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Wednesday, December 17, 1941

John and George returned to the city soon after breekfast and they said that George and Carl will come up Saturday afternoon — I hope so. Sent a note to Carl asking him to come if he could. Ada and I spent the morning getting the supplies that John and George brought put away, the onions regraded and the potatoes sprouted again. My, the nice supplies we have. John said send to Pagsanjan and get the other refrigerator. They have another factory at that place, and up till now have been keeping a house there. But they will give that house up and so the furniture and equipment there will come over here. That will make three refrigerators, and all of them are large ones. But we will need them for meats. We have to get our meats from Manila, and when we get meats in there is a lot to be taken care of. Bob wert down today for meats (Bob is John’s nephew by marriage), and is here at this plant as Oscar’s assistant. A very nice likeable young man, and the children are so fond of him for he takes up lots of time with them. He misses his own two young sons who are in the States with their mother.

No special war news — the saddest thing today was the sinking of the “‘Corregidor”, one of the largest interisland ships, which ran into a mine last night about midnight. The steamship company had been asked not to sail but people who had been caught in Manila, and others who wanted to get out had pleaded with them until it was decided that they would make a try at it. The boat left the pier at ten o’clock last night, loaded to standing room. They do not know just how many were on, as people kept running to the gang-plank without tickets until the boat pulled off. There must have been a thousand, and of the thousand only two hundred and eighty five have been accounted for — so sad and so very unnecessary. Among the number were Government officials, representatives and families. We had one friend who has not been heard from. No special war news — the situation at Hong Kong seems to become graver, as the British have retreated to the Island of Victoria which is Hong Kong proper. I hope that they can hold it, for if not that will mean that we get it worse here, though by that time I hope that we will have received more aid from the States.