Bataan Death March
The Bataan* Death March began as a plea for life. Men were tired, weak, and lacking food. The 70-mile march from Mariveles (on the tip of Bataan) to San Fernando was a trial that tested a man, broke him, or got him killed. The famished men who made the exhausting march in World War II would never be forgotten.
On April 9, 1942, American and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula on West Luzon Island in the Philippines decided that they would not survive much longer in their fight against the Japanese. They were low on food, ammunition, and morale, and men were dying from lack of nourishment more than enemy fire. In the afternoon of the 9th, they turned themselves over to the Japanese by raising white flags, T-shirts, and whatever other white articles they had to let them know they were finished with fighting.
When Lt. General Masahuro Homma took the soldiers prisoner, he discovered that there were many more men than he had anticipated, and he was unable to transport all of them by truck to the prison camp in San Fernando. The only way to get the men to the camp was to make them march the 70 miles. The Japanese High Command advised him that it should only require a few days, but the men taken as prisoners of war were not in good health and were malnourished. That set the stage for an onslaught of inexcusable brutality.
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