Early Life and Family

Frank Dixon was born on April 21, 1917. He was the son of Frank Dixon (James Frank Dixon in some sources, a farmer, 1884– 1936) and Gracie Caylor Dixon (1895–1998). He grew up in Covington County, Alabama, where he was recorded living with his family on the 1920 and 1930 censuses. It appears that he was the eldest of six children.

According to Dixon's Individual Deceased Personnel File (I.D.P.F.), he stood 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighed 130 lbs., with red hair and blue eyes, and wore size 7-E shoes. Dixon was Protestant. According to a statement by his mother, Dixon was unmarried and had no children.

Military Career

Dixon's service number indicates he was a member of the Regular Army prior to the U.S. entry into World War II. His I.D.P.F. included a dental chart dated January 14 or 15, 1940, suggesting that he enlisted on or around that date. Indeed, a dental registration card in his I.D.P.F. dated April 1942 stated that Staff Sergeant Dixon had two years, four months of service by that point.

Although his common name makes it impossible to be certain, he is very likely the 22-year-old Private Frank Dixon recorded on the census at Fort Benning, Georgia on April 12, 1940. Private Dixon’s state of birth was Alabama; the record also stated that he had been living in DeFuniak, Florida as of April 1, 1935. (DeFuniak Springs is located in Walton County, Florida just south of Covington County, Alabama. Census records confirm that the Dixon family had moved to Walton County by April 1, 1935. Dixon’s name later appeared on a World War II casualty list for Okaloosa County, Florida, one county west of Walton, suggesting he enlisted there; indeed, his mother lived in Laurel Hill in Okaloosa County during the war.)

Sergeant Dixon was a member of Company “C,” 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion at Fort Benning by December 25, 1941, when his name appeared on a roster accompanying a Christmas dinner program. He had been promoted to staff sergeant by July 3, 1942 when he appeared in a company photo at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion shipped out for England in August 1942. Several months later, the unit was deployed to North Africa. The men of the 894th first saw combat at the Battle of Kasserine Pass during the Tunisian campaign in February 1943. After the Tunisian campaign, the unit moved to the Fifth Army Tank Destroyer Training Center outside Sebdou, Algeria to begin re-equipping from M3 to M10 tank destroyers. That fall, the 894th shipped out to Italy. After performing military police duties in Naples, they briefly returned to combat near Cassino before being withdrawn in preparation for the amphibious operation at Anzio.

Combat at Anzio

The 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion arrived at the Anzio beachhead in late January 1944 and was ordered to support the British 1st Infantry Division. Unit records indicate that by this time, Staff Sergeant Dixon was platoon sergeant for 1st Platoon, Company “C.”

In his book, The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force, Harry Yeide wrote that on the morning of January 30, 1944, Staff Sergeant Dixon joined “a patrol of fifteen British riflemen to scout for gun positions that the TDs could use during the day’s planned advance. German troops spotted the patrol, opened fire, and killed every man except for Dixon and a British sergeant. The two men crawled forward and shot the crew of a German machine gun. When another MG opened up and killed the British sergeant, Dixon fell to the ground and pretended to be dead. A German soldier approached and fired his pistol into the ground beside Dixon. Satisfied, he took the American sergeant’s helmet, carbine, and pipe. Dixon lay still for forty-five minutes while German soldiers stood nearby talking. Finally, he saw his chance and crawled back to his M10.”

Staff Sergeant Dixon’s reprieve was brief. Yeide continued: “The advance kicked off […] when TDs carrying Tommies from the Irish Guards moved out. The M10s provided close support and engaged infantry and panzers that were carefully camouflaged and hard to spot beyond nearly point-blank range. One M10 KO’d a Volkswagen by driving over it. About 1530 hours, a hidden AT [antitank] gun put four rounds through both sides of Sergeant Dixon’s M10, killing him and wounding two crewmen. Sergeant Clark, who witnessed the action from five hundred yards distance, put four rounds of HE [high explosive] into the offending gun.”

A February 2, 1944 Company “C” morning report described the action as a “reconnaissance mission” rather than an assault: “30 Jan 44: 1st platoon went on a reconnaissance mission, 2 miles N.E. of Carroceto, Italy, at 1430 hours. One (1) M10 lost due to a direct hit by enemy AT Gun. S/Sgt Dixon KIA by enemy AT shell, in right hip and burned in tank. 1st Platoon returned to its regular position.”

The morning report only mentioned two Company “C” casualties at 1530 hours (rather than the three mentioned by Yeide): Staff Sergeant Dixon and Corporal Anthony Henry Dahlhauser (1917–1992), who was seriously wounded by a shell. Corporal Dahlhauser was subsequently treated at the 300th General Hospital. Although he recovered enough to leave the hospital by August 1944, his wounds were so severe that he was discharged from the U.S. Army on October 27, 1944.

The Sergeant Clark who avenged Staff Sergeant Dixon’s death is not mentioned elsewhere in Yeide’s book, but was probably Sergeant Carman Carl Clark (1916–1990). Clark was also a member of the company by December 25, 1941 and was assigned the duty of gun commander (that is, tank destroyer commander) as of September 4, 1943. Sergeant Clark was captured on February 4, 1944 when the Germans launched an attack against the Campoleone salient.

A March 16, 1944 article in The Florala News (Florala, Alabama) reported that Gracie Dixon was notified of her son’s death on February 23, 1944; she was subsequently presented with the Purple Heart that he earned. It appears that Staff Sergeant Dixon’s body was not recovered. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing displayed at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy. There is also a memorial (apparently a cenotaph) in Greenwood Cemetery in Florala, Alabama where his parents and one of his brothers are buried.

Notes

Staff Sergeant Dixon served under the name Frank Dixon (no middle initial, no suffix). Some newspaper articles refer to him as Frank Dixon, Jr. The 1930 census recorded his name as Frank A. Dixon. Oddly enough, a posthumous claim in the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index appears to indicate that his name was Allen Frank Dixon.

The grid coordinates of Staff Sergeant Dixon's death listed in his Individual Deceased Personnel File (I.D.P.F.) were F 893-351, translating to 41° 36' 42'' N, 12° 40' 17'' E.

Additional tributes by the author can be viewed here.

Bibliography

894th Tank Destroyer Battalion Company “C” morning reports dated September 4, 1943, February 2, 1944, February 8, 1944, and February 15, 1944. (National Personnel Records Center)

“Anthony Dahlhauser.” Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. https://www.fold3.com/record/626049005-anthony-dahlhauser-1917

“Anthony Dahlhauser.” Fold3. https://www.fold3.com/page/89448485-anthony-dahlhauser

Chase, Patrick J. Seek, Strike, Destroy: The History of the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion in World War II. Gateway Press, 1995.

“Carmen Clark.” Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=2441&h=6719547&indiv=try&o_vc=Record:OtherRecord&rhSource=2238

“Co. C. 894th T.D. BN: Fort Bragg, N.C., Lt. N. Abney, Comdg. 7-3-42.” Panoramic photograph from the collection of Major Baker D. Newton.

Dixon, Frank Individual Deceased Personnel File. Courtesy of Geoffrey Roecker.

“Frank Dixon.” American Battle Monuments Commission. https://www.fold3.com/record/529926104-frank-dixon

“Frank Dixon.” BillionGraves. https://billiongraves.com/grave/Frank-Dixon/6742992

“Gracie Dixon.” BillionGraves. https://billiongraves.com/grave/Gracie-Dixon/6738963

“Jack C. Dixon, 26, Fatally Injured In Auto Accident.” The Florala News, January 15, 1953. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/59266118/frank-dixons-brother/

Christmas dinner program, Company “C,” 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion, Fort Benning, Georgia. Collection of Major Baker D. Newton.

Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007. Ancestry.com. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=ukR393&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&indiv=1&dbid=60901&gss=angs-d&pcat=36&fh=0&h=804858324&ml_rpos=1

“Staff Sargent [sic] Dixon’s Mother Receives His ‘Purple Heart’.” The Florala News, March 16, 1944. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/59266209/frank-dixon-purple-heart/

United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1920. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4292981-00819

United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/M-T0627-00654-00120, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00622-00606

U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954. https://www.fold3.com/record/705894454-dahlhauser-anthony, https://www.fold3.com/record/705894455-dahlhauser-anthony

Yeide, Harry. The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force. Casemate Publishers, 2007.

Article last updated on January 4, 2021