Hundreds turn up to mourn Jamaican RAF veteran, 100
AT THE height of the Second World War with Britain desperate for reinforcements, Oswald Dixon was one of thousands of Jamaicans to answer the call for King and Country.
The 100-year-old died last month at a care home for service personnel in Salford, Manchester. Blind and suffering dementia, he had no friends or family to speak of and staff feared his war service would pass unrecognised and launched a public campaign for mourners to attend his funeral. Yesterday, on a rainy afternoon at Salford’s Agecroft Crematorium, hundreds of former and present service personnel came to honour Mr Dixon and the thousands of Caribbean men and women who answered the call to fight for a distant country.
Draped in a Union flag, his coffin was carried into the chapel past an RAF guard of honour, watched by Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister. Donald Campbell, chairman of the National Caribbean Monument Charity, was among the regimental standard bearers.
“Jamaicans in those days looked at England as the mother country, and said they could not allow the Germans taking over – so decided to fight,” said the former Warrant Officer. “But up until today, we still feel as if this contribution is not fully recognised.”
Also in attendance was a man claiming to be Dixon’s estranged son who thought his father had died years ago before reading about the appeal for mourners last week. Edward Aspin, a 42-year-old bus driver who has lived in Dublin for 16 years and travelled with his family to the service, says his parents had separated and he had lost touch with his father. I’m overwhelmed to be here,” he said.
Little is known of Mr Dixon’s service history, only that he volunteered in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1944 and served as a flight mechanic. Among the readings was a tribute from Seth George Ramocan, the Jamaican High Commissioner, before the sounding of Last Post.