Robert Redfern was educated at Wrekin College, Shropshire from 1928-1933 becoming a School Prefect and Head of his House.

He was spending an off-duty evening on Saturday the 8th of March 1941 at the Café de Paris in central London. The club was advertised as a safe haven by the maître d', [Martin Poulson] who stipulated that the four solid storeys of masonry above were ample protection. This tragically proved not to be the case when two 50K landmines came through the Rialto roof straight onto the dance floor. Eighty people were killed, including the maître d’ whose words had come back to haunt him. Had the bomb been dropped an hour later, the casualties would have been even higher.

Robert was 26 years old at the time of his death and is buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey.

Famously, one survivor was cheered by the crowd outside, when, being carried out on a stretcher, he shouted to them "At least I didn't have to pay for dinner!"

Robert was the son of Alfred Henry Redfern, of Dorchester in Dorset.