Date of birth:

September 9th, 1919 (Langley/Buckinghamshire, Great Britain)

Date of death:

January 7th, 2003 (Compton and Shawford /Hampshire, Great Britain)

Service number:

112407

Nationality:

British

Montagu Ellis Hawkins Dawson was born on September 9 1919. When he was seven, his father died in a motor accident; his mother, faced with bringing up five children in straitened circumstances, found a place for Monty at the Royal Orphanage School at Wolverhampton.
In the late 1930s he worked for John Lines, a wallpaper firm, but escaped the tedium of office life in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. Although he was rejected for pilot training, he qualified as an observer.
Monty Dawson, took part in the attack on the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst, in which five of a force of 15 unescorted Halifax heavy bombers were lost. It had been a costly mission, in which only five of the force's bombs had hit the Scharnhorst, and two of these failed to explode.
Scharnhorst had, however, been damaged, shipping 3,000 tons of water, and she limped into Brest for repairs.
After serving with No 78, an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley two-engine bomber squadron, in July 1941 Dawson moved to No 76, with which he completed an operational tour in November.
Dawson was then commissioned as a pilot officer. He was a navigation instructor until, after pressing to return to operations, he was posted to No 196, a Shorts' Stirling four-engine bomber squadron.
In the run up to the D-Day invasion of Normandy, Dawson's aircraft abandoned its bombing role to prepare to drop paratroops and tow gliders. In the early hours of June 6 1944 Dawson navigated his Stirling to drop paratroopers aiming to seize the Orne bridge near Caen.
Mission accomplished, the Stirling returned to base and began to deliver reinforcements - troops and weapons - towed in a relay of gliders. Then, as the Allies began to advance through north-west Europe, Dawson resumed bomber operations.
In September 1944 he was selected for the Pathfinder Force, whose Australian-born leader, Air Vice-Marshal Don Bennett, was scouting Bomber Command for its best navigators. Dawson flew as a deputy master bomber with No 7, a Lancaster four-engine bomber squadron in "Bomber" Harris's offensive against Germany; Dawson's role was to mark target areas for the main force.
Becoming a navigation leader as an acting squadron leader, Dawson completed a third tour of operations; he had flown on a total of 74 sorties by 1945.
Dawson left the RAF towards the end of 1945 to join Coates, the textile firm; but he was quickly disillusioned with civilian life, and in early 1946 he was granted a permanent commission in the rank of flight lieutenant.
His navigation credentials were an ideal qualification for RAF Transport Command, and he helped to develop long range troop and supply trunk routes to the Far East. Following a brief spell in 1948 with the King's Flight, Dawson worked at the Air Ministry on navigational developments arising from the introduction of jet bombers.
In 1950 he attended the staff college at Bracknell, in preparation for senior appointments which took him to Washington as an exchange officer with the US Air Force, to the Joint Services Staff College, and then back to the world of bombers as a wing commander (operations) with the nuclear deterrent force, and at Bomber Command headquarters.
More appointments follwed in het sixties.
Finally, Dawson served at Nato in Brussels, working on arms-reduction talks with the Warsaw Pact. He retired from the RAF in 1974, joining British Aerospace at Warton, in Lancashire.
In 1987 Dawson retired to Winchester, where he was an energetic fundraiser for the Theatre Royal and local military museums. He also campaigned to reduce aircraft noise over residential areas.
As a passionate advocate of the preservation of the countryside, he associated with radical environmentalists who were defending Twyford Down against its destruction by the extension of the M3.
Dawson was a much-respected figure. Not only did he edit and produce the parish magazine in the Compton and Shawford area, he also delivered it, on his bicycle. He was a keen gardener, and one year he won a prize for the best-kept garden in Compton and Shawford, an achievement of which he was very proud.
Group Captain Montagu Dawson died on 7 January 2003. He was aged 83.

Promotions:
24th November 1941: Sergeant;
1st October 1942: Flying Officer;
24th November 1943: Flight Lieutenant;
17th December 1946 : Flight Lieutenant (permanent);
1st July 1950: Squadron Leader;
1st July 1956: Wing Commander;
1st January 1965: Group Captain.

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Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Sergeant

Unit:

No. 76 Squadron, Royal Air Force

Awarded on:

January 30th, 1942

Citation:"
"As an observer this airman has taken part in many attacks on enemy territory with great keenness and devotion to duty. On many occasions his aircraft has been damaged by anti-aircraft fire, or by enemy fighters, in particular during a daylight raid on La Pallice when most of the instrument panel and windscreen were shot away and the rear gunner was wounded. Sgt. Dawson's perseverance in locating the target is exemplary, and in spite of many tryning experiences he has displayed great cheerfulness, keenness and courage."

Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Flight Lieutenant

Unit:

No. 196 Squadron, Royal Air Force

Awarded on:

February 11th, 1944

Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Acting Squadron Leader

Unit:

No. 7 Squadron, Royal Air Force

Awarded on:

November 6th, 1945

Second DFC received as a bar for on the ribbon of the first DFC.

• - Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 35439 published on the 27 January 1942
  - Supplement tot The London Gazette Issue 36374 published on the 8 February 1944
  - Third Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 37337 published on the 2 November 1945
  - Flight Global - Archive
  - The Telegraph-Obituaries