The Cartagenas weathered five solid days of TERROR escaping from one fire to another. Romiro was with his wife, two daughters and son-in-law. The men were separated from the women, tied up and placed in a large room with other men. Shortly after, the Japanese threw hand-grenades in and set the building alight. Romiro estimated that the grenades killed half of the men and injured almost all of the rest ... most of whom died under a hail of Japanese bullets while tying to escape. Romiro played dead for about six to eight hours, during which his son-in-law, René Rius, with two great wounds, looked up and said, "I'm dead" — and so saying, died. Suffering from a bad hip wound, Romiro crawled to safety. Miracle of miracles, he found his family again, although his wife and two daughters tell me they couldn't recognize him at first.

For thirty-six hours without food or water, the four of them hid amidst ruins while American shells killed others all around them. Occasionally they saw an American plane above and begged for the pilot to drop bombs, "countless bombs," if possible. Death would have been fine if the bombs could also kill their enemies and end the reign of terror.

After a while they heard voices. "Americans," said one. "Nonsense," said another. They remained frozen in place until they were face to face with American soldiers. They were given chocolates and candy and told: "Quick, get out of here! Follow the lines" — the telephone lines the Americans were stringing behind them. They stumbled back, running into more and more Americans moving forward and offering more chocolates and a few precious drops of water. Eventually they reached a staging point where ambulances were taking the wounded away. Those who could walk hitched a ride in the trucks returning to pick up more troops and supplies.

. . . .

MFP 4th Issue, February 15th: "200,000 Japanese casualties in P.I." — 132,000 in Leyte and 68,000 in the first five weeks of the Luzon campaign. American casualties: 2,102 killed, 192 missing and 7,389 wounded. MacArthur:

Every care is being taken to keep our casualties at a minimum and to preserve property as we gradually exterminate the trapped garrison. Practically the entire city was mined and defended, so that the process of clearing is somewhat slowed by the elimination of costly assault methods to the safer process of mine-sweeping, envelopment and infiltration.

...ooOoo...