[WhiskeyX]

Anniversary of the surrender of Corregidor, 1942

[God luvs America]

absolute must reading for anyone who has an interest in the story of WWII in the Pacific...

http://www.amazon.com/Death-March-The-Survivors-Bataan/dp/0156027844

[Chainmail]

History ping.

[camle]

thanx for the vids. very informative

[rlmorel]

"..."The Filipinos did most of the fighting and most of the dying..."

I will check the video out later. I was a military dependent there a long time ago and spent several years over there. But I wonder if this is the kind of thing that, before I am done watching it, it will relegate Americans to the most minor of roles in battling the Japanese.

I hope not. I used to like and admire the Filipinos, but I get the impression there are many now in the mode of blaming all of the ills of their country on colonialism.

[Oatka]

In one of the many books I have read on this useless tragedy, there was an account of the Filipino recruits being armed with old 1917 Enfield rifles that had broken extractors, so they were issued wooden rods to knock out the fired cases. They were sent to fight the Jap thus armed. Damned near like fighting with muzzleloaders.

Among some of their other weapons were the WWI Stokes mortars. By the 1940s, the ammo had an 70% dud rate. The Japs were so contemptuous of them that when, on rare occurrences, a position we lost was recaptured, they found the mortars still there - with flowers stuck in the barrel.

These guys were living on a half cup of rice and a tablespoon of Salmon gravy twice a day. (There wasn’t a reptile or monkey seen anywhere - all eaten.) It’s a marvel they lasted so long.