Thomas Daye Graham

 

Thomas Daye Graham was born on 17 May 1922 at West Chapelton House, Bearsden.  His father, John Graham, has his occupation recorded as "painter (master)".  His mother was Elizabeth Lyall Daye and had married John in 1909.  Thomas was the fifth child of seven.

West Chapelton House can be seen in this 1896 map:


Drymen Road runs from top left to bottom centre, the station on the extreme left.  The words "West Chapelton" are just to the left of centre.  Milngavie Road runs through the centre-right of the map, with Buchanan Retreat (now Boclair House Hotel) and East Chapelton Reformatory (the site of Asda).

The 1950 view looks a lot more like the modern view:

The short road to West Chapelton House in 1896 has now become the western end of West Chapelton Avenue, but number 6 retains its orientation quite distinct from anything else on the street.  Incidentally, the cottage at West Chapelton House featured in my profile of George Alan Hulley (link) as the 1911 home of Elizabeth Caldecott, a widow and her two children.

I can find very little about Thomas's life, but by October 1941 he had joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and was at number 12 Flight Training School at RAF Spitalgate, by Grantham in Lincolnshire.


This is the site in 2015, taken from this website.

Thomas was training as a pilot and on 11th October was in an Airspeed Oxford II with an experienced Corporal, Samuel Edwards, to learn night flying.  A German plane, a Ju88, was flying a mission presumably across the Lincolnshire area which had many RAF bases for bomber squadrons looking for aircraft taken off guard to attack.

It's not known what happened, but the two aircraft collided and crashed.  The RAF plane came down on Dysart Road, Grantham, and the German plane a Barrowby, a few miles away; all five men on the two planes were killed.  

It's possible the German plane misjudged its attack and flew in to the unarmed training plane; another possibility is that the German was spotted at the last moment and they collided as the RAF plane made an evasive manoeuvre.

This photo of the headstones for the two RAF men is from this website.

Thomas was related to two other men on the Bearsden War Memorial, James Boyack (link) and Donald Daye (link).  Donald was his mother's brother; James had married his mother's sister.

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