3rd May 1945
May 3, 1945
“Is it true that Hitler has been killed?” asked our maid this morning. I told her that it was only a rumor but that it
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.
4th May 1945
May 4, 1945
The Times today publishes in translation the letter of a Japanese mother, written to a lieutenant in the Shimbu unit of the special attack corps
5th May 1945
May 5, 1945
About 800 families, who were burnt out in the last raid on Tokyo, have set up housekeeping in their air-raid shelters, reports the Times. A
6th May 1945
May 6, 1945
There was quite a heavy downpour today. A French brother laughed after Mass: “It’s a hailstorm. But now it is no longer Heil Hitler but
7th May 1945
May 7, 1945
For the past four days the Japanese government and press have mourned for Hitler and his Reich, Mussolini and his Republic. In the afternoon of
9th May 1945
May 9, 1945
Language has its subtle treacheries and they are probably nowhere more plentiful than in the ordinary translation from Japanese into English. This morning’s Times carries
10th May 1945
May 10, 1945
As the last breached wall of Hitler’s Reich crumbled and collapsed, Japan peered through the choking cloud of rumor, report, glimmering hope and thickening despair
11th May 1945
May 11, 1945
A small peace clique is now taking shape in Japan. One of its leaders is sopposed to be General Ugaki who has, according to the
12th May 1945
May 12, 1945
The spy scare continues to mount. Japan is alone against the world and all foreigners are suspect. Chatting with other Filipinos in the lobby of
13th May 1945
May 13, 1945
Signs of the times: the fourth and fifth sections of the bureau of political affairs of the foreign office are moving out of Tokyo to
14th May 1945
May 14, 1945
The Japanese mother-in-law of a Filipino in Tokyo is trying to let her house and sell her furniture — too late. The peak of the
14th May 1945
May 14, 1945
The Japanese mother-in-law of a Filipino in Tokyo is trying to let her house and sell her furniture — too late. The peak of the
15th May 1945
May 15, 1945
About 400 B-29’s raided Nagoya yesterday, “for the first time dropping incendiaries on a large scale in the daytime”, while 300 carrier-borne planes were raking
16th May 1945
May 16, 1945
In a formal decision of the cabinet Japan recognized yesterday that the tri-partite treaty, the subsequent Axis military alliance, the anti-Comintern pact, and other related
17th May 1945
May 17, 1945
I had scarcely arrived at the embassy in Tokyo yesterday when the chauffeur ushered a Japanese marine into my office, He was a tall awkward
18th May 1945
May 18, 1945
After 100 B-29’s had pounded Nagoya yesterday, some 40 P-51’s machine-gunned airfields southwest of the capital this noon. This raids however have become so frequent
19th May 1945
May 19, 1945
The diplomatic corps in Japan has fallen on evil days. It was dull enough after all the allied representatives were exchanged. Then Italy surrendered and
20th May
May 20, 1945
“The new national volunteer corps,” explains the Times today, “has as its prime aim the reorganizing and propelling of the normal activities of the people
21st May
May 21, 1945
“The decisive battle in the Okinawas has become all the more fierce,” warns the Asahi, “The battle on land has shifted to Maha and Shuri
22nd May 1945
May 22, 1945
On the anniversary of Emperor Meiji’s rescript on education, a new wartime education law was promulgated today which virtually turns the schools of Japan into
23rd-24th May 1945
May 24, 1945
From the night of the 23rd to the morning of the 24th Tokyo underwent one of the heaviest raids of the war. The targets were
25th-26th May 1945
May 26, 1945
Tokyo will always remember the night of the 25th May. It started out so quietly. The moon was still out. People told one another that
27th May 1945
May 27, 1945
The imperial palace was burnt down in the last raid. A communique issued by imperial general headquarters yesterday revealed that about 250 B-29’s from southern
28th May 1945
May 28, 1945
Almost unnoticed amid the mourning for Tokyo was the first faint death-rattle of Okinawa. On the night of the 24th the Giretsu air-borne unit of
29th May 1945
May 29, 1945
A German fleeing from Yokohama by car arrived in Miyanoshita gibbering with hysteria. From what we could make out Yokohama had been wiped out in
30th May 1945
May 30, 1945
Yokohama was hit by 500 B-29’s accompanied by some 100 P-51’s, according to the official communique. They worked on the city for barely an hour
31st May 1945
May 31, 1945
The trains were running to Tokyo again and I had an opportunity to see for myself what remained of Yokohama. Once more I was reminded
1st June 1945
June 1, 1945
The authorities are going [illegible] about the effect of the propaganda pamphlets dropped on Tokyo and Yokahama. “The contents of the leaflets,” cries the Asahi
2nd June 1945
June 2, 1945
About 400 B-29’s carried out another concentrated daylight raid yesterday, this time on Osaka, and the Times feels compelled this morning to write: “The enemy’s
4th June 1945
June 4, 1945
Roaming in the second-hand bookshops still in Kanda I found in nearly everyone a shelf of dictionaries: Nippongo-Burmese, Nippongo-Thai, Nippongo-Tagalog, Nippongo-Malay. Nobody was buying these