laser-sharp intellect muted by a sense of humour and humanity second to none.
I had the honour of meeting both Hal and Kaz in their role as principals of Pacific Cross Cultural Academy whereby both cultural and intellectual links between Australia and Japan are forged.

Given the warmth and humanity of both Hal and Kaz, the business-side became sublimated to a warm and sustainable personal friendship wherein I witnessed and experienced the fore-mentioned qualities of not only Hal but also Kaz who was the perfect foil for Hal.

This friendship often culminated in a shared birthday celebration in the month of May, our birthdays being two days apart, where we enjoyed wine, cake and the occasional punctuation of the gathering with the exclamation by Hal of “mercy!!!” which was a source of great frivolity. No doubt he was thinking of one of Roy Orbison’s songs or merely expressing his happy feelings of the moment. Perhaps it was the latter.

On Wednesday 3rd April, I had the privilege and honour of attending Hal’s Military service funeral in Hawaii. This was a dignified occasion befitting the service to the United States of America by Hal in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Hal was farewelled with the strains of TAPS wistfully floating through the air at the Punchbowl National Military Cemetery. Hal’s remains were sealed into a wall with love and affection by Kaz. It is to be noted that Hal, in situ, faces the beloved Pacific where he spent the later part of his life. It was a privilege to be the only Australian present on such a moving and solemn occasion.

I have been asked to be a new principal in the Pacific Cross-Culture Academy and I accept this role with honour as a personal tribute to Hal and my friendship with Kaz.
Indeed, as I indicated at the beginning of this tribute, to know Hal Drake is to know an
intellectual, but it is far more than this. supported by a loving and devoted wife.

Dr. Andrew Bode
Sessional lecturer
Griffith University
Gold Coast Campus Queensland, Australia

Patrick FitzGerald
Hal obituary
2013.02.01

Kaz
May I have your permission to send this to the Courier Mail?

HAL DRAKE 1930 – 2013

Hal Drake, who passed away on January 27 on the Gold Coast, was a celebrated American war journalist, writer and promoter of cultural and educational exchange between Japan and Australia. He was 83.

Drake is best remembered as one of the leading journalists and writers for the Stars and Stripes, from 1956 to1995 During this time, he covered the Vietnam War (most notably the release of American POWs), major boxing events,
international visits to the Asia Pacific from the Queen, five Presidents of the USA, Mother Theresa and Elizabeth Taylor to Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart and Moe from the Three Stooges. He spent the majority of this time stationed in Tokyo, where he met his future second wife Kazuko and established himself as a fixture at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan.

Born in Santa Monica, California, Drake served in the Korean War as an artilleryman and saw action at Heartbreak Ridge. After his service, he applied to Stars and Stripes for a journalism job, was accepted and found his life’s niche.
Drake’s stories invariably covered the human condition rather than the strategic and technical aspects of warfare. He was happy writing this way and his readers, principally American service men and women, were happy with it too.

Drake viewed war with fascination and horror. His large library was a collective memory of the 20th Century, particularly the wars that cut through and shaped it. He never glorified war, however, and would often make the boys of visitors to his home promise that they would never fight in war when they grew up. Stars and Stripes retains his writing on their website, and his articles, such as “A fleet died – and so did a delusion” on Pearl Harbour and all that followed, serve as a testament to his direct and very human writing style. His ability to remember the tiny little details of the time, would often bring that moment once again to life.

Drake developed two deep fascinations apart from war — the disorientation and recovery of the Japanese from their disastrous participation in the Second World War and boxing. His published short stories often dealt with the theme of older people in Japan at the War’s end, unable to see either back to the happy past of their childhood or ahead to a place for them in the future Japan.

In boxing, Drake found another type of soldier, and covered from ringside the fights of Muhammad Ali in the 1970s and the famous Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas fight in 1990, when Douglas shocked the world with a 10th round knockout of the seemingly unbeatable Tyson. At the post-match press conference, Douglas publicly acknowledged Drake, saying “You was the only one here who believed in me. Other than me and my team, YOU knew. YOU knew.”

In his retirement, he and his wife Kazuko moved to Brisbane and then the Gold Coast, declaring Queensland to be the best place he had ever lived. He published short stories and helped Kazuko establish Netword, a company which organises cultural exchange and homestays for Japanese students pursuing vocational education in Australia.

Drake spent his final years surrounded by a loving circle of friends and many Japanese families and students who visited Australia. Drake treated the children of these families as his own grandchildren and delighted in their company.

Drake had a prodigious recall of events, dates and people as well as a highly irreverent streak. He also had a distrust of unquestioned authority and famously raised the ire of the US military establishment by breaking the story of the torture of the American POWs in the Vietnam War. He is remembered by his many friends and colleagues as a raconteur par excellence, as well as a perfect gentleman who would never badmouth others.

His compatriot, OliverWendell Holmes, Jr, once stated “As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being not to have lived”. This was certainly the way Drake lived his life, both as a participant and a documenter of the 20th Century.

Drake is survived by his second wife, Kazuko, and his sons from his first marriage, Larry, 52, and Kenny, 47, and two grandchildren.

Patrick FitzGerald