May 1953 - The Amethyst, LCM exercises, Camp Life, QE2

1 May 1953   -    We passed the “Amethyst” yesterday.   She looks fine now   (HMS AMETHYST was involved in a gun battle with the Chinese communists on the river Yangtze in the late 1940s and was considerably damaged).   Also we passed one of the Isbrandtsen ships, the “Flying Clipper”, remember the “Flying Enterprise”?   (The “Flying Enterprise”, a cargo ship, got into serious trouble in the Atlantic and took on a terrifying list.   The captain became a household word whilst a British tug went out to save her).

Tomorrow our boat goes on a three-day detail.   We are range-clearing, that is, keeping junks away from a sea area that is being used as target practice.   The day before yesterday we went to an island called Chung Chau.   A funeral procession passed whilst we were there.   Well it wasn’t exactly a procession because it was afloat.   Someone on board one of the junks had died and the relative and friends were bringing him ashore.   They had someone playing a flute, cymbals, drums…

8 May 1953   -   Lately we have been out in the territories near communist china… we went on a three-day trip to Sek Kong on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, 1st, 2nd and 3rd of May.   That was murder and the bugs took chunks out of me.  

On Friday 7th we went to Silvermine Bay with two Royal Navy gunboats.   It was almost the real thing, too.   The gunboats laid down a smoke screen and Hornets, RAF fighter-bombers, came down to sea level and pretended, thank heaven, to shoot us up.   If it had been the real thing we shouldn’t have stood a chance.   When we arrived in the bay it was supposed to be an assault landing.   It was!   The ramp went down with a bang and the infantry tore out.   

Phew, it makes me tired just to think of it, now.    After all the excitement had died down we went for a swim.   That was ok.

Then again today we went back to pick the boys up.   We dropped them at Castle Peak and went for another swim.   Glorious!

But not everything was fun.   For a start there were guard duties.

Me, attempting to be a daunting figure.   Perhaps the smile should be deleted.

There were also bedbugs in the camp to contend with.   We woke up every morning, pretty well, with bites on our bodies.   The huts are “home” for these nasty little creatures.   In the dead of one night, someone lit a flashlight and we saw columns of these creatures marching down the walls from the rafters of the barrack-room.   The only way we could deal with them, you couldn’t call it control, was the weekly “bedframe burn”.   With everything stripped off the beds we carried them outside, doused them in petrol and threw in a match; every week.

We had another little reminder of the Korean war when a corporal of the RASC joined our billet.   He had been posted down from Korea where he had been an acting Company Sergeant Major!   The emphasis is on the “acting” for he came to us and was immediately in amongst the National Servicemen.   what he had, perhaps, seen and what he thought of us, we will never know.

Korea wasn’t the only nearby-ish conflict.   Down to the south and slightly west of Hong Kong the French were fighting the Viet Minh in Indo-china and from there came the siege of Dien Bien Phu and the story of the marvellously brave French nursing sister there.

Additionally, we had frequent billet inspections, where everything had to be perfect.



Billet inspection, with the famous sergeant “Pop” Tye in the left foreground.

22 May 1953   -   The coronation showpieces are going up quickly and, on the day, I am going camera shooting with colour film.   (21 Dec 2009, nothing survives)

31 May 1953   -   The coronation approaches and here excitement is really mounting.   There are decorations in all the main streets, and at night the fountains are lit up and there are floodlit pictures of Elizabeth with “Long live our queen” underneath.