This Day In WWII History April 10, 1942 Bataan Death March begins

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=4909 ^

[mainepatsfan]

April 10, 1942 Bataan Death March begins

The day after the surrender of the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese, the 75,000 Filipino and American troops captured on the Bataan Peninsula begin a forced march to a prison camp near Cabanatuan. During this infamous trek, known as the "Bataan Death March," the prisoners were forced to march 85 miles in six days, with only one meal of rice during the entire journey. By the end of the march, which was punctuated with atrocities committed by the Japanese guards, hundreds of Americans and many more Filipinos had died.

The day after Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines began. Within a month, the Japanese had captured Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and the U.S. and Filipino defenders of Luzon were forced to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. For the next three months, the combined U.S.-Filipino army, under the command of U.S. General Jonathan Wainwright, held out impressively despite a lack of naval and air support. Finally, on April 7, with his army crippled by starvation and disease, Wainwright began withdrawing as many troops as possible to the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay. However, two days later, 75,000 Allied troops were trapped by the Japanese and forced to surrender. The next day, the Bataan Death March began. Of those who survived to reach the Japanese prison camp near Cabanatuan, few lived to celebrate U.S. General Douglas MacArthur's liberation of Luzon in 1945.

In the Philippines, homage is paid to the victims of the Bataan Death March every April on Bataan Day, a national holiday that sees large groups of Filipinos solemnly rewalking parts of the death route.

[theDentist]

My GrandMother’s 2nd Husband survived that march and imprisonment. He never spoke of it to us, but she said many a night he’d wake up shouting pleas for one of his friends to stand up and continue.... the guards were coming.

[LZ_Bayonet]

Thank you for the post. We need to remember these type of events and the people who sacrificed.

[WayneS]

Thanks for the reminder. God Bless all the survivors and RIP/God Bless the those who did not make it.

My maternal grandfather narrowly avoided capture in the Phillipines during WWII. He was injured during MacArthur’s evacuation preparations (nothing heroic folks - he once told me a truck driver backed over him as he walked out of his tent one morning). He had quite a good sense of humor about it.

In any case, the leg injuries he suffered turned out to be about the best thing that happened to him during the War. He was shipped off the island to Australia aboard an incredibly over-loaded “hospital ship” called the USS Mactan, which I have been told was one of, if not THE, last vessels to take “regular grunt” troops away before the Japs caputured the place.

He was a fantastic grandfather! He died in 1982 when I was a senior in high school, and I still miss him.

There was a book written about the Mactan - some time in the late 70s, I think. It had a single small pressing, so it is pretty hard to find, but I would like to get my hands on a copy. My grandfather was interviewed by the author during his research for the book. My mother had a signed copy of it at one time; but I do not know what happened to it. She passed away a little over a year ago so I may never find out.

Those were some BRAVE people who served our country in that war.