Victor George Davis.
By Jacob C, 12 Y/o 2001

In 1939 World War II broke out and affected millions of people around the world.

My grandfather was born in England in 1926 on the 9th May and he was only 13 years old when the war started. He was in hospital with a serious leg injury when the war began.

His father had served in the Navy in World War I and the country needed him to fight in World War II. He was in the Fleet Air Arm Services (the Air Force of the Navy), which was on the coast of England in Cornwall. He was an engineer so he worked on repairing planes and was also involved in the Dunkirk evacuation. The Dunkirk evacuation was when the Germans pushed the English army to the shoreline of France. For three days the English Channel was very calm so lots of boats could be used for the rescue for over 3000 people. Because of this it is known as the Miraculous Evacuation.

Because his father was working in the Fleet Air Arm services my grandfather was sent there as well when he was 16. His job was working in the garage looking after trucks that England was using to fight in the World War II. He also drove a great big truck called an articulator, which was used to pick up the planes that had crashed in the area. These were enemy and allied planes.

Then my grandfather drove them back to the garage to pull the apart for spare parts. He didn’t wear a uniform but he was still under Navy Regulations. He remembers being shot at by a planes machine guns. They often had to go down into the shelters or the slit dive trenches. They had to take over people’s farms to make the garage they worked in. After the Americans took over the airfield near by that’s when the bombing started. They were on tight rations using coupons. The meat rations for the week would be the size of the middle of your hand. They had no fruit, one egg and 2 ounces of butter per person. My grandfather told me a story about the first boat load of bananas that arrived in 1945. They were given to the children who didn’t they know how to eat them so they left the skin on. Rations were still going when my grandfather left England for Australia in 1949.