Roah Dahl Biography

Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916, in Llandaff, South Wales, to Norwegian parents, Harald and Sofie (Hesselberg) Dahl. After graduating from Repton School in 1933, he went to work for the Shell Oil Company of East Africa until World War II started in 1939. He then served in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot and he became a Wing Commander. In 1940 Dahl's plane was hit by a machine gun fire, and he was severely injured. He was rescued by a fellow pilot and took him six months to recover. Although Dahl rejoined his squadron in Greece in the spring of 1941, the pain from his head and back injuries grew worse so that he had to be sent back to England on the disabled list.

Dahl was then reassigned to Washington, D.C., as an assistant air attache'. It was there that he accidently began his career as a writer. One day while Dahl was working in his office, C.S. Forester Came to ask if he could interview him for a piece he was writing for The Saturday Evening Post because he had "seen action" in the war. Forester took Dahl to lunch with the intentions of taking notes about his most exciting war experience. However, Forester was having difficulty taking notes while eating, so Dahl offered to write down some notes and send them to him. The notes ended up being a story which he called "A Piece of Cake." Forester sent the story to The Saturday Evening Post under Dahl's name. The Post liked the story so much, they paid Dahl $1,000 and then signed him to write others. Soon his stories were being published in several other magazines, and his writing career had started.

In 1943 Dahl wrote his first children's book, The Gremlins. Eleanor Roosevelt read it to her grandchildren and liked it so much that she invited him to have dinner with her and the President at the White House. They had such a good time that he was invited again, and then the visits extended to weekends at their country house. During those visits, Dahl had the unique opportunity to talk with President Franlin Roosevelt about world events as casually as one might have a conversation with an very old friend. It was a very exciting experience for him.

In 1945, Dahl returned to England and moved into his mother's cottage in Buckinghamshire.