Early in 1942, a typhoon struck a tiny settlement of Americans hiding in the jungle of Gomoco in the Philippines. The normally gentle river grew into a roaring flood, carrying giant trees that had snapped like twigs. Winds ripped off roofs, including the tarpaper roof of the kitchen in young Mary McKay’s home. The roof “peeled and sailed away like a witch’s skirt,” read an entry for that day in her mother’s diary.
After the devastation left by the storm, the summer season, which began in April, was hotter than usual because the typhoon had thinned the shade of the jungle. One day, smoke drifted into the camp and close behind it came the flames of a full-blown forest fire that lasted for days. Seven-year-old Mary was terrified. The fire seemed about to burn up the whole camp and everyone in it. She thought she would be burned alive.