Raymond Leyerly

(July 12, 1881 — February 12, 1945) former chief of police of Manila; since he was married to a Filipina, only he was interned in Santo Tomas.

January 1, 1945

Started the day with weak lugao and still weaker coffee. Air raid alarm at 10:30 a.m. Forty of our big planes, flying very high. Went

January 2, 1945

10:45 a.m. Another flock of our planes just passed over. No air raid alarm and no rough stuff. We had a tasty dinner yesterday. Two

January 3, 1945

Coconut milk, weak coffee and weaker rice mush. Mostly water. Weighed myself this morning. Weighed 119 lb. When I was in the Gym, I held

January 4, 1945

Mush made of rice and rice flour for breakfast and milk (coconut). Mush very thin and no salt. I have enough salt for about a

January 5, 1945

No planes today. Everything very quiet. Too much so, I think something will happen soon. Heard today that our rice is cut again. Instead of

January 6, 1945

Air raid alarm at 7:45 a.m. Eight planes bombed and strafed Nichol’s, Neilson, and Zablan; later a whole bunch of dive bombers worked on them

January 7, 1945

Sunday started out fine. Bombing started early this morning with dive bombers. They shook up Grace Park and what appeared to be along the river

January 8, 1945

Breakfast — thick lugao made of rice and rice flour and a small ladle of coco milk. Made hot water and made soup of coco

January 9, 1945

Mush, coco-milk, and coffee, so called for breakfast. Forty seven of our B-24’s came over this morning. They done their bombing and as far as

January 10, 1945

Thin mush, coco milk, and tea for breakfast. I’ll say this — the tea tasted more like tea than the coffee resembled coffee. Here is

January 11, 1945

Rice flour much and hot water for breakfast. I bummed a piece of ginger and made ginger tea and put some cinnamon in it (also

January 12, 1945

Cornmeal mush with a little rice in it for breakfast. Well, the air was full of our planes this morning. They were blasting things up

January 13, 1945

Thin mush and hot water for breakfast and thinner soup for lunch. For supper, a stew made of corn meal, a few kidney beans, camotes

January 14, 1945

Thin mush and hot water for breakfast. Thinner soup for lunch and a small ladle of rice and some fair gravy for supper. Incidentally, the

January 15, 1945

Same old breakfast, but Mr. Carter gave me some real tea last night so I had hot tea for breakfast. No soup for lunch and

January 16, 1945

Same breakfast but Mr. Carter’s tea went good. No lunch. A ladle of camotes with gravy for supper. And, oh boy, the worms. But believe

January 17, 1945

I won’t write lying down tonight. The same breakfast except that I starved myself last night and saved a few pieces of camote to mix

January 18, 1945

Feeling lazy. Not much doing — just a few of our planes around taking observations. Breakfast — same. Lunch — soy bean soup. Supper —

January 19, 1945

Same old morning meal. Soy bean soup for lunch and soy bean, camote stew for supper and again I feel satisfied. Plenty doing today. This

January 20, 1945

Breakfast — sweetened mush (?). They had 80 kilos of sugar and 25 gal. of syrup for the whole camp — about 3,700 people so

January 21, 1945

Didn’t feel like writing yesterday. For breakfast — same thing. Might as well say, “Hebrews 13 Chap. 8 verse”, that would cover it every day.

January 22, 1945

Had some soy bean milk with our mush. I liked it very much. Lunch today will be soy bean soup and for supper, soy bean

January 23, 1945

Breakfast, lunch, and supper same as yesterday. The camp is out of wood with the exception of green acacia. They have already burned dining tables

January 24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31, 1945

January 31, 1945

That finishes that month. We all had great hopes that we would at least be getting something decent to eat by now. I felt too

February 2, 1945

There has been plenty of activity around here lately — both day and night. Well the boys are getting closer all the time. But our

February 3, 1945

Well, looks like the Japs are getting ready to evacuate Manila and suburbs. Lots of fires early this morning — they are destroying supplies and

February 3, 1945 — LIBERATION DAY

February 3, 1945

A never-to-be forgotten day for the internees and prisoners of Santo Tomas and Bilibid Prison (old). It was about 5:30 p.m. when we heard repeated