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USS Bataan Public Affairs USS BATAAN, Gulf of Mexico (NNS) -- The multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) was tasked Aug. 30 to assist with Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts. Two MH-60 search and rescue helicopters from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HC) 28, based out of Norfolk, Va., launched at 5 p.m. CST Aug. 30 to assist in the search and rescue efforts that are currently ongoing in and around the New Orleans area. At 6:30 p.m. CST, two MH-53 helicopters from Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron (HM) 15, based out of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, also...

August 6th marked the 60th anniversary of America’s use of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. While some still argue that President Truman’s decision to use the A-bomb was “controversial,” they are afflicted with the scourge of our time, the loss of a sense of moral proportion and certainty. Unfortunately, those with relativistic morals will lead us to see the day when nuclear weapons are used again – this time to end once and for all the barbaric savagery of Islamism. Green Left Weekly (GLW) calls the U.S. putting a swift end to WWII – using atomic...

Servicemembers and veterans were among those who got a sneak peek of the film that promotional materials say tells the story of the "most spectacular rescue missions ever to take place in American history: 'the great raid on Cabanatuan.'" The raid was conducted to rescue the more than 500 U.S. prisoners of war who had survived the Bataan Death March through the jungles of the Philippines. Lt. Col. Henry A. Mucci, working from 6th Army Headquarters in Luzon in the Philippines, was charged with figuring out how to free the POWs before the Japanese army's "Kill All" policy was enforced....

We are all very familiar with Senator Durbin's characterization of the Guantanamo detention center. I have been reading Oliver North's book War Stories II, Heroism in the Pacific. I have been taken aback by the treat of the American servicemen who surrendered in the Philippines and Horror that was called the Bataan Death March. I was also appalled by Secretary of War Henry Stimson's remark regarding the military's inability to send support to the troops fighting in the Philippines, "There are times when men have to die". . .

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...

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. - One generation of war heroes paid tribute to another March 20 at the 16th annual Bataan Memorial Death March. After 26 miles through gravel, sand and wind-blown dust, Sgt. 1st Class Michael McNaughton sprinted toward the finish line. He was one of five men, all amputees, sponsored by Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who participated in this year's march. "I wanted to do this for the Bataan survivors," McNaughton said. "The sacrifices they made were incredible." McNaughton knows first-hand about the sacrifices Soldiers are called to make during wartime. He was wounded while deployed...

FORT HUACHUCA - In preparation for Bataan Memorial Death March later this month, the Boy Scouts of America Catalina Council's Troop 431 hoofed along post for about 22 miles Saturday morning. Eleven of the troop's scouts participated in Saturday's training. Troop 431 has participated in the Bataan memorial march for seven years now, but seven years is longer than the stipulated Boy Scout tenure. For example, Jake Oliver, an Eagle Scout, has marched in White Sands for four years, he said. The 26-mile memorial march has been annually staged in New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range since 1989, in remembrance...

FORT HUACHUCA - It was early, it was dark and there was a cold bite in the air. But that didn't phase a small group of soldiers from the 18th Military Police Detachment. They had a mission to do Wednesday, and it wasn't associated with law enforcement. The soldiers were putting more miles on their boots, preparing for the Bataan Memorial Death March next month. "Each will have more than 100 miles on their boots," Capt. Randolph Morgan said. Morgan is included in that group. He is the captain of the MP detachment's five-man Military Heavy Division team that will...

Retired colonel who supplied Clinton's Vietnam deferment dies FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A survivor of the Bataan Death March in World War II who later accused Bill Clinton of deceiving him to dodge the Vietnam War draft has died. Retired Army Col. Eugene J. Holmes died of natural causes at his Fayetteville home Saturday, according to Moore's Chapel funeral home. He was 88. Holmes was director of the University of Arkansas ROTC program in 1969 when Clinton — then a Rhodes Scholar attending Oxford University in England — applied to the officer training program to satisfy draft deferments, but never...

"Recognition Day is a time to remember those veterans who gave up their freedom to protect ours."Roland E. Moore Director, VA Medical Center Sixty-two years ago, America watched as Japanese forces squeezed U.S. Army and Filipino troops onto a narrow Philippine peninsula on Manila Bay. The American commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, was ordered to leave for Australia and Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright was left the task of surrendering his 37,000 exhausted troops on April 9, 1942. Those men and 10,000 defenders of Corregidor, an island fortress in Manila Bay that surrendered May 6, were rounded up by the Japanese and...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. Welcome to "Warrior Wednesday" Where the Freeper Foxhole introduces a different...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... . U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. . . Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family...

Bataan survivor Danny Cooksley poses in a room at the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum. (Michael Maresh-Herald/Review) BISBEE - Bisbee resident Richard Cooksley knows all about the Bataan Death March because he lived and survived it. Cooksley and thousands of others were subjected to the infamous march in the early months of 1942 during World War II. He and the rest of his Army squadron were forced to endure the walk after Gen. Edward King surrendered the Bataan and all the men there to the Japanese. Cooksley said he was forced to march from the Bataan Peninsula to Camp...

Intercepted and decoded by the Allies, this message from the Japanese Vice Minister of War to the Commanding General of Military Police in Taiwan explains the conditions under which Japanese commanders could execute prisoners of war without formal orders from Tokyo. Author Linda Goetz Holmes, author of Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American POWs, points out that it was not a military order, but a policy clarification, since the author in the war ministry did not have the authority to issue orders. Still, according to Holmes, the message was "transmitted to every POW camp commander in...

PORT SAID, Egypt: Seven US warships crossed the Suez Canal on Tuesday heading to the Gulf to join the US military buildup in preparation for a possible attack on Iraq. The seven amphibious ships, based in Norfolk, Virginia, carry more than 4,750 sailors and 7,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. They are the USS Kearsarge, Bataan, Saipan, Ponce, Gunston Hall, Ashland and Portland. In Washington, defence officials said on Monday that the USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the Navy's latest Nimitz-class carriers with more than 5,000 sailors and naval aviators aboard, had re-entered the Arabian Sea over the...

TYLER MAN RETRACES BATAAN DEATH MARCH By: MARVIN ELLIS, Staff Writer April 20, 2002 PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN: Oliver C. “Red” Allen and his wife, the former Mildred Dougan, hold a display of World War II awards and insignia in front of their house in Tyler recently. (Staff Photo By Marvin Ellis) Oliver C. "Red" Allen and his wife Mildred just returned from their second trip to the Philippines this month - this time to observe the 60th anniversary of the Bataan Death March that began April 9, 1942, resulting in the death of 7,000-10,000 servicemen. (April 21,...