22 Dec 1941

I have a few minutes while my arm is being bandaged. It's been a hell of a couple days. Yesterday we started marching at 0500, and that wasn't even the worst of it, because it sure got hot fast. It was 15 miles to the coast. We set up fortified positions at Lingayen Gulf. The boys couldn't dig well in the sand at first, but they got the hang of it. Mel REALLY got the hang of it when I caught him sleeping in his hole. I made him dig the machine gun pit. There was plenty of wood around, so we shored up the fronts pretty well. The natives did a good job. A cavalry scout came riding up in the afternoon, looking for the Lt. Turns out the Nips landed south of Manilla last week, and have been working their way north. Nothing we can do about that now.

We started getting pounded by naval artillery at about 0400 this morning. I've never been so scared in my life. I saw the poor grunt next to me take a shell fragment to the face. Johnny had been on patrol, and he dived in with me. Then the Nips started riding in to shore. Johnny capped one of their officers while they were still in the boats. One of the native platoons took of running, damn cowards. I was scared, but I waited for them to come! Billy did a number on the landing boats, and on the soldiers as they came out. I managed to get a whole group of them with my Thompson as they attacked my foxhole. And would you believe it, Ben got in a close-up fight with a Nip! Managed to avoid the bayonet (and boy, those Nip bayonets are FEARSOME), grabbed his pickaxe and went at the guy. Guess the engineer has some guts after all. I got stabbed in the right arm by one of the Nip soldiers. They never even shot at us, just did a bayonet charge. Strangest thing I've seen. Johnny got thwacked by a bayonet, too, I think. Medic says his skull is fractured. He's out cold for now.

Better rally up the boys. There's more of them coming now.