David St Alban Dexter

David St Alban Dexter (8 January 1917 – 15 March 1992) was an Australian military historian, commando, diplomat and university administrator.

A 1940 graduate of the University of Melbourne, Dexter enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force in 1940. He volunteered for commando training. He was commissioned as a lieutenant and transferred to the 2/2nd Independent Company. The 2/2nd Independent Company was sent to Portuguese Timor, where it waged a guerrilla war against the Japanese after they invaded the island in February 1942. He returned to Australia with the unit in December. In June 1943 it was sent to New Guinea, where Dexter was wounded while carrying out an ambush on a Japanese force. In 1945, it went to New Britain. Shortly before the end of the war in August 1945, he assumed command of the 2/4th Commando Squadron with the rank of major. He later wrote the New Guinea volume of the Australia in the War of 1939–1945 series.

After the war, Dexter joined the Department of External Affairs. He worked closely with the Minister for External Affairs, H. V. Evatt, accompanying him to the second and third sessions of the United Nations General Assembly in 1947 and 1948, and helping him become the President of the United Nations General Assembly. As the head of the department's foreign aid branch, he was involved in the formulation of the Colombo Plan and developed foreign aid programs in conjunction with the South East Asia Treaty Organization and the United Nations. He became the secretary of the Australian Universities Commission in 1960, and then the Registrar (Property and Plans) at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1967.

Early life David St Alban Dexter was born on 8 January 1917 at St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, the second of five sons and one daughter of Colonel Walter Ernest Dexter, and his wife Dora Stirling, née Roadknight. His father was on active service at the time as an Army Church of England chaplain with the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF). The family returned to Australia in 1920, where his father's AIF appointment was terminated. His father decided to become a farmer, and he took up a soldier settlement block near Kilsyth, Victoria. Dexter and his four brothers all attended Geelong Grammar, an exclusive private school. Dexter was there from 1930 to 1935, initially as a boarder on a scholarship for sons of the clergy, but as a day student in his final years. He played Australian football and cricket, served in the school cadet unit, and was a prefect. His contemporaries at Geelong Grammar included Dick Hamer and his brother Alan, David Hay and David Fairbairn; John Gorton was a friend of his brother.

In October 1941, the 2/2nd Independent Company moved by train to Adelaide, and then, in January 1942, to Darwin.

After hospital treatment for malaria, Dexter was seconded to the Allied Geographical Section in Brisbane on 8 January 1943 to help it prepare a terrain study of East Timor. He rejoined the 2/2nd Independent Company at Canungra on 8 March, and on 16 June it embarked from Townsville on the , and sailed to Port Moresby. From there it was flown to Bena Bena in the highlands, where it patrolled and conducted raids and ambushes. Dexter returned to Australia on 2 March 1944, and they were married at St Mark's Church in Camberwell, Victoria, where his father was the minister, on 29 September.

He rejoined his unit, now styled the 2/2nd Commando Squadron, on 1 December 1944.

Dexter retired on 1 May 1978. He published a second book, The ANU Campus, a history of the ANU site, in 1991. He died at his home in Turner, Australian Capital Territory, on 15 March 1992, and his remains were cremated.