In early November 1944,  a squadron of American B-29's  from the 14th Air Force out of Kunming, China flew over the factories. They drop leaflets. The leaflets were notices of the impending armistice printed in Japanese, Chinese and Manchurian.  Dire things were threatened if the POW 's were harmed. 

On December 7, 1944 a strike of 90 aircraft hit the Mukden area. Eighty planes attacked the MKK plant and adjacent area. The raid destroyed several munitions factories, but two bombs missed their intended targets, exploding inside our camp.  Seventeen  POW's died and at least a hundred were wounded. People ran in all directions, simultaneously excited by the prospect of freedom and frightened by the tremendous explosions and destruction falling all around. For a moment, I wondered if I was going to have survived all this time only to be killed by friendly fire. 

From newpapers smuggled in by sympathetic Chinese workers, we learned that the Japs were getting the hell beat out of them in the south.  That Germany had fallen and that the Russians were on the American side. 

A new phenomenon rose in the camp - liberation fever! 

Day 1067
Over three months have gone by since the air raids. Little has changed. …except that we know that the war IS going to END and WE are going to be freed.  Must just take each day as it comes and not give up hope.

I think I burned a section of the Japs factory down but this was an accident. I had  been cleaning some aircraft parts using gasoline in a bucket.  At the end of the day, I left the bucket beside the sand bucket used for fires.  As it happened, that night it got extremely cold and all the people working the night detail in the factory turned on  their little electric heaters and with all the machinery running it caused a short circuit. 

One of the Japanese supervisors stepped on a small blaze to put it out but caught his tennis shoes (all of them wore tennis shoes) on fire.  So the Japanese guard next to him picked up the bucket of gasoline thinking it was water and doused it on the supervisor resulting in the man's death and that section of the factory burning before they could get the blaze controlled. 

The next day, I figured out what had happened and when I talked to the guard responsible for throwing the gasoline, he said,  "Speak nye, nye!" 

Obviously, not wanting anyone to know that the supervisor was killed and factory was damaged because he couldn’t tell the difference between gasoline and water, the guard brings food to keep me quiet, but I wasn't about to tell anyone else what happened. I just take the food and keep quiet.