Flying Officer, RAF
Born: November 10th 1920
Died: October 29th 1943
Age at Death: 22
Killed, October 29th 1943
John Dixon was born in India on 10 November 1920, the son of Captain George Dixon of the Indian Army and his wife Norah (née Luby). At the College he was a member of the Shooting VIII.
By 1943 he was a flying officer with 47 Squadron, based at El Adem in Libya, just south of Tobruk. He was flying Beaufighters, known as ‘armed rovers’, which were an upgrade of the earlier Bristol Blenheim, and bristling with cannons and weaponry. Their role was to undertake anti-shipping sweeps across the Mediterranean. By late October, they were attacking German shipping sailing out of Greece and destined for Italy.
John and his navigator, Flying Officer George Terry, were unlucky to be shot down and killed on 29 October. The plane that caught them was a slow Arado 196 seaplane – much slower than the Beaufighter. It must have swooped down on them while they were attacking the ships, because Dixon fired his torpedoes before he was shot down. Dixon’s name is listed on the Alamein Memorial in Egypt.