A large explosion jolted me awake at 0430; the Air Raid signal followed soon after. By the sound of it, two or three planes strafed Nichols — that's all. Later, a Japanese fighter took off, followed by another explosion and the siren again.

I was listening to Radio Tokyo at 0715 recounting kamikaze exploits and rehashing previous raids when I heard this classic: "Today, every Filipino in the entire archipelago is fully collaborating with the Japanese to destroy the enemy." I picked myself off the floor just in time for the next raid.

The sun was still weak; visibility was down to a few thousand feet, and the smokescreen still hung over the Bay. After yesterday's surprise, the Japanese had moved their warships inshore for better protection by land batteries. American planes above the clouds took their time spotting their targets ... then the fireworks began. Pom-poms and anti-air opened up all over the Bay with the most terrific racket — double any defense effort so far. The battle was one continuous roar of activity as plane after plane dived through the fearful barrage. It was all over in thirty-minutes. The Alert superseded the Air Raid signal at 1100. There was only one more raid later over scattered targets — the planes were mostly over the clouds. The All Clear sounded finally at 1800.

Guinto warned us in La Vanguardia that it was absolutely prohibited to go to the Boulevard. The Japanese don't want us to see the wrecks in the Bay.

Maurice said Camp Murphy got a pounding in the last two days. The Japanese were just finishing up blasting to expand the aircraft dispersal areas when the Americans gave them more work to do. He saw an American plane pulling out of a dive get hit, but the flame in its rear went out after it zoomed up. No doubt he got back OK. One enterprising pilot who had already dropped his bombs seemed to notice something. He zoomed up, circled, and came down with his machine guns blazing. Presto! A fuel fire began at the edge of the field. It wasn't big, but every drop of it is life for one more kamikaze.

LEYTE: A pincer move on Ormoc is taking shape. The Americans are 13 miles up from Baybay and have started moving down from Carigara. Japanese air attacks are largely down thanks to the recent carrier raids. Incidentally, in Leyte you'd pay one centavo for a banana and 35¢ for a dozen eggs. I recently paid P2 for a banana and P120 for a dozen eggs in Manila.