What a wild night! I went to bed about 10:15 after working on the youngsters with white phosphorus burns ... At 10:30 the SE corner guards opened up with a few shots and a grenade went off. We hit the dirt and stayed there for 3 hours while the darnedest small arms barrage went on - all sorts of weapons. After the first 20 min. we began to figure that most of it was random firing, for no bullets came over us. I saw some tracers even going up at a 45º angle. The guerrillas and some of our men just laid down a fire, all night long. I heard several loud explosions and saw large flashes and thought it might be the Japs using mortar on us. It tuned out to be some bazooka rockets the men got. All we heard go over us was one grenade fragment and maybe one bullet. I'll bet 3000 rounds were fired - M1 [Garand semi-automatic rifle], carbine and tommy gun [Thompson submachine gun].
Results - 2 dead Japs! One was lying by the RR tracks. He had lots of bullet holes in him, but he'd held a grenade against his head, and blown off the hand. The other was out in the woods. The guerrillas claimed to have shot another next morning along a little creek about 200 yards off. They claim they saw 3 more, but I doubt it. Anyway, the guerrillas combed the area like a pack of dogs. The Japs may have been escaping from Manila or the Zambales Mtn.
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| Modified Rand McNally map showing locations mentioned |
17 Feb. '45
Beloved,
This is probably the right date. I have the darnedest time keeping track of the days! We take atabrine [a medication used to protect from malaria and some parasites] daily so I can't count for that. I was rather busy today doing this and that. We received quite a slug of civilian casualties from another place. Most have been taken care of but it is something to get a ward full of new patients. It's a good thing I'm a general practitioner for the bunch I have are all women, girls, and small fry. Many of them were injured last month and went practically uncared for, for some time. So you can imagine there are some odoriferous items. One woman had a large sarcoma of the jaw - very unsightly - and the worst of it is that nothing can be done for her. It is much too far gone. Another is a youngster who hammered a 50 caliber cartridge on a rock and all he received from it was a crease across his leg. Several are in casts. I've seen several cases of tetanus among the civilians, but they come out of it O.K. with lots of antitoxin. One poor soul is seven months pregnant and has a compound fracture (shell fragment) of the thigh that was untreated and now she has an osteo [osteolysis or degeneration of the bone] with it. I just heard that we'll have some casualties. One of our patrols out in the hills somewhere ran into an ambush. That patrolling is bad work! Three of the four youngsters with [the worst] phosphorus burns died. The two on which I worked seem to be doing O.K. Later - Well that fellow sure had his Achilles heel [vulnerable spot]! A Jap machine gun bullet went through his heel bone from side to side and really pulverized the bone. But he'll get a good result, no doubt. He was also creased about the left buttock. I heard that the two Japs that came by the other day were killed by F.'s [Filipinos]. How they go for the Japs!
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| Some of Gene's civilian patients in Guimba |
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