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It’s almost beyond belief. How does someone make it through the worst of two wars only to be gunned down on the streets of home for the few bucks in his pocket? It’s been 40 years since the murder of Heren Cabacar, a soldier who survived the Bataan Death March of World War II and the prison camps of the Korean War. Forty years since Portsmouth police knocked on the family’s door at 4 a.m. Forty years since the headlines shouted “Ex-POW killed on walk home.” Forty years of wondering who did it. And trying to make sure the crime...

Lest We Forget - Corregidor Surrenders May 6, 1942

"The Filipinos did most of the fighting and most of the dying..." This tells the "true story" behind the "forgotten war" of Bataan and Corregidor -- savage battles that violently hurled falsely reassured Filipinos and an ill-prepared Philippines into the Second World War in the Pacific. Produced by the Department of National Defense of the Philippines and the Philippines Veterans Affairs Office this series of videos documents the outstanding courage, heroism and nobility of Filipinos regardless the inevitable fall of the country to the unrelenting Imperial Japanese military juggernaut. An outcome inevitably irreversible despite the fierce resistance of the mostly...

For the eighth time, Bataan Death March survivor Col. Ben Skardon finished his 8.5-mile memorial trek through a course at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Skardon, 97, was flanked by more than thirty supporters from "Ben's Brigade," a group of friends and family who have marched with him in past memorial marches. They wore Clemson University orange in honor of Skardon's alma mater. At one point, Skardon showed off his class ring from 1938, which he kept hidden from his Japanese captors. The infamous march saw tens of thousands American and Filipino soldiers taken as prisoners of war by Japanese...

CNN is reporting that the USS Bataan is being sent to the Persian Gulf with 1,000 marines on board. There is no word of a planned invasion. That will make seven warships there -- the USS Arleigh Burke, the USS Truxton, the USS Gunston Hall, the USS George HW Bush, the USS O'Kane, the USS Philippine Sea, and the USS Mesa Verde -- along with helicopters and warplanes that can be used for an invasion or for an evacuation of US citizens. There have been US drones flying over Iraq for several days, but now it's been confirmed that the...

John E. Love, a Bataan Death March survivor who led a campaign to change the caption on a historic march photo from The Associated Press, has died. He was 91. Love died Monday after a long battle with cancer, said Gerry Lightwine, pastor at La Vida Llena, an Albuquerque retirement home where Love lived. As a 19-year-old member of the New Mexico Guard, Love was one of 75,000 Filipino and American soldiers who were taken captive by the Japanese in World War II when the U.S. forces surrendered in the province of Bataan and Corregidor Island in April 1942. In...

In 1943, two Hollywood movies were made about the heroic nurses of the Philippines, “Cry ‘Havoc’ ” and “So Proudly We Hail,” but the real-life Angels of Bataan and Corregidor were almost forgotten after they were interned. The letters they wrote to their families in America never arrived and were found after the war in a Manila warehouse. Mrs. Manning later said that the prison camp had no showers, beds or kitchens. A single toilet was used by hundreds of people. Yet somehow she and the nurses persevered. They maintained strict military order among themselves, always wearing their uniforms and...

John S. Zale, a decorated Army veteran, former prisoner of war and retired carpenter, died unexpectedly Sunday in his North Tonawanda home. He was 90. Born John Zubrzycki in Lackawanna and raised there, Mr. Zale went to Lackawanna schools until the eighth grade, when he took a job with a painter so his family had one less mouth to feed at home. At 18, he enlisted in the Army and was stationed with the 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines, where he was severely wounded during the early stages of World War II. Following surgery at a field aid station,...

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GLOUCESTER— — James Downey Jr., who survived the infamous Bataan Death March in 1942 and became an inspiration to his family, died Monday. He was 96 years old. Downey served with the Army's 26th Cavalry Philippine Scouts, a decorated unit that still rode horses into battle in the early days of World War II. Half-Filipino by birth, his mother was of Philippine and Spanish heritage and his father was from Augusta County, a cavalry officer who fought in the Spanish-American War.

“There are times when men have to die,” Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson With the passing of each day, the living memories slowly flicker out. Soon there will be no one left who remembers the time when madness first gripped our country. How else but madness can one explain why we abandoned fellow democracies in their time of greatest need and left one of our own armies stranded at the mercy of a pitiless enemy. How else but madness can one explain why the American people would put their faith in a socialist politicians who led us to stripping...

4/2/2010 - LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. (AFNS) -- Five Luke Air Force Base Airmen participated in the 21st edition of the Bataan Memorial Death March March 21 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. More than 5,700 people from 50 states and five countries hiked the 26.2 mile course in honor of the World War II prisoners of war in 1942. "It's definitely one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life," said Tech. Sgt. Adam Greene, the 56th Security Forces Squadron quality control standardization evaluation NCO in charge. "Of the four deployments I've been on, three of...

For 68 years, John E. Love has been haunted by the memory of carrying fallen comrades to a mass grave hollowed out of a Filipino rice field. Now, at last, a bit of history is being rewritten because of those memories. After six months of research, The Associated Press is correcting the caption on one of the most famous photos in its library, 65 years after the image first moved on the newswire. The image shows defeated Allied soldiers after their surrender to Japanese forces on the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula in April 1942. Over the years, the photo has become...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Feb. 4, 2010) — More than 55 Missouri National Guardsmen from around the state participated in a 13-mile Bataan Memorial Death March prequalifier Jan. 23 on post. Soldiers attempted to finish in the top five of their respective category to make one of the state’s teams and advance to the 26.2-mile Bataan Memorial Death March on March 21 at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. This year’s event marks the 21st anniversary of the march. About 5,400 people participated in last year’s event that honors the 78,000 American and Filipino prisoners who were forced to...

Henry Grady Stanley survived malaria, dehydration and dysentery. He's been beaten, nearly starved to death and slashed with a bayonet. But those aren't the memories that disturb 89-year-old Stanley, a former POW and survivor of the Bataan Death March. He's hurt by what he sees as hypocrisy. Next year, nearly seven decades after forcing 75,000 U.S. and Philippine troops to march 70 miles up the Bataan Peninsula, Japan is expected to invite American POWs to the island nation for an official state apology. "It's a little late now," said Stanley, who lives in Garland with his wife, Jo Ann. "Most...

Bert Bank was a World War II veteran who survived the Bataan Death March, became a state legislator and founded two Tuscaloosa radio stations. Perhaps his biggest claim to fame, though, was as founder of the Alabama Football Network. Bank died Monday night at age 94.

SAN ANTONIO — Japan's ambassador to the United States apologized Saturday on behalf of his country for the 65-mile forced walk of U.S. troops and allies during World War II that left some 11,000 prisoners of war dead. "As former prime ministers of Japan have repeatedly stated: The Japanese people should bear in mind that we must look into the past and to learn from the lessons of history," Ichiro Fujisaki said at the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, the San Antonio Express-News reported. He said his country was extending a heartfelt apology for "having caused tremendous damage and...

Ambassador Speaks to Last 73 American Survivors of the MarchThe Japanese ambassador to the United States apologized in person today to the 73 surviving POWs of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines in April 1942 during World War II. "We extend a heartfelt apology for our country having caused tremendous damage and suffering to many people including prisoners of war, those who have undergone tragic experiences in the Bataan peninsula the Corregidor Island, Philippines and other places," Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki said at the last convention of the American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor POWs of the Japanese during World...