Simon Glancey has submitted the following:
F/O Nixon was the pilot of Avro Lancaster I DV294 QV-K of 61 Sqn, which was lost on a mission to Augsburg. The Lancaster crashed at Menil-Annelles, in the Ardennes region of France, with the loss of all seven crew members.
Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: 1944; W.R. Chorley; 1997; Midland Counties Publications; ISBN 0 904597 91 1, page 103
It is thought that DV294 was the victim of a Luftwaffe night-fighter, flown by Hptm. Ludwig Meister of 1./NJG4, who claimed a Lancaster in the area at 20.59 hours.
Tony Hibberd has offered the following:
Lancaster DV294 QR-K had departed Coningsby at 1828 for Ops Augsburg. It was intercepted above Menil-Annelles, 13km SE of Rethel by a Night-Fighter captained by Nacht-Jagd “Experten” Hptm Ludwig Meister (I/NJG4) and shot down at 2059 for his 26th Abschuss
Nachtjagd Combat Archive 1944 Part 1 Dr Theo Boiten
A photo of his nephew carrying a portrait of his uncle is in the Northumberland Gazette 17/11/2005.
Francis John Nixon is remembered at Belford on B16.01 and B16.02 and at Berwick-upon-Tweed on B25.35
His name was added to the Belford Memorial when it was restored in 2005. A photo of F/Off. Nixon appears in an undated newspaper cutting being displayed by his nephew.
