People in Santa Mesa are thankful for being spared. Occupied residences are not being looted. A lot of people are hanging around, ready to spend their last bit of Japanese currency, but mostly watching and waiting, eager for a first glimpse of an American uniform. Unarmed Policemen and Home Guards milled about. Around here, hungry people are drawing on reserves of energy and courage to exhibit calm and good behavior.

I'll know more about the fires tomorrow. The Quiapo Church is afire for the third or fourth time in its history. No doubt it will be rebuilt even better than ever. The whole Juan Luna sector is also aflame, as are the bodegas in the San Beda College, the Centro Escolar University and other places used by the Japanese, who intend to deprive the Americans of the satisfaction of distributing the goods. Why they never gave them to the people in the first place is a long story of disorganization and greed.

Water stopped in the afternoon. The whole south side must be without any water. We still have a trickle here because the pipe runs this way. Dynamiting on an ambitious scale stopped at 1500 — no doubt most houses in Manila lost ten years of structural life after the thousand shakes of the last 24 hours. There's still artillery fire going from the south side to the north, intensifying as the afternoon wears on. At 1716, American planes located and strafed some of the batteries. For the most part though, Americans haven't replied — probably because the Japanese are firing from residential areas. So far, I'd bet the Americans haven't fired a single artillery shell or dropped a bomb in Manila proper.

So here we are on the East, watching shells four to five kilometers in front of us travel from the south on our left to the north on our right. While kids by the Bay cower in shelters, French children at the Bachrach house play in the backyard. One wonders what the Japanese had in mind. What good can come from delaying the Americans by a couple of days? The Japanese had three years to prepare for this; the Americans had scarcely 30 days a few years ago, but they left the bridges, gas works, electric plants and piers ... a thousand and one gifts, some in such abundance that Japanese appetites haven't been able to exhaust them in three years. The Japanese on the other hand are leaving Manila hungry, stripped, burnt out and destroyed.

. . .

The Japanese that left Santa Mesa heading east left a single rotten slow-firing machine gun in either Piña or Santol, which just now took a few pot shots at overflying B25s. If the Americans come chasing this a-way, there's a chance that artillery from prepared positions in the east will land in our backyards.

continues...