Bataan Death March

The Bataan Death March wont' be forgotten for some time. After the fall of Bataan, some 90,000 to 100,000 Filipino and American POWs were forcibly marched over 60 miles to internment camps. How long would it take us today to cover that distance? 2-3 hours?

That march decimated the number of Bataan survivors to an estimate of 50,000 to 70,000 after physical abuse, murder, torture, and savagery. The Death March is both commemorated in the Philippines and US today.

 

Ack, I recall when I learned about this in High School. We didn't go too in depth into the subject, but the thought of what those POW and those captured Filipinos went through really terrified me.

 

it was terrile then, but it would also be terrible all the same still in this day and age, I don't think that any modern amenities would help when your being forcably marched along 60 miles of beaten track, hills and mountains probably with no food or water and having to drag dead weight around in injured soldiers.

It was a hell of a lot of people who died or didnt make it, but due to the volume of POWs it was also a lot of soldiers who survived that torturous time. Because of this we can see how things like Racism for other cultures can be deeply ingrained into a person and easily passed onto the family and children, albeit no excuse, its not always simple black vs white racism out there, many racist beliefs originate from these kind of experiences too.

 

The Bataan Death March is one of the worst moments on the lives of the Filipino survivors of WWII. Some of them are still holding a grudge against Japanese. I have watched the movie about it, it was so terrible.

 

The War documentary covers this part of the war in a little detail. Honestly, there is a lot of this documentary that I find it really hard to watch.

The family as a whole started watching it on PBS together and I bought the DVD collection because I missed some and wanted to see some parts over.

Sad part of history and I dont know how those men lived through it.

 

I haven't read a lot about the Bataan Death March but have heard a little about it and how extremely torturous it would have been for the subjects of it. These kind of marches often don't call to mind the same horror as concentration and POW camps but they can be equally if not more horrendous for those involved in them.

 

I have read about this Bataan Death March and it is horribly terrible what they had to go through. I could not even begin to imagine. Has anyone ever read any first person accounts on this? I would love to read something from someone who had to go through this. Thanks.

 

After the battle of Bataan,one lakhs American & Filipino POWs,captured by Japanese soldiers,were forced to march 90 miles from Bataan To Prison camps.This event is known as Bataan Death March in world war history.Thousands POWs died in the route due to disease, starvation, dehydration.Even they weren't provided food & water for days.54000 POWs were killed in this event.

 

Route Taken on the march



It's one thing to hear about it or read it on the news or the history books. It's another thing when a person who was there tells the story.

Alf R. Larson

Major Richard M. Gordon, U.S. Army (ret.)

 

The Bataan death march

On April 9, 1942, some 78,000 U.S. and Philippine troops surrendered to the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula of Luzon in the Philippine Islands. These men had fought magnificently, and for much longer than the Japanese had expected. Out gunned by the Japanese and abandoned by the United States, including at the end by General Douglas MacArthur, and with little ammunition, less food, and almost no medical care, they surrendered in the end due to starvation, disease, and a near-total lack of supplies. The Japanese were unprepared for the large number of prisoners they took and, despising prisoners of war (POWs) in any case, they themselves rarely surrendered, cared little whether the men lived or died. They forced their exhausted prisoners to walk 65 miles to the nearest prison camp, killing those who fell by the way, usually with great cruelty. No one knows the exact number of those who died, but it certainly ran to the thousands. By 1943 news of the death march reached the United States, further inflaming public opinion against the Japanese and contributing to the extreme brutality that marked the Pacific war.