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At 1140 on 29 December 1941 a flight of Japanese aircraft approached Corregidor. Air-raid sirens sounded, but most of the 4th Marines paid little attention to them, believing in the safety of Corregidor's antiaircraft defenses. Lieutenant Sidney Jenkins remembered, "bombs screaming to earth with shattering explosions, the crack of AA guns, the neat 'plop plop' of the AA shells bursting all over the sky . . . there we were, the whole regiment flat on our bellies on the lower deck of Middleside Barracks."

Marines in the upper decks of Middleside Barracks sprinted for the lower deck for protection. Most of the bombs that hit the building exploded on the second and third decks, but Private First Class Don Thompson and 20 other Marines on the first deck felt an explosion and a shower of cement dust. He looked up and saw blue sky though a hole in the ceiling of the supposedly bombproof barracks. Bombs continued to fall for the next two hours. Corporal Verle W. Murphy died of multiple wounds to the head and chest while trying to clear the building, and nine Marines were wounded in the attack.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Diosdado M. Yap