David Davison, known as 'DD', was born in Sutton, Surrey on 28 April 1932, the son of Edgar Davison, a Lloyds underwriter, and May, née Mould. He was educated at Sutton High School and the Royal Masonic School in Bushey, where he was head boy in 1950 and an outstanding athlete, winning the All-England Schoolboy half-mile in 1949. He then proceeded to St Mary's Hospital Medical School, where he qualified in 1955. After junior appointments at the Royal West Sussex Hospital in Chichester, he joined the RAF in 1956 to do his National Service, working as a unit medical officer at RAF Edzell and RAF Lyneham. In 1958 he decided to do a short service commission and this was converted to a regular commission the following year. He subsequently served at many different RAF stations both at home and abroad, including Christmas Island at the time of the US atomic weapon testing in 1962, Akrotiri in Cyprus, Changi (Singapore), Oman in 1975 where he was in charge of a field surgical team treating battle casualties, and finally Wegberg in Germany from 1978 to 1982, where he was consultant-in-charge of the surgical division. In the UK he did four tours at Ely, and others at RAF Wroughton and elsewhere. He was appointed Cade professor in surgery from 1985 to 1989 and consultant adviser in surgery at RAF Ely from 1986 to 1992, with the rank of Air Commodore. In 1990 he was made officer of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, and in the same year was appointed honorary surgeon to the Queen (QHS). Further promotion to Air Vice-Marshal and dean of air force medicine followed, and finally in 1993 he became clinical director of the RAF, the most senior specialist post in the service. After thirty eight years in the RAF, serious illness brought about his premature retirement, and he received the gold medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh only weeks before his death. David Davison was an outstanding officer with wide surgical experience, who rose to the highest rank in the service. He published articles on abdominal missile injuries, the return to flying duties after major surgery, and a review of parachuting injuries. He had a lifelong interest in sport, particularly athletics, hockey and hill-walking, and he was a keen gardener interested in the cultivation of fuchsias. He married Anne, née Rogers, a Guy's Hospital nurse in 1956 and they had three children, Jonathan, a mechanical engineer, Caroline, a Guy's nurse who later became a paediatric Sister in Ipswich, and Sarah, an interior decorator. He died on 11 August 1994 from prostatic carcinoma, and a memorial service was held in Ely Cathedral on 25 November 1994.