Today's Tribune had no headlines or leading articles. "Manila Area is Subjected to Futile Raids" — about 180 flights, it says, admitting neither damage to ground installations nor claiming any kills.

0600: An American plane checked the airfields and strafed Nichols. An hour later, Japanese planes there started warming up but stayed put. Shortly before 0800, the Americans returned without warning to drop some HEAVY bombs. Embassy officials returning to the Siy house after breakfast thought momentarily (as I did) that they were Japanese planes because of their altitude and lack of formation, as well as the absence of any siren or antiaircraft.

I went to Maurice's at 0930 and viewed some of the proceedings from the Gonzales house. Although Maurice saw a few F6F Hellcats drop a few bombs, almost all of today's attacks were strafing runs. The boys were patient, floating around and taunting antiaircraft batteries while they picked their next target. They'd creep up on it stealthily before rolling into a sudden dive. Then down they'd go streaming thin, dark smoke from their machine guns as a barrage of antiaircraft rose to meet them. In a flash, they'd be out of it, climbing then banking ninety degrees to evade the ground fire.

Japanese antiaircraft was as impotent today as yesterday, and not as active. The airfields were strafed a hundred times each, and bombed to boot. I counted at least a dozen fires; none of them big but all of them oil or gasoline — and you know just how hard the Japanese have worked to disperse this "blood" of theirs. Barely 400 yards from Maurice's house, an American plane scored a dramatic bulls-eye on an important ammunition dump. In the twinkling of an eye, the earth shook and dirty white smoke shot up a thousand feet. The concussion shattered windowpanes in many houses, including two large leadlight mosaics in the Santa Mesa Church. The lamp in Ma's bathroom shook loose and smashed on the floor.

On one occasion, Maurice and I watched two planes dive on Murphy from our left, crisscrossing another three diving from our right. "Beautiful," I yelled, "look at that dive!" A sixth plane on a very steep dive from way up released a bomb that we followed all the way down. I began to count, "One, two, three, four, five" ... nothing except the horrendous roar of the machine guns. We looked at each other. "What the hell..." BOOMRFFF! Something to make a guy forget his physics sometimes.

A friend believes the chief of the Japanese antiaircraft batteries will commit hara-kiri if the raids continue tomorrow. The joke on the town is about the impotence of the Japanese — and they know it too. What a blow it is to their morale!

A lone fighter roved over Manila at around 2000. Expecting another dazzling night show, I went to the garden ... and got it too. The searchlights found it barely a thousand feet up, going slow. The plane took no evasive action and was otherwise unmolested. At 0100 or so, four heavy bombs punctuated the sound of machine guns over Nichols. A plane passed low over our house, sounding like a twin-engine job. The effect of all these raids was to keep the Japanese from even thinking of using their bases ... and to keep the kamikazes on the ground.

Leyte: Considered "finished" for three days now except for some tough mopping up. The Japanese tried a tenth convoy with three ships and lost the lot.