After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March.
The day after Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines began. Within a month, the Japanese had captured Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and the American and Filipino defenders of Luzon (the island on which Manila is located) were forced to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. For the next three months, the combined U.S.-Filipino army held out despite a lack of naval and air support. Finally, on April 9, with his forces crippled by starvation and disease, U.S. General Edward King Jr. (1884-1958), surrendered his approximately 75,000 troops at Bataan.
[King feared court martial for having disobeyed MacArthur's orders not to surrender, but as it turned out, King ultimately was praised for his actions] The surrendered Filipinos and Americans soon were rounded up by the Japanese and forced to march some 65 miles from Mariveles, on the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula, to San Fernando. The men were divided into groups of approximately 100, and what became known as the Bataan Death March typically took each group around five days to complete. The exact figures are unknown, but it is believed that thousands of troops died because of the brutality of their captors, who starved and beat the marchers, and bayoneted those too weak to walk. Survivors were taken by rail from San Fernando to prisoner-of-war camps, where thousands more died from disease, mistreatment and starvation. ...
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An interesting aside:
Mitsubishi apologizes to WWII prisoners, promises $50,000 to museum
July 22, 2015 12:00 AM
By Gabe Rosenberg / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
WELLSBURG, W.Va. — Pvt. Earl E. Loughner of the 803rd Engineer Aviation Battalion survived the Bataan Death March and three years as a prisoner of war, forced into labor on docks of Kobe, Japan. He never quite recovered from the malnutrition he suffered in those prison camps, dying in 1956 from a heart attack when his daughter was 7 years old.
On Tuesday, Peggie Loughner Fisher traveled from Grove City, Pa., to the American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor Museum, Education, and Research Center here to witness Mitsubishi Materials Corp. officially apologize for their use of POWs as slave labor during World War II.
“I just wonder how my dad would feel right now,” Mrs. Fisher said. “I’d like to think he’d have a forgiving heart.”
Mrs. Fisher held a framed picture of her young father, clad in his engineer’s uniform, as Hikaru Kimura, senior executive officer of Mitsubishi Materials Co., announced that the company offered its apology for forcing POWs to perform forced labor in their mines, and that the company would donate $50,000 to the museum to support an expansion of its preservation and education efforts.
“Seventy years ago, during a tragic war, situations and events occurred that should never happen again,” Mr. Kimura said through a translator. “The records and materials archived here will inscribe in our hearts the memory of U.S. POWs.”
Mr. Kimura made his address to a Wellsburg native, former Pvt. Eddie Jackfert, 93, a survivor of the so-called Japanese hell ships that transported prisoners and an ex-POW who helped found the museum in 2002.
“Japan and its constituents have come a long way, both economically and politically, since that distasteful era which has shadowed that nation for over 70 years,” Mr. Jackfert said in his response to the announcement. “It was time to bring that era to an appropriate ending.”
The Mitsubishi delegation arrived in town from Los Angeles, where on Sunday they apologized publicly directly to James Murphy, 94, at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance. Mr. Murphy worked in the mines owned by Mitsubishi Mining Co. as a POW from 1944-1945, one of 900 Americans conscripted by the company in four locations.
Mitsubishi’s apology is the first in history from a private Japanese company. The Japanese government previously made public apologies for its treatment of Allied POWs in 2009 and 2010. Thousands of U.S. soldiers were taken prisoner by Japan during WWII, many of whom died from poor conditions or from forced labor in steel camps, mines and other industries.
“For POWs, it is a long time coming,” said museum curator Jim Brockman. “This is a historic day for the museum.” ...
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