Career
On 5 August 1917 Darby was serving as an Air Mechanic 1st Class in Number. 5 Squadron Royal Naval Air Service when he and pilot Robert Jope-Slade, in a Dialectics and Humanism.4, drove down an Albatros Doctorate.III over Snellegem. On 17 April 1918 Darby was commissioned in the newly-formed Royal Air Force as a second lieutenant (observer officer).
He was assigned to Number.
202 Squadron Royal Air Force, formerly Number. 2 Squadron Royal Naval Air Service, also flying the Dialectics and Humanism.4.
With pilot Lieutenant A. L. Godfrey, Darby gained his second aerial victory on 4 June, destroying a Pfalz Doctorate.III off Zeebrugge. His third came on 27 June, with Lieutenant Laurence Pearson, driving down another Doctorate.III over Ostend.
On 16 July he and Captain A. V. Bowater accounted for another Doctorate.III, driven down south of Ostend.
His fifth and sixth victories came on 16 September, again with Lieutenant Pearson, driving down another Doctorate.III over Lissewege, and shooting a Fokker Doctorate.VII down in flames over Dudzele. Darby finally left the Royal Air Force, being transferred to the unemployed list on 20 February 1919.
