Robert L. Coffey

Robert Lewis Coffey, Jr. ( born October 21, 1918 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, † April 20, 1949 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) was an American soldier and politician. In 1949, he represented the state of Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Still in his early childhood Robert Coffey moved with his parents to Pennsylvania, where he graduated from Ferndale High School in 1935. He then studied at the University of Pittsburgh and the Penn State College. Subsequently, he was employed for some time in various places in the coal mining industry. Since 1939, he served as a flight cadet. In November 1941 he was promoted to first lieutenant. During the Second World War he was a member of the squadron of the United States Army. For his military service he was awarded several medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Croix de Guerre.

Between 1945 and 1948, Coffey was as a lieutenant colonel military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Santiago. After that, he was a colonel in the reserve of the United States Air Force. Politically, he joined the Democratic Party. In the congressional elections of 1948 he was in the 26th electoral district of Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of the Republican Harve Tibbott on January 3, 1949. This mandate he could exercise only a few months until his death on 20 April 1949. He died in a plane crash during a military training flight in Albuquerque and found his final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.