Draper, Thomas Maynard

F/O Thomas Maynard Draper, eldest son of Mrs. A. E. Draper, 210 Bruce St., was reported missing after a bombing raid on Dessau, Germany, on the night of March 8, 1945. It was his 22nd operational flight. Born in Brantford, October 25, 1920, F/O Draper received his education at Mount Pleasant and Alexandra Schools and graduated with his junior matriculation from the Brantford Collegiate Institute. He was a member of St. Jude's Anglican Church. Even during his school years it was apparent that his destiny was in airplanes. From the time he was very small he made model planes, and as he grew older and his skill developed, he manufactured them for the boys in his neighborhood, thus augmenting his pocket money. He enrolled in night classes in navigation theory at the Collegiate Institute, and began to learn to fly at the local flying Club. He enlisted in the R.C.A.F., in April, 1940, and trained as a flight engineer in ground crew. For the next two years he was stationed at Vancouver and Uclulet on western coastal patrol. Then he remustered into aircrew, and after training in Saskatchewan and Ontario, graduated as a bomb aimer at Malton on June 12, 1943. He received a posting as an instructor at Mountain View and was not transferred to England until February, 1944. He began operational flying in the following August. He was employed at the Durex Abrasives Ltd.

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