1st January 1945
January 1, 1945
Almost on the stroke of twelve the air-raid siren sounded. We were having a New Year’s Eve dinner at the embassy and the sound of
Leon Ma. Guerrero
(March 24, 1915 — June 24, 1982). Lawyer, journalist and diplomat. Served in USAFFE (later, USFIP) in the press relations staff, then assigned to Corregidor; upon surrender of USFIP and release from internment, served as a technical assistant to Jorge B. Vargas in the Philippine Executive Commission, then resumed broadcasting (station PIAM) under the same pseudonym he had used prior to the Japanese Occupation: Ignacio Javier. He then joined the diplomatic service of the Second Republic of the Philippines, assigned to the Philippine embassy in Tokyo under Jorge B. Vargas, ambassador.
2nd January 1945
January 2, 1945
Koiso ate his words yesterday or perhaps took a bigger mouthful. In a New Year’s Day radiocast he proclaimed that Leyte was no longer decisive;
3rd January 1945
January 3, 1945
Eddie Vargas enplaned for Manila this morning, his baggage mostly medicines for his family, parcels for home from the students, a letter or two from
4th January 1945
January 4, 1945
The chancery was deserted today. All the Japanese employees have disappeared; nobody expects them back until the 6th or even Monday the 8th. The official
5th January 1945
January 5, 1945
Koiso‘s statement at the initial cabinet meeting this year is full of those circumlocutions and euphemisms that the Japanese love. “I wish to make this
6th January 1945
January 6, 1945
Overcome Mounting Taxation Increase Through Temperance; Let’s Refrain from Drinking and Making Unnecessary Trips Thus the Asahi headlines a new increase in taxes, the ninth
7th January 1945
January 7, 1945
Waiting for the big fire-raids, the Tokyo authorities have thought up three more ways to speed up evacuation. Strangely enough in a land supposed to
8th January 1945
January 8, 1945
Another proof that the Tokyo evacuation program is not getting along is the fact that we have been looking in vain for a house since
9th January 1945
January 9, 1945
Eddie Vargas called up today by long-distance from Taiwan; he is stranded there. All civilian air travel to the Philippines has been suspended. We are
10th January 1945
January 10, 1945
Not all the Japanese are unaware of how things are going. Today a Japanese admitted to me that the situation looked “hopeless”. The Americans, he
11th January 1945
January 11, 1945
As the Asahi puts it, with typical bombast, “the American troops have at last set their dirty shoes on the soil of Luzon.” the paper
12th January 1945
January 12, 1945
There is a limit even to Japanese patience, it seems. The Yomiuri, this morning, takes the Koiso cabinet slogan in its teeth and shakes it.
13th January 1945
January 13, 1945
When, the historians get around to studying the question whether this war was premeditated by Japan, they will be puzzled by the fact that Japan
14th January 1945
January 14, 1945
On the way to Mass in the morning we saw a group of youngsters in uniform. They could not have been more than 15 or
15th January 1945
January 15, 1945
All the drums of propaganda are being beaten frantically throughout Japan. Yesterday afternoon, according to an official communiqué, “the enemy dropped several bombs on the sacred
16th January 1945
January 16, 1945
The press is still beating the tom-toms over the Ise bombing. A noted Japanese historian says that “the enemy are not men for men fight
17th January 1945
January 17, 1945
The Japanese financial adviser in Manila has given us a few graphic flashes of the last days of the Laurel regime in that city. Its government,
18th — 20th January 1945
January 18, 1945
Four Japanese Catholic nuns called. They had a small cake baked for us by their Mother Superior. The icing represented the Philippine and Japanese flags.
21st January 1945
January 21, 1945
In preparation for the opening of the imperial diet today the government has announced the distribution of one bale of charcoal per family, the release
22nd January 1945
January 22, 1945
The opening addresses of Koiso and his principal ministers at the 86th session of the diet yesterday “betrayed our expectations”, the Asahi states bluntly. And
23rd January 1945
January 23, 1945
Today’s vernaculars published the annual New Year poems of the emperor, the imperial family, and other Japanese leaders. It would be futile to give a
24th January 1945
January 24, 1945
The mysterious Mr. Yokoyama has been arrested. The story is that his daughter and his secretary were picked up too. It only complicates the already
25th January 1945
January 25, 1945
The army and the navy took their turn in a general meeting of the lower house yesterday. The navy minister regretted that he could give
26th January 1945
January 26, 1945
Today I heard an amusing and pointed story about two of the Filipino cadets in the local military academy, boys chosen after rigid and meticulous
27th of January 1945
January 27, 1945
At noon the sirens blew the air-raid alarm, the short blasts sounding like quick choking gasps while we hurried breathlessly down to the basement. It
28th of January 1945
January 28, 1945
When we came up out of our basement yesterday afternoon everything looked the same as usual except that there were fewer people on the streets.
29th of January 1945
January 29, 1945
I went through the combed area downtown today, riding a streetcar, the only way to get past the police cordon. Several buildings were still smoking
30th January 1945
January 30, 1945
The 1944 rice crop is below average….. The distribution of fish rations will be made every six days from now on, instead of every four….
31st January 1945
January 31, 1945
Sometime in the middle of last year it was decided to establish a central bank in the Philippines which would issue “Republic notes”, redeem the
1st February 1945
February 1, 1945
Beginning today the prices of firewood and charcoal will be raised 40 and 35 per cent respectively.