Tribune: "Japanese reinforce troops on Peleliu; enemy on defensive." At the end of the article, Domei confirmed that Japanese forces have been split in two.

The whole town is talking about the raid on Iloilo City last Sunday — two waves each on the morning and afternoon, "bombing and strafing airfields, the port area and shipyards," says the paper, avoiding for once the words indiscriminate, hospitals or churches. "How can they?" asked one, pointing to the Santa Cruz Church where the Japanese are shamelessly piling up military stores in broad daylight. Raids on Cebu, Negros, Bacolod and Tacloban weren't mentioned.

On a visit, I found Santamaria and Machado in a bad state. At great expense, they had moved from Ermita to San Juan barely three weeks ago. Now that they've settled in, the Japanese are kicking them out again. René said, "Shucks, they've taken New Manila, V. Mapa, Reposo, Santol, Sociego, Brixton Hill ... isn't that enough for the time being?"

The rumor is that Ambassador Murata is moving into Bachrach's White House. Meanwhile, the other house adjacent ours is being filled with furniture and supplies, as Ma heard that a General was moving in. We're surrounded!

Maurice and I had a talk with Dad. We're convinced that one reason we haven't been booted out yet is that the highest Japanese Kempeitai [MP] Officer — and spy — was the manager of the Manila's Nippon Bazaar. Both the Osaka and Nippon Bazaars had been buying merchandise from my dad for several years preceding the war ... on credit. Dad, not being an American, convinced them he was not only neutral but in sympathy with their plight.

Today's news is depressing, coming at a time when we expected the best. The belief in Europe is that the war will go on through the winter. The OWI [Office of War Information] estimates that it will take 18 months to a year to defeat Japan after the fall of Germany. What really irritated me is that they placed Japanese shipping losses at 1.5-million tons — simply impossible unless U.S. subs have been sinking sampans and the U.S. Task Force off the Philippines has been sinking bathtubs. The aircraft figures sounded OK though. Maybe I'm just in an irritable mood.