I dashed from the breakfast table to Joe's room at 0745 when I heard the planes. I was still tugging at the shell windows when the bombs started to drop. There was no siren; the raid was a complete surprise. I dashed from window to window as planes were all over the place. Antiaircraft was just starting up when a couple of ambitious batteries at the Burgos School opened up with a hell of a racket, as did another battery at Santol in front of us. This prime residential district is now a complete antiaircraft zone.

I saw thirty planes all told, missing the bulk of them. Wave after wave blew in continuously for an hour. The first targets were the airfields. A direct hit on a Nielson oil depot sent black smoke soaring skyward (the Japanese are already critically short of oil). The last 45 minutes focused on the Bay — the Japanese warships must have gotten quite a plastering before the planes headed off toward Mariveles.

I'm not surprised that the Japanese were caught asleep; it must have been totally unexpected. Haven't the Americans lost all their planes and carriers? Well, if the Japanese were embarrassed, the Filipinos were ecstatic.

I never did hear the Air Raid siren. The Alert sounded at around 1100. We've only had scattered Japanese plane activity since the planes left. The Air Raid siren sounded at 30 seconds past 1300, but the next raid didn't come until some time later, arriving from the southeast to hit the Bay and Cavite. Antiaircraft for the most part was out of range, just some in the Bay including a different-sounding gun from one of the warships there. Another wave at 1600 came and left from a point south of Parañaque, starting a huge fire well out on the Bay.

Tribune: "Japanese air, land offensive in Leyte growing.... Day and night raids wreck havoc to foe shipping, airfields" — 7 destroyers and transports "blasted" and 70 planes "destroyed" in Tacloban airfield. On the ground, "Nippon units charge deep into enemy lines," however, the "center of the ground battle has moved a little westward." Sounds more like the Americans are thrusting "deep" into Japanese positions.

"Nippon aces death-crashing onto carriers given recognition" — by Admiral Toyoda. The five pilots crashed into warships off Suluan Island, sinking a carrier and a cruiser, and damaging another carrier.

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