Robert Ellington Dixon was a United States Navy admiral and aviator, whose radio message "Scratch one flat top" during the Battle of the Coral Sea became quickly famous, as his unit of dive bombers contributed to the first sinking of a Japanese aircraft carrier in the Pacific theater of the Second World War. Dixon would go on to serve on four other carriers during the war and commanded USS Valley Forge during the Korean War. Dixon was a 1927 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He was awarded two Navy Crosses. The first was awarded for scouting operations against Japanese forces over Lae and Salamaua, New Guinea in March 1942