Dennis Colburn Draper of Sutton, Quebec enlisted January 6, 1915 and served with the 5th Regiment Canadian Mounted Rifles. He fought at the Third Battle of Ypres and received a field promotion to lieutenant colonel after Lieutenant Colonel George Harold Baker was killed. He was later promoted to brigadier general and put in command of the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade.

During the war he received a Distinguished Service Order for his gallantry at the Battle of Mount Sorrel and later added a bar for his work at Passchendaele. He was also decorated at the Battle of Arras and the Battle of Amiens.

His men spoke of him as more than a commander of a brigade. “He was a man who went among his men on the days when ill winds blew,” they said. One man called him a hard-boiled egg but added that, “Never a more kindly or sentimental man ever lived.” Draper returned to Sutton in 1919 and died in November 1951.

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