Maurice ran into one of his old Manhattan College classmates, Lt. Jack McKenna, who's running the Officer's Club of the Fifth Airforce here. His group was "dumped ashore" early in the Leyte landings "without even a rifle" to prepare an airfield. He described the Leyte landing as "terrible" — many casualties.

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Lack of radio precludes Manila getting into any kind of celebration.

Joseph Featherstone, erstwhile Red Cross chief and ex-professor of Joe and Maurice at Manhattan College, confirmed one of the Japanese tall stories — that of a lone Japanese plane making a mess of the air base at Biak. The American planes were parked wing-to-wing as the danger of any Japanese raid had long passed. This plane came out of nowhere — probably had been undergoing repairs — and was responsible for 87 American deaths. He didn't confirm about the 12 planes destroyed, including a C-54. "Biak was a tough nut to crack," he added. "The day MacArthur announced that all organized Japanese resistance had ended, the Japs killed 900 Americans!" His tale of units trapped between ridges was similar to what the Japanese told us. That the Japanese sent a fleet to attack Mindoro was another tall tale we didn't believe until Hans mentioned the damage they caused.

MacArthur is back next door. A sniper took a pot shop at him in Balikpapan and I'm told that he didn't budge.

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MFP: "Entire P.I. Free.... Philippine campaign can be regarded as closed," said MacArthur, who added that the Japanese were beaten by a numerically inferior force in an unprecedented ground campaign.

Alunan about his long trip to the Visayas to talk Confesor into surrendering: "Boy, it was heavenly there, but darn it, I had to come back for ... my family."

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