Remember the Sixth Army's PCAU started paying P1.75 per day for labor? It's now P4 to P5 a day. That is, the men get P4 and the girls get P5 tops. As for PCAU privileges, a male worker there can get a loaf of bread on most days; a female worker can usually get two or three!

Isabelle on the subject of wastage: "One night two officers in a Jeep came by with three cases of cigarettes. We didn't know them though it may be that one or both had a drink with us at one time or another. The point is they came, stopped, and dumped a whole case of Camels on our yard ... that's 50 cartons." She was more disgusted than pleased at the generosity; after all it cost them nothing and it's probably at the expense of their comrades. It's but a small example of what is happening everywhere. "All the boys [Americans] do in Nasugbu is get drunk and chase girls," she added.

Paul Florence dropped in for a chat on Los Baños. At 0200 of January 6 or so, the Japanese entered the Camp and took all shovels. Two hours later, cries of "the Japs have left!" woke him up. In five minutes all the lights were on and the whole camp was in uproar. The internees grabbed all the Japanese food, furniture, fowls and pigs. With sugar, rice and salt being plentiful, they enjoyed a week of three full meals a day. Listening to the Japanese radio, they even heard of the Lingayen landing. The American flag was run up and townspeople came to barter food for clothing and grant loans. But the internees had to give everything back when the Japanese returned. The Camp became a place of penitence until the final rescue.

Florence was bitter that the Protestant Missionaries were extremely tight about pooling resources of food and money. He was also particularly bitter about the pro-Axis people who were allowed to take refuge in Santo Tomas. When he first came from Muntinglupa he could scarcely get a meal ticket, he said, "but any pro-Axis fellow got everything he wanted if he shouted loudly enough."

I remember January 2, 1942 very well. I was going to my store to pull out my cash when the Japanese stopped me in Arlegui near San Rafael. We were kept in a lot there, some seven or eight of us with some Chinese.... While we waited there some Spaniards and Germans passed by ... grinning like hyenas. How happy they were then. And how they talked behind our backs then and during all of '42 and part of '43.... And how about the treatment of the Germans at the Holy Ghost! Sure, it has probably been stopped now, but only because it became a public scandal.

He was even more bitter than I about what he called "Sixth Army LOOTERS." Eventually I had to snap him out of it because he was getting carried away.