Group Captain Billy Drake, (20 December 1917 – 28 August 2011) was a British fighter pilot and air ace. He was credited officially with 18 enemy aircraft destroyed, two shared, two unconfirmed, four probables, two shared probables and five damaged and one shared damaged with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Further revisions to these statistics increased this total to 20 destroyed and seven damaged with a further 13 destroyed and four damaged on the ground. Drake flew Hawker Hurricanes, Supermarine Spitfires and Curtiss P-40s (Tomahawks/Kittyhawks), with squadrons based in France, England, West Africa, North Africa and Malta. He was the top-scoring RAF P-40 pilot and the second-highest-scoring British Commonwealth P-40 pilot, behind Clive Caldwell. Early life and education Drake was born in London, to Gerda Browne and Dr Dennis John Drake on 20 December 1917. Gerda was one of fifteen children of Irish Catholic heritage born in Australia. It is claimed that his father was a descendant of Francis Drake, the 16th Century explorer and naval commander who led an English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. Gerda's family were successful gold miners in Queensland; they purchased a schooner and became merchants. Billy was christened as such soon after birth; he was not given the name William. Drake's father traded and travelled around the southern Pacific and his infant son accompanied him to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and ultimately Tangiers in Morocco where Drake senior set up a clinic. Drake began school at the Lycée Regnault until the family moved to England. Drake was sent to Prior Park, a Catholic-run preparatory school, which was appropriated by the Congregation of Christian Brothers in 1921. Drake's formative years were unremarkable and he developed an interest in history and architecture. Drake's father taught him to use a shotgun at the age of twelve, beginning his interest in marksmanship and shooting. The family then moved to Switzerland and Drake completed his elementary education at the Kollegium Maria Hilf boarding school, run by German–Swiss Catholics. Drake rapidly learned the German language during this period. Drake was one of the few English pupils at the school which was dominated by Italians and Germans. Two years later Drake moved to the French–Swiss Institut Florimont school in Geneva, where he learnt French. When Drake returned to England the threat of future war was present, a consequence of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini's aggressive