American Armada Heads for Luzon

Tribune: "17 Foe Planes shot down, 8 Damaged.... Enemy Task Force attacks Taiwan, Okinawa Areas," on the morning of January 3 (Daihon-ei). News of a convoy is what has Manila excited: "It's begun at last!" said one. Another told me: "Better get well guy, or you'll miss the parade."

"Nippon Raid Costs U.S. 42 B-29s.... Little damage caused at Nagoya, Osaka, Hammamatsu." The total comes from 13 shot down, 4 probables and 25 damaged. "Body-crashing" tactics accounted for three of the planes, yet only two Japanese planes "have not yet returned." Another article claimed ten Japanese planes using similar tactics sank ten ships of a convoy in the Sulu Seas on December 29 and 30.

Only 40 of some 800 Germans accepted the Japanese invitation to go to Baguio (and maybe Formosa later) to escape internment, but they'll have to walk there. Paradoxically, Filipinos walking to certain towns in Central Luzon will find them deserted as the people have taken to the mountains. At other places like in Baler, east Luzon, reports say guerrillas are concentrating. Maharajah today tells the story of a certain musical conductor who just "blew in yesterday" from a central Luzon province with a "glowing account" of an abundance of incredibly cheap food. First, no one "blows" into or out of Manila these days. Second, why then did the conductor make the perilous trek all the way back here?

Incidentally, all Japanese Embassy Officials and staff members left Manila for points north in either of the last two nights. The Bachrach house is empty, and the Siys now have the left wing of their house back. And all less than a week after the Embassy insisted on keeping the reservation on our house! Even some of the MPs have left Manga Avenue. The renowned Urusu, the baby-faced, pistol-carrying blusterer who lived with the Macias at Buenos Aires, left a couple of days ago. He didn't want to go, even practically cried, realizing perhaps that it was the beginning of the end. But he left in style — in a magnificent Packard Convertible. Well, maybe some people do "blow" out of Manila. Or up.