Manila Post: "Rebuilding of Manila may take 15 years" — by Fred Hampson. George E. Koster, a local building engineer, says 2,000 square blocks of Manila were utterly destroyed, plus the waterfront, power and rail systems. Col. S.E. Liles Jr. says Pier 7 is rebuildable at its original cost. "The Japs did a good job of demolition and destruction of buildings, bridges and piers; they blasted the operating heart of the city at points where quick repair is impossible."

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I spent an hour at Santo Tomas; the new MP at the side gate told me that from now on I could go in and out freely whenever he was on duty. At the hospital I saw Hailil Arbadji, who had the misfortune of losing an arm on February 13 — on the very day the Americans rescued him. His group made contact with the Americans in the midst of the battle, so they had to wait in the overcrowded shelter for the area to be made safe. Sometime before noon, Hailil decided to venture out — against the advice of a few — and was spotted by a group of six Japanese. "I immediately tried to fall back into my shelter but I fell badly and my arm remained exposed to view. The Japs each fired at me, and one of the bullets hit my arm directly." (His daughter Odette said a sniper got him.) The bullet left his arm hanging limply by a shred of flesh. With just a pair of scissors and without any medicines, a doctor in the shelter cut off his arm and bound the wound as best he could. He would have died by loss of blood had not an American captain (a friend of his in fact) gotten an ambulance and taken him to Santo Tomas. Three weeks later he's still weak and talks in a whisper.

What's funny is that Hailil has no love for the Americans though he wasn't pro-Japanese either; he wanted the Germans to win the war ... "but let the Americans come back here to oust these lousy Japs." Yet look at what the Americans have done for him:

The first day they gave me 27 to 30 pills to strengthen me — and I've had to take them everyday. Now I'm down to 9 a day. The American surgeon comes in EVERY morning and looks at each of us. He had to dress my wound once every day — now it's twice a week. The food is all right — they give us bread three times a day ... usually with butter! The meat is wonderful, the very best it seems; it's almost like Turkey. Oh I can't complain at all ... medicines for instance, they have EVERYTHING!

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