Although the USAFFE have been making significant gains, the Japanese are now striking out at them and are making an all-out offensive against the USAFFE to gain control of the towns again. Yesterday the town of Barotac (about 2 miles from us) was subjected to bombing and machine gunning. You can imagine our fright when the planes flew over us; we all quickly left the house and went outside and hid in a small creek, not knowing whether the house would be bombed or not. We used to have an air raid shelter in the back of the house that Coné had made for us. However, as the war progressed and the civilian population became victims to robbers and other lawless elements, we had it destroyed fearing it would become a hiding place for these outlaws. Now we no longer fear the bandits, but the retaliation of the Japanese. Thank God the planes did not fire their machine guns at us as they flew overhead, but went on to Dinglé and bombed that town, also.
