We sighted the Philippines at 11:00 today and remained in sight of the islands the rest of the day. At around 1730 this evening we dropped anchor right off the coast of Leyte in the Philippine Islands. Tacloban is the city in this harbor and it is the capitol of Leyte. This is the place where the U.S. first made landings in the Philippines last Oct. At the present time there are a great many ships here in the harbor. I don’t know the number, but it looks as if there are several hundred. So far I have only saw the tops of two ships sticking up out of the water that had been sank during the Leyte campaign.
