The main business sections are still TABOO for pedestrians. The Americans have repaired and are already using the Jones Bridge. Leading the life of a cat with nine lives is my dad's small warehouse building, the only survivor of a burned out block in the Binondo fire of last September. Even now it stands, holed by Japanese artillery shells, battered but upright despite an onslaught of artillery directed at the telephone building across the street. Just ten feet away, the Japanese planted an elaborate series of land mines, enough to blow up the whole neighborhood. U.S. soldiers guarding the area were waiting for a bomb squad.

The Japanese two-foot wide concrete pillbox on the corner of Rizal Avenue and Azcarraga was literally shattered. Blocks of it broken from the main mass lie scattered around like chips of a broken stone. The concrete inside was weak but I still wondered what the Americans used to do that.

Sniper bullets from the south side still whistle across Santa Mesa. Several went zinging over my head as I biked home. At one point some jeeps stopped and the Americans took cover on the road behind them. I took cover too, but I could've guaranteed that the shooters were firing blind.

. . . .

American planes were overhead all day but their targets were beyond our hearing. At 1440 I stepped out for five minutes to count them and gave up after 150 planes, wondering if I was double counting. We've seen more American planes in three days than Japanese planes in three years, and never so many in the air at the same time. Just now Ma and our maid squealed in delight as four low flying P-38s overflew our house. Nine Thunderbolts patrolled around and around in threes. The Japanese had no answer to this incredible display of airpower.

1950: I'm back from a short walk to get a better view of the fires raging since mid-afternoon at the famed Bustillos Street in Sampaloc, which now ranks as a "conflagration" of the first order. Friends I had a chat with all agreed that Japanese shelling started the fires.

A Chinese chap living next to the Barreto house said that some of the fires were started or accelerated by the Makapilis using gasoline in milk bottles or coconut shells! Chinese guerrillas got on to them quick, saving themselves much damage by blocking off streets and searching people entering the district. They even used women to search the ladies. I went through one such search this morning to get to Reina Regente. Explanation accepted, I wasn't searched, but suspicious eyes followed me as I biked the 250 yards to Dad's office. The Chinese guerrillas are organized and recognized; they'd string you up in no time if they caught you carrying incendiaries.

. . . .

continues...