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December 19, 1942

This morning we had a bad fright, and remained most of the morning in the shelter. Yesterday morning, about 3:00 a.m. the Japanese entered the town of Barotac Nuevo and by daybreak the planes began bombing the surrounding barrios and the sugar central, as well as the main roads. We could see all this very clearly.

The soldiers in Barotac had to retreat as they cannot offer any resistance when the Japanese planes clear the way.

Everything was quiet last night and we all slept well. Before retiring, we could see fires all along the way, the Philippine Army was burning the houses they had not burned before.

This morning at 7:00 a.m. we heard a plane overhead and it circled and bombed over the town of Anilao (about 31⁄2 km from here). Then it flew towards our direction and bombed a nearby hill where a market had been set up under a mango tree. The plane then flew over us and bombed the town of Banate; on its return it few over Estrella’s rice field where the workers were picking rice. It dove towards them, dropped a bomb and machine gunned the people – fortunately there were no casualties.