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Orville and Bessie Davis- World War II Veterans
Interviewed on January 29, 2004

Bessie Davis was one of the first females to join the air force from the Innisfail area. She had five brothers, one older, all of whom were in the military (however, the youngest joined 5 months before the war ended and never got overseas), as well as one sister. She was born west of Innisfail, in the Oklahoma district, and was raised on a farm about 1 mile from the Dickson Dam. Her dad came from England and went first to Iowa where his two brothers were settled. Her father met and married her mother in Iowa, and they moved to Innisfail where there was one man her father had taught in school. Her mother died when Bessie was 12, and her father raised all his kids alone, but eventually remarried. During the war, Bessie's oldest brother was taken prisoner at Dieppe. He was treated alright until the forced march when their captors became aware that the Allies were coming to take back their men. Her father had to leave farm when all his boys enlisted since he had no hands to help with the work. The war was hard on him.

Bessie was about 26 when she joined the air force, which was considerably older than most girls who joined. She served her first 2 ½ years in Mossbank, Saskatachewan, a small community 50 miles south of Moosejaw with an air base. While there, Bessie took on the job of cook. As a cook, she took every other weekend off, but had to work a double shift on the odd weekends. The area had really great farmland, but the Dirty Thirties had left its mark. She met a lot of people while there, and calls the women who she worked with the "greatest bunch of women (she) has ever seen in her life"; they were something special. She stayed in touch with a few over the years. After Mossbank, she was transferred to the Queen Charlotte Islands, which she calls "beautiful" and "gorgeous". None of the same people transferred with her. It only snowed once in the year she was stationed there. She patrolled along the coast. She has been back to the coast since but hasn't returned to where she was stationed. She only went to Queen Charlotte city once, which was across the bay from where she was stationed; she hardly ever left the base. They kept themselves entertained with dances, the radio, and talking with one another. In the Queen Charlotte Islands, there was a tame deer that sniffed around the lockers, looking for a chocolate bar. She was home on leave when Orville got home from the war, and had to go back to the Queen Charlotte Islands then to Calgary to get discharged before she could come home and get married. She wrote to Orville a bit during the war, but lost his address accidentally once.

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Orville and Bessie Davis with their three young children.
1955
Innisfail, Alberta

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Veterans qualified for farmland, and a person had to own land to vote. Bessie couldn't get a farm in her name because she had married a veteran, despite the fact that she was a veteran herself, and therefore had no vote. Another woman in the air force married a man who wasn't a vet and got her farmland and vote. Many women who had served got quite riled up over this, and since then the laws surrounding this issue have been altered.

Bessie refused her pension because she had never been shot at, and there were plenty of men who had been in real danger who weren't receiving a penny.

Orville was farming when called on to join the military in 1942. He lost his entire crop. No other Innisfail men joined up and went with him. He left from New York and went to a camp in Scotland, then went by ship to North Africa. They weren't there very long before they invaded Italy (Sicily). His group of men was one of the first to invade mainland Europe (Italy) in the war. Orville was wounded in Ortona, which was one of the worst battles in the war. He spent a year in the hospital with his wounds, and was sent back to England from Italy/North Africa on a hospital ship with hordes of other casualties.

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Orville Davis in uniform.
1942
Innisfail, Alberta

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Orville and Bessie Davis with their three grown children.
1997
Innisfail, Alberta

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In England, after he was wounded, Orville worked in the military post office. He couldn't have asked for a better job. The soldiers could generally tell the end of the war was near. On the day the war ended he was in the post office and was told he could go home; he threw down the letters in his hand for the final time. He was in the army for a grand total of 3 years and 57 days.

The day the war was over was the only time Orville drank in his life; it was the only occasion he thought was worth it. The next day he didn't know up from down.

When the soldiers were back in Canada on the train going home, the officials had a hard time getting men back on train whenever they stopped: various things kept luring them off the train, such as items in the stores that they hadn't seen for years. He came back to Innisfail and married Bessie after being discharged from the military.

At one point after the war, they had 800 acres of farmland. Orville farmed with his parents for awhile after returning from war. Bessie and Orville moved to Chilliwack after they farmed outside of Innisfail for a considerable amount of time, and lived there 26 years. They moved back to Innisfail when Orville's health was failing so they could be near their kids. The Davis' had one girl and two boys: one son lives in Innisfail, one son lives in Rocky Mountain House, and their daughter is currently farming south of Spruce View.