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January 17, 1942

We are having an unusual amount of cloudy weather for the month of January. We had a little rain today also. The Japs had a plane over here early this a.m., but it didn’t come within range of the guns. It was just taking a look, I guess. Two of our planes had a nice time today (P-40’s). They took off early this a.m., flew over our front line; shot down a Jap observation plane; shot down a dive bomber; attacked a flight of heavy bombers and forced them to drop their bombs and disperse; strafed a column of Jap trucks for fifteen minutes, and came home. We have very few planes and they have been restricted to purely observation missions until today. However the Japs have been so free over our lines that the General figured it would be a good idea to give them something else to think about. The troops saw the two planes shot down over the front line, and it did them no end of good. Our pilots report that the Jap planes are easy to shoot down. If there is anything like an even break our pilots will shoot them down nine times out of ten, or they will get away in the clouds if any are handy.

I still have the cold. It is very persistent, probably on account of the damp tunnel. A large number of officers are bothered with the same thing to a greater or lesser degree.