The Tribune quoted MacArthur and the U.S. War Department as stating that it's all over but for the shouting in Bataan. It would be the "darkest moment" since Pearl Harbor, he said. The Editorial heavily praised the U.S. and Filipino forces, comparing them to the Spartans of Thermopylae (who died to a man and are honored to this day), then asked:

Is it not possible ... to find an honorable formula ... that would put an end to the pointless carnage in this uneven struggle?

The struggle may be unequal in Bataan, but it is not so between Japan and the Allies. The Japanese claim to be "profoundly anguished" by it, but I'm profoundly proud to have a brother fighting for our freedom there.

Old man Preysler told me a woeful tale of being separated from his wife earlier in the occupation. He suffered indignities at Villamor Hall and Santo Tomas. In no place were the Japanese organized to deal with civilians. Held for days, none were ever fed! "Mark my words," he said,

"...those who have been in, and especially those who are still in, will bear the mark of Santo Tomas with them to their dying day."

His wife was at Parañaque during three raids on Nichols. In the last one she sought refuge with her eight-year-old son in the splendid air raid shelter constructed by the Dutch Consul before he left. The bombs landed close enough to displace the shelter's sandbags. She was also at the National City Bank during the open city bombing. Told to lie down inside the vault, people rushed in later and trampled all over her.

Preysler told of seeing slappings in Santo Tomas plus Japanese pilfering of packages. Regarding slappings, the Germans are protesting one incident. One night a Nazi on a bike collided with a soldier cycling in the opposite direction. He got such a beating he ended up at the PGH.

A more authoritative source confirmed the looting of the Yulo hacienda up north. They had 3,000 leghorns, 500 pigs, 190 cows and 200 carabaos, as well as fine personal possessions — all gone now. Seems that Filipinos believe that they might as well grab things before the Japanese do, but one Chinese man, Tan Bonliong, disagreed. It took his party over a week to get to Manila from San Fernando, Pampanga, instead of the several hours by car the trip ordinarily takes. Why? "Looters ... fucking looters!" They killed one in his group and seriously wounded another, and Tan himself received a blow to the chest that almost killed him.

Another told a tale of a group of mostly women who hired a sailboat to return to the southern provinces. The crew robbed and abandoned them off the Mindoro coast. It's sad to say that the Japanese can't be blamed for all the crimes in the country.

My cousin Gabby was in Baguio during the initial landings. After the first bombing there, he hired a car to return to Manila, arriving at Stotsenburg just before the infamous raid. The Americans had just commandeered his car for military use when someone warned him there were Japanese planes overhead. He made it to a ditch as the bombs started dropping, and lay there for 75 minutes, suffering the concussion effects, which he described as "sort of caving my insides."