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24 December 1944*

*In the source material online, written as “23 December,” but appearing between entries for 23 and 25 December; the Philippine Diary Project assumes this is a simple typographical error and uses the date 24 December for this entry accordingly.

The Japanese have lived up to their policy that we will receive cooked rice. In the last two days we have received in addition to about a canteen cup of rice twice a day a few comoties [camotes] and enough dried fish so that each one of our men received a portion about as large as a 50 cent piece. We are fortunate that there is plenty of water here and although the Japanese prohibit bathing, I find that at night many of our men including myself, have been able to take a bath. We are still suffering from the effects of our mistreatment aboard the first transport. Many of the tropical ulcers which were induced by the terrific heat and foul air have became infected. We have little or no bandage, the same goes for medication to cure these ill looking ulcers. There are rumors of movement in the air.