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April 16, 1942

The Japs are gradually taking this place apart. I don’t like to believe it but the facts are indisputable. Every day some of the guns are hit and communications are disrupted. It is being done by the artillery on Bataan, and not by the bombing. Several batteries are out of action now, but most of them can be repaired if the Japs don’t knock them out too badly. One battery was put out completely today, and about forty men were killed by 240 mm fire. A number of cars in our headquarters motor pool were wrecked today. Both of Gen. MacArthur’s fine cars have been demolished, and Gen. Sutherland’s nice Packard has a few bad holes in the body. It is rather amazing that with all the bombing we had, more damage has been done by artillery in the past few days than was done in previous months. If it keeps up we will have all our guns knocked out in time. We were also bombed several times today. The Japs landed at Iloilo today, so it looks like the island of Panay will soon be in enemy hands. I believe they are going to try to close out all of the islands progressively, probably reserving Mindanao until last. We will probably last longest here.