Personal info

  • Name: John DIXON
  • D.O.B: 23rd Jun, 1913
  • D.O.A: 16th Feb, 1939
  • D.O.D: 13th Apr, 1984
  • Award: George Cross
  • Occupation at time of action: Electrician, Globe Works (Foundry), Lincoln
  • Book: The Complete History - Volume 3
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Sources & Acknowledgements

BETWEEN THE WARS 1919–39

1919–39

The stresses of the First World War led to political revolution in much of Europe and, in extreme cases, social collapse. Even the victors, Britain and France, were not immune to the economic upheaval and labour unrest resulting from the transition from war to peace and the demobilization of hundreds of thousands of men. This made them extremely nervous of the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia and they decided to send aid to the anti-Bolshevik forces. However, an Allied North Russia Expeditionary Force had to be withdrawn once it became clear that internal opposition to the Bolsheviks had been defeated. In Britain a postwar boom failed to prove long-lasting and in May 1926 there was a General Strike, triggered by a crisis in the Mining Industry. The Great Depression followed in 1929 and by 1931 Britain was forced to abandon the Gold Standard. In large parts of the country and especially in the traditional industries there was widespread unemployment throughout the 1930s, symbolized by the Jarrow Crusade of 1936. Conditions were much worse on the Continent and the interwar period witnessed the rise of the Dictators. The coming to power in Germany of Hitler in 1933 was to lead inexorably to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. In the years of increasingly uneasy peace between 1919 and September 1939 only eleven VCs were awarded and of these only one, the award to Captain G P Meynell in 1935, took place outside the period 1919-21. Of the eleven awards, five related to actions against the Bolsheviks, four to actions on the North-West Frontier of India and one to an an engagement in what is now Iraq. The remaining award was that in 1921 to the American Unknown Warrior. Of the Albert, Edward and Empire Gallantry Medals awarded in the same period, 142 recipients lived long enough for their awards to be converted to the GC. The geographical distribution of the actions that occasioned the awards is witness to the Global spread of the British Empire, which reached its widest extent after the First World War. However, some of the awards, for gallantry in India, Egypt and the Sudan, and Palestine, reflected both the stresses in maintaining that dominion and the duties it entailed. After service personnel and policemen, coal miners formed the largest group of recipients, demonstrating the central importance of coal to the British economy and the dangers inherent in securing it. Those who worked in coal and gold mines in India and Africa were also honoured. Both in the mines and in industry as a whole, the threat posed by poisonous gases led to many awards. New industries brought new hazards with them. Other dangers overcome were of a more basic sort. Awards were also made to those who, throughout the Empire, confronted mad elephants, rabid dogs and marauding sharks.

Citation

 On the 16th February, 1939, an accident occurred during the casting of a mould at the foundry of Messrs. Robey and Company, Limited, Globe Works, Lincoln, which resulted in two large overhead electric cranes and the foundry roof being set on fire. Dixon, who is an electrician, was on the crane gantry to watch the electrical equipment and was able to escape from immediate danger, but the driver of one of the cranes, a man named Whittaker, who managed to climb out of his cabin, collapsed on top of the crane with his clothing ablaze. Dixon saw this and promptly went back to rescue Whittaker, although the fire was then at its height and there was also some risk of his suffering an electric shock. He extinguished the flames from Whittaker’s clothing and carried him from his own crane across the crane in the next bay, out on to the roof gutter, along and then across the roof, and down a vertical ladder, 31 feet in length, to the ground. Dixon then collapsed. He was very badly burned about the arms and upper part of the body and was absent from work about ten weeks. His action, which involved going back from a point of comparative safety to face considerable risk, almost certainly saved Whittaker’s life 

(The London Gazette of 23 February 1940, Numb. 34799, p. 1101)

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