Commander  McCoy:
-------------------------
     
     Once in touch with the guerrillas, our main problem was
 
one of physical travel through the unexplored jungles and rough
 
terrain of  Mindanao,  in an effort to get to where we wanted to go.
 
No longer were we on a starvation diet. For instance, I note from
 
my journal that on one morning after we reached the guerrillas we
 
had a breakfast of rice, soft-boiled eggs, vegetables and coffee,
 
alI supplied by the Filipinos. On another morning we luxuriated
 
over a menu containing eggs, cottage cheese, carabao meat and
 
coffee. This was a decided contrast to our unchanging prison
 
breakfasts of the hated lugao, a concoction of rice and water.
 
Out of sheer exuberance at once again finding food within reach, I
 
even ate two of the Philippine baloots. This is a duck egg in
 
which the duck has already begun to form, and which is served cold
 
after having been boiled. To my surprise, baloots were--well,
 
edible. In appearance they look exactly like an unborn duck in
 
cloudy jelly, the egg having been taken away from the setting duck
 
just-before the feathers have formed.
 
     One of the vital food items in the Filipino native
 
economy is the carabao, a bovine of the water buffalo type which
 
is also used as a draft animal. At several places where we stopped
 
the natives would kill a carabao, salt the meat heavily, and after
 
cutting it in strips place it in the sun to dry. After twelve
 
hours or so in the Philippine sun this meat seemed to be cured,
 
and apparently would last indefinitely.
 
     In admitting that we received help from the Philippine
 
guerrillas, we are supplying the Japanese with no information which
 
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