Tribune: "Nippon Wild Eagles Attack Big Convoy off Bougainville." According to Daihon-ei, 3 battleships, 2 cruisers, 3 destroyers and 4 transports were sunk in the encounter. Furthermore, "set ablaze and heavily damaged" were 1 battleship, 3 cruisers or large destroyers, plus 1 transport, while 3 large cruisers were "heavily damaged" — apparently none were slightly damaged. Japanese losses: only 15 planes! In the last 7 days, Daihon-ei reports have sunk or heavily damaged two ships — warships mostly — for every plane they lost and still downed 12 of our planes!

They don't bother telling us how many planes they used — probably an embarrassing few. Beats me why they don't lie consistently and say they used 275 planes or admit realistic losses. But there's more yet in La Vanguardia: In the last 7 days, the Japanese shot down 401 planes and destroyed 4 more on the ground for own losses of 48 planes. Next they'll claim total victory.

Splashes: "What has Roosevelt got to say to the mothers of the boys getting drowned in the Solomon waters?" Well, what has Tojo to say to the families of their brave fighters bound by tradition to commit hara-kiri because their invincible navy and airforce failed them? At least Roosevelt will live to see an American victory, but Tojo is sacrificing his troops over a hopeless cause.

The king of unsubtle, unbelievable and inconsistent propaganda is, of course, Commentator: "Americans, drunk with luxury, crave more comfort." They want the best of everything, he says, but "Americans have not tasted good coffee for more than a year. 'It is like water,'" they say. One only needs to turn to a page 5 article on sugar by his own colleagues where it's mentioned in an aside that coffee rationing was lifted last summer!

. . . .

Menzi is using eight guards to protect the Red Cross shipment stored in his bodegas, but boxes meant for Cabanatuan are under Japanese supervision in Bilibid. I can only pray that 75% of these will get through. The shipment includes toys for the kids, sports-equipment, shoes, clothes, medicines, toiletries, and even heavy winter clothing for prisoners in Japan and Shanghai — unloaded and left behind in Manila.

The whole shipment must be worth tens of millions of pesos. Imagine what Japanese soldiers think when they see such wealth squandered on disgraced prisoners. If America is so short of canned goods, tin, leather, clothes, and steel, then how can she send her prisoners canned goods, tin cases of medicines, thousands of leather shoes, clothes (of good quality material too) — all packed in cardboard boxes and secured by steel bands?

It's natural sometimes to feel pity for the ordinary ill-equipped Japanese soldier. One senses a wide gap between them and their more educated and disciplined officers. It's a gap, by the way, not created by the oft-blamed "Anglo-American Imperialism" but by squandering their nation's wealth in a seven-year China campaign, an army and navy, and on this war — a kind of national hara-kiri.

...ooOoo...