5 July 1954 - I’m putting in for my embarkation leave today…it appears that the air trooping has been a dismal failure and that now I’ll be coming all the way by sea. If that happens I’ll be in blighty on September 11th, port is Southampton.
26 July 1954 - We’ve had an eventful weekend. Firstly we had a biggish fire. Not as bad as the christmas blaze but it was pretty bad. then the ghastly disaster with the CPA plane. **
The fire and the despair:
((** On 23rd July, the Chinese air force shot down a civilian Cathay Pacific aeroplane, see http://gwulo.com/node/15388))
Comments
July 1954 - Squatter Hut Blaze
Was this north of Boundary St along the west side of the railway track? The hills on the background appear to say so. If true ..... From Boundary St and Kilung St, one could see a huge plume of black smoke moving from left to right indicating the wind was either from the north (possible in July?) or W or SW. One day later, I went there and noted all the huts close to Boundary St have burned to the ground. Further north, some partially burnt hut frames remained standing due to I believe the direction of the wind and fire-fighting effort.