"I started out in the services—not in the retail side of the house. I was in the services department. I first of all started in plans and headquarters. Later on I got into the field in services. So I had two careers at first. I spent a…

"It was a jubilant time. I think a friend and I, we even went up to the West End with all the crowds, you know. Of course the thing that’s so, left me with deep impressions, were all the foreign troops in London, in England, during the…

"He was called up in June of 1942. He, you know, it was late in the war really. But of course he was an older man. He was 40, or 39 and six months, when he was called up. So you know, they called up the young men at the beginning of the war.…

"They evacuated the London school kids again ‘cause he concentrated on London pretty much this next time. And so, once again, the kids were rounded up and this time we went to Torquay in Devonshire in the west coast of England. Actually, quite…

"Once the bombings started seriously—and that was in June of 1940—that’s when the government said, 'you should evacuate your children.' And most families complied. There were a, well a few wealthier families went away to—as a family…

"Well, I do remember hearing the radio broadcast because the very next day my father, who could rent his cab—he had to pay the owner of the cab, but he could rent it himself—he took us away into the country, right away. Because the government…

"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. …