“After Christmas 1944 I was returning to school from my visit to my grandmother when the train to Stadtoldendorf stopped… Several days later we were skiing in that general direction and we saw what looked like vapor trails going straight up, but no…

"We just bust this outfit up, and I ended up with a unit -- a different unit called a 1333rd Engineer Regimen going to the Panama Canal on the way to the Pacific. About half the men in my unit ended up coming back to the states. Well, I got on a…

"Actually, when I first got to Europe, I got there by way of Liverpool on a ship that carried 14,000 troops. This was the USS America, and I think it was called the West Point at that time. It was our largest ocean liner. And we took five days to…

"I went to London a lot. I loved London. When I got older, we were able to catch a bus, or train, and go into London-- go to some of the newer movies. And then we'd have to take the last bus home, or else you'd be walking. Because they…

"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. …

"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…