Diary entries from Philippine history.
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 morning our planes unloaded a lot of heavy bombs on what appeared to be Montalban Gorge. Probably buried a lot of Japs there. Hope so, anyway. This afternoon a bunch…
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 with the mush. It improves the flavor. Of course, I had tea, and that helped. Lunch — a ladle of thin soup made of camote leaves and vines. Looked like…
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 or not, I am developing a taste for the darned things, as bitter as they are. There was plenty of bombing today — out around Malabon and Marikina. Our boys…
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 (also few), coco lard. Not so bad. But anything tastes good right now. Twenty four B-24’s came over this morning 10:00 a.m. and from what we could see, they plastered…
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 we know, none of them was hit. So glad. Earlier in the morning our dive bombers were operating over near Caloocan. I believe the R.R. shops. Another bunch did some…
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 in San Francisco del Monte. The real fun started later when the four motored bombers came over. They sowed small demolition bombs over that area like scattering seeds. Never saw…
Air alarm at 4:30 a.m. One plane shot down and crashed near Mandaluyong. Exploded and lit up the country side. All clear sounded at 6:29 a.m. Air alarm again at 7:27 a.m. Heaviest bombing and anti-aircraft fire of all. All clear at 11:10 a.m. 12:40 p.m. air alarm. Planes already overhead. Saw 20 planes bomb…
We received a hard hitting as the planes seared the sky. On one of my way trips to the Palace, I stayed to arrange the schedule of cooks and boys, many of whom had already left Manila. I do not know why I bothered with these details. Even at Marikina, in the days of harrowing…
Nobody believed there was going to be a war. Secretary Vargas called to tell me to join the President and his family in the house in Marikina. From then on, the first family lived in a shelter.