Note on correct pronunciation: Filipino (Tagalog) speakers pronounce "Bataan" as (phonetically) "Bata-An".
In English, the name is rendered 'Baaa-Tan' or 'Bat-tan'.
The Bataan Death March (also known as The Death March of Bataan) took place in the Philippines in 1942 and was later accounted as a Japanese war crime. The miles ( km) march occurred after the three-month Battle of Bataan, part of
the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), during World War II. In Japanese, it is known as Batān Shi no
Kōshin (バターン死の行進, Batān Shi no Kōshin?), with the same
meaning.
The march, involving the forcible transfer of tens of thousands (72,000—75,000[citation needed]) of prisoners of war, the
surrendered remnants of the combined United States personnel and the Phillipines home defense forces from the Bataan peninsula to
prison camps was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse, murder, savagery,
and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. Beheadings, cut throats and
being casually shot were the more common and merciful actions — compared to bayonet stabbings, rapes, guttings (cut open bellies
and left to die), numerous rifle butt beatings and a deliberate refusal to allow the prisoners food or water while keeping them
continually marching for nearly a week (for the slowest survivors) in tropical heat. Falling down, unable to continue moving was
tantamount to a death sentence, as was any degree of protest or expression of displeasure.
Prisoners were attacked for assisting someone failing due to weakness, or for no apparent reason whatever. Strings of Japanese
trucks were known to drive over anyone who fell, resulting in a corpse resembling squashed tomato. Riders in vehicles would
casually stick out a rifle bayonet and cut a string of throats in the lines of men marching along side the road. Accounts of
being forcibly marched for 5–6 days with no food and a single sip of water are in post war archives including filmed
reports.[1] The exact death count has been impossible to
determine, but historians have placed the mininum death toll between six and eleven thousand men; whereas other post war allied
reports have tabulated that only 54,000 of the 72,000 prisoners reached their destination— taken together, the figures document a
casual killing rate of one in four up to two in seven (25% to %28.5) of those brutalized by the forcible march. How many died
from the brutal experience in delayed effects after reaching the internment camps at the end of the march is also accounted as a
high but uncertain number.[2]
The Fall of Bataan
On April 9, 1942, as the final stage of the Battle of
Bataan, approximately 75,000 Filipino and American soldiers, commanded by Major General Edward "Ned" P. King,
Jr., were formally surrendered to a Japanese army of 54,000 men under Lt. General Masaharu Homma.
Logistics planning to move the prisoners of war from Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell, a prison camp in the province of Tarlac, was handed down to transportation officer Major General Yoshitake Kawane ten days prior to the final
Japanese assault. The Japanese, having expected the fighting to continue, anticipated about 25,000 prisoners of war and were
inadequately prepared and/or unwilling to humanely transport a group of prisoners whose number reached almost three times that
estimate.
The Death March
Prisoners on the march from Bataan to the prison camp, May 1942. (National Archives)
At dawn, 9 April 1942, and against the orders of Generals Douglas McArthur and Jonathan Wainwright, Major General Edward P.
King, Jr., commanding Luzon Force, Bataan, Philippine Islands, surrendered more than 75,000 (66,000 Filipinos, 1,000 Chinese
Filipinos, and 11,796 Americans) starving and disease-ridden men. He inquired of Colonel Motoo Nakayama, the Japanese colonel to
whom he tendered his pistol in lieu of his lost sword, whether the Americans and Filipinos would be well treated. The Japanese
aide-de-camp replied: “We are not barbarians.” The majority of the prisoners of war were immediately robbed of their most trivial
keepsakes and belongings and subsequently forced to endure a grueling 90-mile enforced march in deep dust, over vehicle-broken
macadam roads, and crammed into sub-standard rail cars to captivity at Camp O’Donnell. Thousands died en route from disease,
starvation, dehydration, heat prostration, untreated wounds, and wanton execution. Some survivors stated that many of the
fatalities resulted from the prisoners' failure to observe sanitary precautions, causing the spread of disease—notably
dysentery. [citation needed]
News of this atrocity sparked outrage in the US, as shown by this propaganda poster. The newspaper clipping shown refers to the
Bataan Death March.
Those few who were lucky enough to travel to San Fernando on trucks still had to endure more than 25 miles of marching.
Prisoners were beaten randomly, and were often denied the food and water they were promised. Those who fell behind were usually
executed or left to die; the sides of the roads became littered with dead bodies and those begging for help.
On the Bataan Death March, approximately 54,000 of the 72,000 prisoners reached their destination. The death toll of the march
is difficult to assess as thousands of captives were able to escape from their guards. All told, approximately 5,000-10,000
Filipino and 600-650 American prisoners of war died before they could reach Camp O'Donnell. [3]
Camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan
Prisoners on burial detail at Camp O'Donnell.
On June 6, 1942, the Filipino soldiers were granted amnesty
by the Japanese military and released. The American prisoners continued to be held, eventually to be transferred to camps outside
of the Philippines. The start of this process began with American prisoners moving from Camp O'Donnell to Cabanatuan. Acting as a staging camp, many of these American prisoners then were sent from
Cabanatuan to prison camps in Japan, Korea, and Manchuria in transports known as
"Hell Ships." The 511 prisoners-of-war who still remained at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp as of
January 1945 were freed during an attack on the camp led by United States
Army Rangers later known as The Great Raid.
War Crimes Trial
After the surrender of Japan in 1945, an Allied commission convicted General Homma of war crimes, including the atrocities of
the death march out of Bataan, and the following atrocities at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan. The general, who had been absorbed
in his efforts to capture Corregidor after the fall of Bataan, claimed in his defense that he remained ignorant of the high death
toll of the death march until two months after the event. His neglect would cost him his life as General Homma was
executed on April 3, 1946
outside Manila.
Commemorations
The Philippines
New Mexico, USA
The Bataan Death March is commemorated every year at White Sands Missile
Range just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. The march, which covers 26.2
miles via paved road and sandy trails, allows 4000 entrants from both civilian and many military units both International and the
United States armed services. Several of the few remaining Bataan prisoners await the competitors to congratulate them on their
success of the grueling march. [4]
Minnesota, USA
The 194th’s Company A was deployed to the Philippines in the fall of 1941. To commemorate the military and civilian prisoners
that were forced to march from Bataan to Camp O’Donnell, an annual Bataan Memorial March, organized by the 194th Armor Regiment
of the Minnesota Army National Guard and is held in Brainerd, MN. The march is open to anyone who wishes to
participate with ten and twenty mile distances. The march has different categories consisting of teams, individuals, light pack,
or a heavy pack. A closing ceremony is held at the end to award the finishers and pay tribute to the survivors and their comrades
who did not survive the death march.
Maywood, IL USA
For 65 years, this small western suburb of Chicago has marked the second Sunday in September as "Maywood Bataan Day". This is
the anniversary of the first Maywood Bataan Day held on the second weekend of September, 1942. At that time, residents of this
suburb were raising awareness of the status of nearly 100 Maywood National guard troops who were taken prisoner when American
forces surrendered Bataan on April 9th, 1942. These men were forced to endure the Death March, prison camps, hell ships and eventually slave labor in Japan. The men were part of Company B of the 192nd Tank Battalion.
The original Maywood Bataan Day drew more than 100,000 spectators, dozens of marching bands, and celebrities including the
Mayor Ed Kelley of Chicago,
and other movie and radio stars. Today's celebration is much smaller, but still draws several hundred people. The service is
supported by the village of Maywood, IL and a non-profit group, the Maywood Bataan Day
Organization. [5]
Memorials
- The Bataan Bridge in Carlsbad, New Mexico commemorates
the victims of the march.
- The Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Bridge in Chicago, Illinois, where
State Street crosses the Chicago River,
commemorates the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor as well as those on the march.
- The Bataan Memorial Highway in Indiana, SR 38 from Richmond, Indiana to Lafayette, Indiana.
- Highway-70, through Southern New Mexico was renamed the Bataan Memorial Highway.
- Statue of American and Filipino Bataan survivors resides at Veterans Memorial Park, in Las Cruces, New Mexico
- The "A Tribute To Courage" Memorial in Kissimmee, Florida, at the corner of
Lakeshore Boulevard and Monument Avenue. It depicts a scene from the Bataan Death March: two soldiers, one American and the other
Filipino, are propping each other up while a Filipino woman is offering water to them. It symbolizes the unique friendship
between the United States and the Philippines - the two countries fought together during World War II, and the heroism and
comradeship between the Americans and Filipinos. It was sculpted by Sandra Storm and is made of bronze. A brick walkway encircles
the monument and there are commemorative plaques depicting the history of the Bataan Death March and the Memorial. American and
Filipino flags fly side by side. It is the only statue in the United States dedicated to the heroes and survivors of the fall of
Bataan and Corregidor and the Bataan Death March [1].
- Bataan Elementary School in Port Clinton, Ohio commemorates the 32 men from the Port Clinton area who were victims of the march. [2]
See also
References
External links
- American Battlefield Monument Commission website Those
lost in Philippines are memorialized on Tablets of the missing on Manila American Cemetery,Manilia Philippines.
- Battling
Bastards of Bataan survivors org.
- Bataan Memorial Death March - A 26 mile march
commemorating the Bataan Death March (held yearly in New Mexico, USA)
- "Back to Bataan, A Survivor's Story" - A
narrative recounting one soldier's journey through Bataan, the march, prison camp, Japan, and back home to the United States.
Includes a map of the march.
- The Bataan Death
March - Information, maps, and pictures on the march itself and in-depth information on Japanese POW camps.
- PBS American Experience: Bataan
Rescue The story of the 1945 rescue of Bataan Death March survivors
- "Technical Sergeant Jim Brown U.S.
Army Air Corps (ret) Bataan Death March Survivor Presentation to EAA Chapter 108 May 16 2000"
- Proviso East High School Bataan
Commemorative Research Project - Comprehensive history of the Battle for Bataan, the Death March and the role of the 192nd
Tank Battalion
- Bataan and Corregider Memorial Foundation of
New Mexico 200th & 515th Coastal Artillery units
- 4th Marine
Regiment. 1st Battalion/4th Marines and 3rd Battalion/4th Marines were at Corregidor
- 4th Marines at Corregidor and Bataan Death March
- Maywood Bataan Day
Organization Marks Bataan Day on the second Sunday in September since 1942
- 1200 Days, A Bataan POW Survivor's Story A
biography of Russell A. Grokett's survival of the Bataan Death March, including three years as a Japanese Prisoner of War.
- Chicago's Bataan-Corrigedor
Memorial Bridge
- [3] - Info on the
Dambana ng Kagitingan Shrine.
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