Carney Field, Guadalcanal

Shifted to my new boots today after wearing the old pair for well over one year – every day! For a $6.50 pair of Sears & Roebuck boots, I never imagined such comfort and ruggedness.

Heard today on good authority that we are steadily landing Marine Commandos on Bougainville! They’re being landed on a friendly spot (probably north of Kiera) on suitable nights from submarines Nautilus and Narwhal.

The Japs are still massing aircraft in this Buin-Rabaul-Truk triangle, and they’re also consistently losing approximately 50% on raids  – pretty high casualty percentage.

The new arrangement here has divided the pilots into three sets of three crews each. One set is the night raid team (me) and the other two are the day patrol teams. The setup will be changed every week or 10 days.

Tonight I’m raiding my old friends at Kahili.

The patrols we’re flying now go out 800 miles. Ten planes each with a 09° sector. The total searched area extends in an arc from a point north of Rabaul to a point NE of Nauru Island. I doubt if the Japs realize we are patrolling this area, as yet. I wonder what they’ll use for counter measures when they find out?

Tonight’s Kahili raid was just canceled due to foul weather.

We happened to be discussing the natives in these islands this evening and it was agreed that they are much more intelligent than those in the southern U.S.

Glanz located some stranded Army pilots on an island in a group NE of Buka. The natives paddled out into the enormous central lagoon and pointed their canoes and arms in the direction of the island occupied by the stranded flyers, who were soon located and danced with joy on the beach. Dropped them a note and food.