Tribune: "Over 1,460 planes downed by Japs during the month of June" — including 11 B-29s. The Japanese lost 369, including 27 on the ground.

The joke here is that after the war, it will be safer to go by sea than by air despite the thousands of floating mines ... because there's more Japanese planes out there that have yet to return.

Santa Mesa, long considered the "safest" district from bombing, has just changed for the worse. The Japanese have set up a battery of nine antiaircraft guns on the flat land opposite Pureza. It's one of the lowest places in Manila, an area bound to be flooded a number of times in the next few months and otherwise muddy.

When the Japanese ship exploded in the harbor last Sunday, in the twinkling of an eye the Boulevard filled with curious folks, all happy at the Japanese misfortune, and ogling each other with leers and sneers notwithstanding the presence of many anxious Japanese passers-by. The exhibition was shameless and must have tried our visitors no little. Imagine the potential for disaster when the increasingly hated, desperate and ruthless Japanese Army faces the Americans amidst a population with so little self-control. You get my point, I'm sure.

Persistent but unconfirmed reports say American POWs will be shipped to Japan. Two large groups were seen marching toward the piers in their Red-Cross best. My thoughts go selfishly to my brother Joe, and sometimes to my friends of prewar softball days. As if they haven't suffered enough in the last two years, they still have to sail to an unsafe destination stuck in the deep holds of a ship cutting through sub-infested waters. No one in our family even dared to bring the subject up.