Ismael

Ismael Garcia

Bataan Death March

The Bataan Death March was the transfer, by the Japanese army, of 76,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners. The 70 mile march was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse, murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike by the Japanese Army.lt was later judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime. The Bataan Death March began as a plea for life. Men were tired, weak, and lacking food. The 70 mile march from Mariveles 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.

When Lt. General Masahuro took the soldiers prisoner, he discovered that there were many more men than he had anticipated. 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.

By that time, the Japanese had victory over the foreign meddlers they had been competing with for so many years, and were ready to show that they were the superior power in Asia. They committed random beatings and killings of all kinds. They killed men without provocation, or if a guard felt that someone had looked at him the wrong way, he was at liberty to sentence him to death. If a prisoner was found with a souvenir, he was shot immediately because his executioners assumed that the only way to obtain such an item was to kill a Japanese soldier.

In 1946, General Homma was held responsible for the brutal treatment of the soldiers. He was tried, convicted, and executed that same year. Testimonies of the survivors of the incident helped to convict the general of his war crimes.