Lee Mayo enlisted in the US Army in October of 1941, just before Pearl Harbor Day. He kept a diary, titled "My Life in the Service" between July 23, 1944 and December 18, 1945, while moving around the South Pacific. He spent most of that time in the Philippines, fighting in the Battle of Manila in 1945, but also visited and wrote about other locations on Luzon and Leyte. He writes about such things as Japanese suicide bombers attacking his ship, Japanese soldiers committing suicide to avoid being captured, civilian populations on some of the islands they stop on, bartering and attending boxing matches with Australian soldiers, and personal illnesses including "jungle rot" and "yellow jaundice."

Lee W. Mayo was born in 1915, and lived in Baxter, Pennsylvania with his wife, Dorothy. He enlisted in the US Army in October of 1941, and served until 1945.

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