Branch of Service

Air Force

Conflict

World War II (1939-1945)

Place of Enlistment

Canada

Gender

Male

Other Name(s)

Known as 'Dick'

Place of Birth

Canada

Address (at enlistment)

Red Hill ACT

School(s) Attended

Canberra Grammar School (1934 -1937)

Occupation

Student

Next of Kin

Son of Charles Humphrey Trafford and Mary Trafford, of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada

Service Number

552655

Final Rank

Sergeant

Final Unit

53 Squadron RAF

Died 4 February 1941 aged 19 years, missing in action during flying battle.

Runnymede Memorial, Surrey, England: Panel 53.
Canberra Grammar School Roll of Honour 1939-45; and memorial window in the school chapel

Trafford attended Canberra Grammar School in the 1930s and returned to Canada in 1937. His parents lived on Salt Spring Island, near Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Trafford is believed to have enlisted in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (known in Australia as the Empire Air Training Scheme), a scheme designed to provide air crew for the RAF from the British Dominions. By 1940 he was in France with No.53 Squadron RAF flying in a Bristol Blenheim light bomber. He wrote home about an incident when his plane was attacked by thirty German planes just outside Dunkirk on 27 May 1940 during the evacuation of British troops from France. "The Germans opened fire on us from all directions.. we got over the Channel.. the plane could fly up, but not down." The plane managed to get over the English coast when the captain ordered the crew to bail out. Trafford "came down on a gravel path and of course had to go and break my leg. An old gardener came up and grabbed hold of my wrists. He held me like this until the police came and I told him I was British and not German."  For the remainder of 1940 until February 1941, No.53 Squadron performed reconnaissance and night bombing operating out of England but in February 1941 it moved to Cornwall and began flying anti-shipping missions off the coast of France.  Trafford died during operations on 4 February 1941.  His body was not recovered and he is commemorated on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, near Windsor, England.  The Memorial commemorates by name over 20,000 airmen who were lost in the Second World War during operations from bases in the United Kingdom and North and Western Europe, and who have no known graves.

Trafford's name does not appear on the AWM Roll of Honour or in its Commemorative Roll. There is no service file at the NAA nor does it appear that the Canadian archives has a service record for him.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Debt of Honour Register. <http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/search/>
The Canberran : Magazine of Canberra Grammar School, 1936 (school roll, pp.26-27)
Image and information courtesy of Pamela Hunt, Canberra Grammar School archives