"I was born on the twenty-seventh of March 1932 in East London, in the borough of East Ham in the community called Manor Park. My father was Frederick John Thomas Davies. My father started off at that brewery, working as a brick layer…

"On the sixteenth of November of 1950, we boarded the U.S.S. General Belleau which was a converted type Army transport ship. My father was able to get a job in the commissary on the ship, so we had pretty good food. They had places for…

"When we got off the ship at Ellis Island, [it was] just a big open area. We had to wait, and we were processed through and given coffee or milk. There were red-cross people hovering around trying to make people comfortable. I remember…

"The International Relief Organization -- came into the camp, and they set up an office where the American soldiers and commander of the camp said, “Anybody that wants to go to the United States, sign up.” My mom went ahead and signed up. …

"That night we were taken off the train in Washington, in Union Station. Very, very late, late at night. This was the day before Thanksgiving of 1950. The five of us. My mom holding Ethel, and my dad holding my hand, and my, my sister…

"About three or four o’clock in the afternoon we came into Atlanta Terminal Station in downtown. And we sat there on the train. The train stopped. I guess if the train had a different destination than Atlanta, we would have gone on. We didn’t…

"When he reported in at the navy office, they transferred us to Seattle. So we had to come home and pack what little we had unpacked, and get down to the station and get on a train that took us...took us all day, straight north, to Seattle. …

"I came to United States in June 1950. We arrived in New Orleans on Sunday, I think it was the 4th of June. We couldn’t debark on Sunday. We debarked on Monday. Monday night I was put on a-. What do you call it? Redeye train from New Orleans to…

“We went to Heflin, Alabama to catch the train to go to Savannah. And when we stepped on the train onto that coach, there wasn’t a seat anywhere, and it was filled with young men in khaki uniforms. It was a troop train. Everything was a troop train.…