Aug 1953 - Typhoon

3 August 1953   -   Yesterday I celebrated my tenth month in the army.   Twelve months from now I’ll be on my way home.   Roll on time.

9 August 1953   -   The weather is consistently hot now, still topping the ninety mark with occasional rain.   The water situation is extremely serious now.   The reservoir should be full at this time of year but we’ve had so little rain that it’s only a quarter full.

16 August 1953   -   We’ve had our first dose of typhoon weather.   The first typhoon warning went up, big flaps all round.   All the boats went to the typhoon anchorage in amongst the junks, that was Wednesday.   Midnight that night typhoon “7” went up.   Typhoon “1” means that gale force winds are expected in the locality.   Typhoon “5”, “6”, “7” and “8” means that gale force winds are blowing from the four quadrants, there’s no typhoon “2”, “3”, “4”.   Well, typhoon “7” went up midnight Wednesday.   Thursday started well but at midday the rains came with a vengeance.   From then on it was just wet.   When it rains it doesn’t  rain, it drops, it’s just sheet after sheet of water.   Thursday’s high tide should have been 6.4 feet, it was 9.

22 August 1953   -   Today, on the whole, has been terrible.   Firstly, it poured with rain and my lovely starched shirt turned into a sodden mess.  

Secondly…we had to swim 50 yards in our uniform along the waterfront here.   Twenty yards along the waterfront is a sewer outlet pipe so you can imagine the state of the water…one fellow did about 30 yards and then went under.   Five people dived in, two ropes and one life belt were thrown in.   He was fished out not much the worse for wear but with quite a few pints of water, with a fair mixture of oil in his tum.

30 August 1953   -   The weather here is lovely at the moment but there are two typhoons heading this way so it won’t stay nice for much longer.

Undated   -   …a navy gunboat has been shot up by the reds.   The bridge was shot away and seven people were murdered.