Placido Mapa thinks the Americans might (or should) bypass the Philippines. The Japanese are still pouring in, aiming to have two million troops here to fight for every inch of Philippine territory. Housing and feeding new Japanese residents in Manila is one reason for the depopulation campaign. Even Japanese civilians are affected — the family that bought Cesar Ledesma's house in the Boulevard for P350,000 was recently kicked out when the military requisitioned it.

Tribune: "More than half of government personnel sent to provinces" — 18,546 have left. Each family is allowed up to P300 for transportation costs.

Whites in Manila are getting worried. As one Spaniard told me: "Let's hope we are liberated before Germany falls — because if Germany falls, Japan will be fighting the world [alone] and we whites will have it awful bad for the five or six months before Japan is licked."

Tribune: a classic from a Burma base dispatch: "British Mosquito planes are poorly constructed."

It was revealed that Mosquito planes are no longer active in this sector since the incident in December last year, when the pilot of a Mosquito plane surrendered to the pilot of the pursuing Japanese fighter in mid-air.

As for the British claim that the Mosquito with Type-21 engines can reach 750 kilometers per hour, a Japanese air officer said it's not extraordinary, "high speed in straight flying is a general character of all wooden planes."