eliopolous

Philippines

2/7/45

Hello Miss McGlynn:

Received a copy of the Log & enjoyed living in those STC corridors for the while. Someday I too will be a Senior.

At the present I'm working with Jap prisoners. Being prisoners they are extremely polite & obedient. Just about everytime I say "hullo!" to one, he bows some twenty times to me. This is contagious & many times in order to save face before my superiors, I wind up tying my shoelaces.

Yesterday I had a chance to talk to some Americans who had just been freed by the advancing American forces. These were the fellows who made the death march out of Bataan. The Japs marched them for 36 hours without food or water. Bayonetted (sp. ?) those that stumbled on the way. Later when interned Japs made sporting game of them killing as many as 50 in one day. Some went blind from malnutrition and some went....

That's why we are carrying a policy of extermination. There is another chapter to this story but it would never pass censorship.

Today I spent my day at a hospital's operating room. They were operating on a Jap's arm & I was there as an interpreter. Shrapnel wounds are always ugly & this was no exception.

In all my talks with them none has expressed the desire of going back to Japan. Most are exiling themselves to China. The Japanese people do not accept them once having been disgraced by the enemy Most are Buddhist or Shintoists but I even ran across one who was a Catholic. He hasn't asked to see our chaplain yet but I imagine it will just about precipitate a major crisis. Most are beginning to realize the overwhelming power of the Allied armies but think that the real showdown will be in China. The war is, ofcourse, leading to just that

Well, I guess I've given the Japanese enough of space. Banzai!

Chris

P.S. Regards to all.

P.P.S. Jap peso was worth about 24 Am. money