Posted on 08/14/2026 10:37:39 PM PDT by PghBaldy
A young man who once wondered if he would live past 1941 will be turning 105 years old Saturday.
James (Pat) Bollich grew up in Louisiana. He trained at Fort Polk and arrived in the Philippines in November, 1941, less than a month before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Jamie Bollich wrote, “U.S. and Filipino forces retreated to the Bataan Peninsula when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, but after four months their food and ammunition ran out and the 70,000 troops were forced to surrender.”
(Excerpt) Read more at lufkindailynews.com ...
Stories of the march and the prison camp were horrific..There’s a movie about a raid to free the prisoners on Cabanatuan..”The Great Raid” - Benjamin Bratt starred in it; American military and Filipino guerillas conducted the raid. There are also some good books about the American nurses in the Philippines who were taken prisoner.
My mother’s only brother was killed on Bataan January 24, 1942 on the Abucay line before the march and our family was notified in March or April 1942...
Years ago in Orange County, CA we met a survivor of the march..he and his brother were taken prisoners but his brother didn’t survive. I had letters from my uncle that my mother had given me and I took them with me when we met him and he gave me a 1989-90 yearbook about the 31st Infantry Regiment that my uncle was in...one of his letters had the logo of the Regiment on it..he also gave me a pin of the Regiment - polar bear..
My uncle’s name appears on the wall at the American Cemetery in Manila but his last name is spelled wrong. He wasn’t married and there was no next of kin to make the correction just in paperwork when my sister and I discovered it in clippings where no one had ever noticed it before.
There are so many in this country who don’t realize the sacrifices that were made - from our country’s inception to present day...shameful!
Someone here on FR tipped me to read Knights of bushido. unbelievable cruelty perpetrated by the Japanese. which lead me to scourge of the swastika even more accounts of the horrors of war. reading Gemini now about the early space program just to clear my mind a little
When Hitler read in the papers about the “Rape of Nanking” he thought his new Asian Axis ally was being a bit too cruel. If Hitler thinks you are cruel that’s over the top.
I just posted #21 about my mother’s brother being killed on Bataan. My mother’s mother died when my mother was 16 so she quit school to help her dad on their PA farm and raised her 3 siblings. My uncle joined the Army as soon as he was old enough so he had been in the Army quite some time before being sent to the PI.
When my mother gave his letters to me that I referred to in my post, she cried as I read them. We were on vacation from CA in PA at the time and she wanted me to have the letters but STILL couldn’t talk about it without crying...Even the letter my mother wrote to him on Christmas Day was among the letters she gave me - marked “return to sender”.....His letters before his death spoke of the feeling of “something” in the air and “probably from Japan”...I had them all laminated.
Whether I agree with you or not, please be careful what you post.
The 'flock cameras' ain't just on lamp posts and the pubbies won't always be in charge.
Commies have long memories.
I read a lot - can’t help myself - and I’ll look for that on thriftbooks.com. There was a movie some years back about the conditions in the Japanese camps - “The Bird”...awful treatment. I mentioned in one post about meeting a survivor of the Bataan death march in OC, CA and it reminded me I HAVE another book that a resident of Irvine, CA where we lived, gave to me about her brother being taken prisoner...he was on one of the ships to take prisoners to Japan when it was bombed...
I think we all (the survivor and the resident) met through letters to the Editor on a Memorial Day weekend through the OC Register newspaper. It was a nostalgic time for so many and it was also the time I submitted the names of guys we knew who were killed in Vietnam - www.virtualwall.org....You can look at the site and see the many names and the info that the founders of the site research to go with the names. You can submit a name without knowing anything other the name but they do the research and add it. I did that with two high school friends - not knowing anything other than they died in Vietnam.
I submitted the name of one Air Force member who was given the Air Force Cross. His parents were friends and he was their only child. He was (Pararescue) and that was changed to the Medal of Honor years later - a movie was also made of that - “The Last Full Measure.” Politics kept it from being given when it should have been.
“”reading Gemini now about the early space program just to clear my mind a little””
We do have to step back when and if we can....
He was an airborne radio operator in the Army Air Corps. General Douglas MacArthur said, people of the Philippines, I shall return. Then, on October 20, 1944, MacArthur waded ashore in Leyte, and said, people of the Philippines, I have returned. From what I can see, the Philippine people have never forgotten that. Almost every village, town, or city, has a MacArthur street, highway, Blvd, or drive. He is still respected in the Philippines.
My dad worked with a guy who was a survivor and if they went out to lunch and the person driving had a Japanese car, he refused to get in it.
I also had a close in-law who was on Bataan death march. We never knew the scope of his whole story until he died (he had dictated it to a survivors group and the VA which was released later). After Bataan, Corregidor, and the Hell Ships, he eventually wound up in Manchuria in a coal mine.
We kids would only get small snippets of the story. Like the time my brother brought a Taiwanese classmate to the house, and he started conversing with that person - in Chinese. Everyone was like “What the heck? he speaks Chinese??!”
He grew up dirt poor, and joined the Army in 1939 to get 3 hots and a cot. He survived because he was young and tough as nails
Happy birthday soldier with one sharp, crisp, respectful salute!
On the other hand, the 442nd regimental combat team, made up, mostly of Japanese American soldiers, was, from what I have read, the most decorated US Army unit of World War 2. Many of whom, had families in the camps. They had something to prove. I have also heard, that many Japanese Americans were outraged by the “date that will live in infamy.” They didn’t like it either.
My great uncle was a survivor. Many of these men were from New Mexico. Maybe because they could speak Spanish? There is a big memorial there to the men from New Mexico who died or survived.
One of my Dads friend was a wwii vet that was a guest visitor of the Japanese empire. The guards brought them English language Japanese newspapers . He said they were amazingly uncensored . He kept up with the war reading those newspapers.
I think my uncle was doing the same thing, but he joined in 1933, and arrived in the Philippines in November of 1941. I sometimes wonder what was going through their minds, on Dec 7th, 1941? They might have known the Japanese were coming.
Respects to Mr. Bollich. Great respect.
I grew up with a couple of the March survivors. One was able to speak about it and Cabanatuan. What they endured at the hands of the jap maggots is only imagined in your most horrible nightmares.
God bless you sir!
The N.M. State R.O.T.C. sponsors the Annual Batann Memorial Death March on White Sands Missle Base. It is a full marathon in which you cross the desert and mountains of White Sands at marching pace. I have done it three times. It is the most rewarding marathon I have ever done.
In the early 2000’s a dozen or so survivors were on hand each year to greet the marchers and seemed taken back by OUR “thank yous” to them. ALL of them had survived the brutalities of the March and the camps and had emerged, maybe damaged, but with gratitude for life and were not embittered toward the Japanese.
They did cling to their motto, though:
“No Mama. No Papa. No Uncle Sam.
We’re the Battlin’ Bastards of Bataan!”
I wonder if this guy was one we met there.
One of the professors at the college where I teach was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and being a POW in Japan. He retired before I was hired but I had several conversations with him. Of course he’s no longer alive.
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