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War adventure of Leeds 90-year-old
Every year Vicki Davison lays a wreath as a mark of respect for all the servicewomen who were killed during the Second World War.
But the 90-year-old from North Leeds heroically saved the life of an injured British soldier during the conflict in the Middle East.
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Mrs Davison was a sergeant in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and was one of 3,000 WAAF who were sent to Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon.
Officers realised that she could ice skate so she was sent to a ski school to train as a courier in case they needed someone to deliver messages to the Allies over the mountains.
But on her test run in 1944 Mrs Davison lost her colleagues and stumbled across a soldier, who was suffering from snow blindness.
Without hesitation she marked the spot and covered him with ferns before heading down the mountain to alert officers.
She said: "It was my first fun on the skis.
"When I got to the bottom of the mountain my legs were shaking because my skis were too long and one didn't fit properly."
She never found out the soldier's name but was told later on that the rescue squad had managed to find him alive.
In 1943 she was even sent down a tomb next to pyramids in Egypt to help locate the remains of senior workers because she was the only person small enough to fit in the tunnel.
She said: "I slid down on a rope but I always fancied being an archaeologist.
"I had to make the hole bigger and while I was there I saw them all laid out and wrapped in linen."
Mrs Davison was seconded to the Auxiliary Territorial Service for a short period and went with lecturers from Cairo University to give talks about the standard of hygiene because so many babies were dying. She said: "We saw some sights.
"Our beds were full of bugs and fleas and we were bitten to death.
"We suffered later from endemic diseases like malaria. You just had to grin and bear it."
She even managed to survive three ambushes in Palestine and after one of the attacks all her fingers were broken on one hand and her lung collapsed.
Even though the war finished in Europe in 1945 it wasn't until October the following year that Mrs Davison was able to come home because of conflict in the Middle East.
She said: "Places like Palestine get overlooked when people talk about World War Two.
"When people refer to VJ Day they are not the only forgotten ones because we were the forgotten ones too.
"Women in the armed forces are never mentioned and the work that they did is never mentioned.
"It's time that they were recognised."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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