"Guerrillas Help Capture Ipo Dam" — Manila's Water Source

Another one is back from the grave (it's getting to be like an epidemic). Johnny Ysmael, erstwhile number one Manila playboy and long reputed to be dead at the hands of guerrillas or bandits, was seen driving a Cadillac and wearing a US Army uniform with a cap similar to MacArthur's. Local gossip had long ago divided his fortune among the usual heirs and heiresses, and even matched his widow with suitable replacements. Next to Johnny sat the man planning to marry his sister — the lone survivor of the Perez-Rubio clan.

I talked to Nelly Zamora, née Lopez, at the Elena Apartments, owned by her father. Many Americans are renting there so there's full electricity and privileges at the Post Exchange. She said the Japanese tried to blow it up all right, but three of the seven bombs failed to explode. Americans repairing the elevator discovered two bombs hidden in the shaft. Nelly told a story of the last twelve hours of February 16-17, when the Americans opened up with a barrage against the building. Shell after shell rocked the edifice as people, refugees, the wounded, and a few Japanese cowered in the bowers of the building. (The house next door escaped practically unscathed.) Once, the Japanese separated the women and took them, hands raised, to an empty lot where two machine-guns were pointed at them. "You should have heard the women pray," she said, "like a litany ... steady, increasing and powerful." Their prayers must've worked because the Japanese let them go.

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