Walter John Dixon, Jr. – Commander, United States Navy

From a contemporary press report:

Commander Walter John Dixon, Jr., United States Navy (retired) of Roanoke County, Virginia, died Monday (October 18, 1999). He was born June 13, 1921 and grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota. He attended the old Cochrane-Bryan Prep School in Annapolis, Virginia and was appointed to the Naval Academy in September 1940. He graduated in June 1943 in the war-accelerated class of 1944. He served in the North Atlantic in 1943 and the South Pacific during 1944 and 1945. In 1945, he was the executive officer of USS Wilkes, DD-441.

Then Lieutenant Dixon was ordered to Masachusetts Institute of Technology in 1946 and earned his graduate degree of Naval Engineering in 1949. Then followed shipyard duties at New York Naval Shipyard. Combat-Crulant Staff , Norfolk, VA and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington. He then served in Bureau of Ships, Department of the Navy in Washington, D.C. until his retirement from the Navy in 1964. He was employed 1964-1975 by United Technologies (then United Aircraft), Farmington, and from 1975-1983 by Brown Bovari, St. Cloud, Minnesota.

A resident of Roanoke County, Virginia since 1983, Commander Dixon was a member of the Retired Officers Association. He was a very active member of St. Thomas of Canterbury Anglican Catholic Church in Roanoke, Virginia, where he served as a vestryman and as senior warden. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Sallie Winter Dixon; his sons, Walter John Dixon, III of Granby;  William Maxwell Dixon of Golden Valley, MN; and Robert Winter Dixon of Harrisburg, PA; his daughter, Caryl Dixon Eschweiler of Golden Valley, MN; eight grandsons and a granddaughter; his brohters, Robert L. Dixon of Mitchell, SD; and Warren A. Dixon of Sioux Falls, SD; and eight nieces and nephews.

Services will be held today in Virginia. Interment with Military Honors at Arlington National Cemetery will follow at a later date. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the St. Thomas of Canterbury Building Fund.

Michael Robert Patterson

Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.

Reviewed by: Michael Howard