Robert Dafforn
British flying ace of WWII

Robert Dafforn, (2 March 1916 – 9 September 1943) was a British flying ace who served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. He was credited with having shot down at least eight aircraft.
Born in Horton, Berkshire, Dafforn was training with the RAF at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War. Once his training was completed, he was posted to No. 501 Squadron in September 1939. He flew through the Battle of France and in the following aerial campaign over southeast England until he was wounded in December 1940. He soon returned to the squadron and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross early the following year. He carried out instructing duties from October 1941 to January 1942, at which time he was posted to the Middle East. After a period of training, in April he was assigned to No. 229 Squadron on Malta, briefly leading the unit until he was shot down and wounded.
“Robert Dafforn” enters the record as british flying ace of WWII. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Dafforn and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Dafforn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.