Page 5 of 6October 13
Shelled for four & 1/2 hours by Jap battleships, destroyers, and cruisers. Also 8 bombing raids. Pretty bad. Star shells were bursting all over the place. Bill Aiken, Wilkie & myself were in the same hold. Airport is catching hell. Fires all over the place. Gas, ammunition & planes.
October 14
The shelling of last nite has most everyone on edge . Looks like this might be another Wake Island. We need help bad . Can 't understand why the damned army can' t send us more men and equipment . A couple hundred arrived yesterday, but that many won't help.
October 15
Were bombed bad three times today. At night Jap bombers were over and dropped smoke bombs to drive us out of holes. They dropped H.E., daisey cutters and incendiarys
October 16
Quiet for once. Wrote a letter home. Sent some campaign bars I tore off a Jap.
October 17
Bombed hard, Japs lost 28 planes. We lost four. Plenty of dog fights today. Marine pilots sure showed the doggies up.
October 19
The tracks are going up to the Matanakow River all the time now. Steeleman was machine gunned five times - evacuated Capt. Dickinson got shrapneled in the back.
October 20
Gover was shot through the legs. Evacuated. Clark was shell shocked for a while. He's only 17, but he's a mighty good man.
October 23
Japs were over and straffed quite a bit I fired a 30 cal. water cooled machine gun at - Every third round a tracer. Just two of us fired. Frenchy Latramoille and Joe Robichaud were killed today by One Lung Louie at 11: 00 a.m. Direct hit in the same hole that Pattie was killed in. Nassef fired 800 rds out of their m.g. without water at Zeros.
October 27
Pulled Houzaphel out of his shelter during a very heavy bombardment from Jap ships. He was just plain exhausted. His shelter was above ground and was just riddled by pieces of flying shrapnel.