January 30, 1945 - Went ashore again. Went to where a twin engine Jap Betty had been shot down and looked at what was left of it. What parts that were left after being shot down had been torn up by souvenier hunters. We passed a couple more Jap planes that had been shot down near the strip. After we got to San Jose, we went to the railroad station to watch the little train come by. They have one house here with the sign “Justice of the Peace - Police Station”. I never saw any cops. We went on down and saw the school. It looked like a pretty nice school. We went in swimming again after getting back to the beach.

January 29, 1945 - Noon - We went ashore to get radio fixed. I would have got to go to a Liberty party anyway. We landed at the air strip and went about 10 or 15 miles inland, to the city of San Jose. Boy, it sure was dusty. They really have a lot of planes on this place. All the land is level for about 10 miles, then it starts little rolls that leads to mountains eventually. The island doesn’t look much different from some places back home. The roads were gravel. When we passed San Jose, we passed a miniature train running on tracks like streetcar tracks. It looked just like one of the first trains invented with a big funnel and everything. We also saw a lot of water buffalo. The town of San Jose wasn’t much to look at, but it did have a few permenant buildings in it. There was a big sugar cane plant here that hadn’t been run since the war. When we got back to the beach, we went swimming in the surf while waiting for the small boat. This is just about as safe as at home. They haven’t had but two air raids since they took it. The last one was three weeks ago. I will probably go ashore tomorrow to pick up the SCR 608 receiver.

January 28, 1945 - Anchored off San Jose’Mindoro in the Philippines. There is an airfield in front of us and B-24’s are landing and taking off there . The land along the waters edge is flat but there are some big mountains further back. There is a tanker, or what used to be a tanker off of our port bow. It has burned completely up down to the water line. A Jap plane hit it and it exploded some high octane gasoline and then the fuel oil caught on fire and it is still burning. It isn’t anything but a mass of molten steel now. We are to lay over here 4 days and go in D-Plus 5 on the lower part of Luzon.

November 16, 1944 - Arrived at Leyte about 2 am and GQ sounded. We shall continue GQ (general headquarters) the rest of the day. We beached about 8 o’clock and began unloading immediately. Finished unloading shortly after noon. Retracted from beach and anchored in bay while waiting for other ships to unload. We had two or three air raids while at Leyte, but no planes came over. They were further up the beach. We beached at Trainian Head at San Jose this time, just across the island from Ormoc Bay. Night - started back for Hollandia.