The Southern Naval Command on Wednesday received the personal effects of the late Admiral Oscar Stanley Dawson in deference to his wishes that they be handed over to the Navy after his death.
The Admiral, who passed away in October last at Bengaluru, had willed that his personal effects be handed over to the Navy, which he served with distinction for over four decades, said a defence press release.
Captain G. S. Oberoi, Commanding Officer of the Navy’s missile and gunnery school INS Dronacharya, accepted items from Commander V.K. Janardhanan, Station Commander of the Navy at Bengaluru.
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A pistol gifted to Admiral Dawson by the erstwhile USSR’s Admiral Gorshkov will be handed over for display aboard the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya — formerly Admiral Gorshkov — which will be inducted into the Indian Navy in December this year.
The items received by the Southern Naval Command would be displayed at the Navy’s Maritime Museum at INS Dronacharya, in Fort Kochi.
It was during Admiral Dawson’s tenure as the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Kochi-based Southern Naval Command (from March 1979 to February 1982) that the site for the future Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala was identified.
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The Admiral was the Director of Naval Operations during the Indo-Pakistan conflict in 1971, when he conceived the daring attack on Karachi by missile boats of the Indian Navy.
Post retirement, he was India’s High Commissioner to New Zealand.