“Button,” Espiritu Santo

Went to Mass this morning. The weather has become perfect lately. Not too humid and plenty of clear sunshine. Although it’s early winter here, it seems most like a spring day in the states. Some of the trees, however, insist upon corresponding to the season and have dropped their leaves.

The millions of small flies of last January have not returned yet. The mosquitoes seem at their worst lately, while the tiny coconut bugs, which penetrate the screens, just about drive us crazy. They land on you faster than you can pick them off and get in your hair and clothing in bed. Another reason epidemic are the multileggers, hundreds of them crawling over everything. Have caught a total of nine good-sized rats in our hut in the last few weeks. They get pretty ravenous at times. Last week one bit the end of Doc Ravel’s finger while he was asleep and he had to bandage it. They chew their way into anything that smells like it contains food, And in one case didn’t even bother about food, but chewed on a Valpack and made a well-chewed nest in a suit of greens.

Heard good news today. All the Allied pilots shot down in the big Jap raid on the 17th (six in all) have been rescued. Also the official score of Jap planes has risen to close to ninety, of which we consider all pilots and dive bomber rear gunners lost, giving us the astounding figure of approximately 90 planes for six, and 135 pilots and gunners for none of ours. Poor Nipponese boy. Very sorry. Tokyo radio said they sunk 4 large transports and a destroyer, and had shot down 30 of our planes while 20 of theirs were missing!