The heavy rains flooded the rice paddies where we had constructed our improvised shacks and dug our air-raid shelters. Most of the daytime hours were spent inside our dugouts as the U.S. planes bombed and strafed the retreating Japs passing the town and hiding in the abandoned houses and wrecked buildings.
When the rains weakened the top cover of most dugouts, the shelters collapsed, forcing the evacuees to hide inside their huts, which were no protection from bombs, bullets, or shrapnel.
Only our dugout in the whole neighborhood did not collapse but it was filled with water. I placed bamboo floats like a raft inside, which enabled us to still use our shelter during air-raids.
Then one day we saw floating in the air leaflets dropped by the planes warning us of bombing because the place was infiltrated by Jap stragglers and huts used by Japs for offices were built just outside of the evacuees’ camp area.
