Just to remember: the Battle of Bataan began on January 10, exactly 3 months ago. The awaited Japanese bleat in today's Tribune didn't appear, just a short article in special type headlined, "Troops in Eastern Front of Bataan Offer Surrender."

According to information received at the Propaganda Corps of the Japanese Army in Manila, American and Filipino troops of the eastern front of Bataan offered surrender yesterday afternoon but the bombing is being continued.

That's it. Nothing on the bombing or the answer to the offer. I dashed around to see how people were taking it. Manilans wore sad faces today and didn't care to hide them. Most were speechless; only ten percent questioned how the US could let it happen. The most anxious have relatives in Bataan, including us. Dad took it hard but quietly; Ma took it wonderfully, in line with her general practice of letting every little thing under the sun upset her and meeting the big reverses with an anxious but stolid front.

It's time to reflect on how long our forces endured a hopeless situation; how they contributed to the cause of freedom; how successful they were in upsetting the Japanese timetable in the Pacific, to the extent that Australia is now an armed and confident nation rather than the trembling shadow she was a few weeks ago.

The western world sees Bataan as a victory of resistance, but here there is deep resignation mixed with sorrow. As Mr. Meyer put it this morning, if Bataan had fallen on January 10, no one would have said or felt anything untoward, but now, after that magnificent resistance, the hurt has been proportionally enlarged.

On her way home yesterday, Lolita saw truckloads of American POWs going up Taft Avenue. Those who saw her wave answered without hesitation with a "V" for Victory. They were dirty, bearded, unkempt, tired and ill, though still in high spirits. Ramon said the women in his neighborhood shed quite a few tears last night. The pall was so thick, it could be seen. The city signaled its displeasure with another tremor — the 20th or so aftershock.