Sixty Years Ago ...
Dateline:
12-24 April 1942
The
Murderous Bataan Death March
Pacific
Theater of Operations
by Jennifer
King and Timothy Rollins
Reflections on World War II
A
Special Note to Our Readers: With the Allied forces doggedly holding on
to Bataan and the Island Fortress of Corregidor some months earlier, the Japanese
High Command were getting increasingly unhappy with their field commander Lieutenant
General Masaharu Homma. Expecting a quick surrender of these two key areas,
thus freeing the port of Manila Bay for Japanese use, the Japanese whad become
extremely impatient with Homma (pictured below) for taking longer that they
felt was necessary in securing these two key areas. Eventually, these two key
areas fell into Japanese hands, and then the real nightmare began for
those American and Filipino troops that had fallen into their hands.
As the prisoners were processed by their Japanese captors, they were subject to various means of abuse and torture which had become synonymous with the Japanese military of that time. Perhaps no symbol of World War II abuse had become more commonly associated with the Japanese than the Bataan Death March. - Jennifer and Tim
The
Japanese Commander, Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma (right), was faced with
a dilemma. The Japanese High Command were unhappy with him, having expected
the quick surrender of both Bataan and the “Island Fortress” of Corregidor many
months earlier. Without possessing both entities, the Japanese fleet was effectively
denied the use of Manila Bay, one of the most important harbors in all of Asia.
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Major
General Jonathan M. Wainwright (left), holed up in the tunnels at Malinta on
Corregidor, doggedly refused to surrender, making the hasty evacuation of the
Bataan troops all the more necessary. Unfortunately, General Homma’s evacuation
plans had been drawn up with faulty intelligence information. The plans anticipated
25,000 prisoners, while there were actually closer to 100,000, including civilians.
Additionally, Homma was not aware of the deplorable condition of the troops
- racked with tropical diseases and malnourished, they were expected to make
a march that even healthy men would have found taxing.
The men were expected to walk the sixty-five miles from Bataan to the railhead at San Fernando, where they would travel an additional twenty-five miles to Camp O’Donnell, a former training installation for the Philippine Army. The Japanese, used to forced marches of long duration due to their lack of motorized transport, did not consider this excessive. For the weakened troops, beset with malaria and dysentery, it would become an epic struggle for survival.
Much has been written about the brutality and savagery of the average Japanese soldier during World War II. Various reasons for their conduct has been cited, including the barbarity of their own training - superior officers beat or struck their inferiors with impunity; and the influence of the “Bushido” code, or warrior ethic, which emphasized honor and blind loyalty. Nevertheless, it must be noted that those who committed the greatest atrocities on others came invariably from totalitarian regimes - where their minds had been brainwashed from birth.
The
Japanese soldiers, fresh from their own fight at Bataan, and steeped in a culture
which regarded all others as inferior, had nothing but contempt for their captives.
The POWs were first rounded up, and then stripped of anything of value, including
their canteens and rations. In several instances, coveted rings were removed
by simply hacking the offending finger off.
The men were forced to line up in four rows of about one hundred each and march down the dusty road in the blazing heat. Passing convoys would sometimes try to hit them with rifle butts, or a sword. The Japanese guards refused them water, and the diseased men began to stagger, fall behind, or collapse in the searing heat -which only infuriated the guards further. The Japanese guards began regularly beating, shooting or bayoneting any stragglers. Soon, the Americans learned to help their wounded buddies along, lest they be cavalierly discarded like so much trash alongside the ditches lining the road.
As they straggled onwards in the unrelenting heat, they passed through small Filipino villages. The compassionate Filipinos tried to throw them bits of chicken, rice cakes and sugarcane. This enraged the Japanese soldiers, and they took particular delight in punishing those who would dare to aid the prisoners. In one case, Japanese guards tied up 400 Filipinos with telephone wire, and then bayoneted or beheaded them from behind. In another, a young pregnant woman who was giving the Americans cassava cakes was taken behind a tree, where her live fetus was gouged out by a bayonet.
In several instances, still-living men were buried alive by reluctant burial squads. Hesitation was met with death. The men began to spot headless corpses, lining the roadside ditches. It was later estimated that there was one per every mile.
When the exhausted, ill and dehydrated men finally reached San Fernando, they faced a further journey into hell. The men were forced into tiny boxcars which were baking in the hot sun. The guards, attempting to force 100 men into each boxcar, crammed the feeble POWs in shoulder to shoulder. In the unventilated boxcars, the stench of 100 unwashed, malarial and dysentery ridden soldiers was unbelievable. Men were vomiting and defecating all over themselves, and each other.
After several hours, the train thankfully stopped and those who were still alive got to endure further deprivations and brutality as they marched for another two hours in the sun to Camp O’Donnell.
Out of the estimated 70,000 American and Filipino troops who embarked on the Death March, 14,000 died on the March alone.
General Wainwright held onto his increasingly shaky position at Correigdor, now subject to Japanese heavy artillery shelling, until the sixth of May. Wainwright’s troops, now POWs, would later join their Bataan brethren at another hellhole of a camp, called Cabanatuan.
The Americans' defiant defense of the Philippines, and the heroism of the brave Filipino Scouts who fought with them, inspired Americans and Filipinos both. It also helped to cement a strong friendship between the two countries, which continues today. American and Filipino troops which had escaped the clutches of the Japanese formed a rough guerilla command which would harass the Japanese occupiers until the end of the war.
The horrific treatment of the prisoners, as it seeped out, enraged the American public and only stiffened their determination to rid the world of the Japanese “Octopus”.
For his courage and his defiance in the face of overwhelming odds by Japanese troops, General Wainwright was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Truman upon his return from the war. The citation reads as follows:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has awarded in the name of The Congress the Medal of Honor to
GENERAL
JONATHAN
MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT IV
UNITED STATES ARMY
Rank and organization: General, Commanding U.S. Army Forces in the Philippines. Place and date: Philippine Islands, 12 March to 7 May 1942. Entered service at: Skaneateles, N.Y. Birth: Walla Walla, Washington. G.O. No.: 80, 19 September 1945.
CITATION:
Distinguished himself by intrepid and determined leadership against greatly superior enemy forces. At the repeated risk of life above and beyond the call of duty in his position, he frequented the firing line of his troops where his presence provided the example and incentive that helped make the gallant efforts of these men possible. The final stand on beleaguered Corregidor, for which he was in an important measure personally responsible, commanded the admiration of the Nation's allies.
It reflected the high morale of American arms in the face of overwhelming odds. His courage and resolution were a vitally needed inspiration to the then sorely pressed freedom-loving peoples of the world. ***
© 2002 Jennifer King and Timothy Rollins
Following
the surrender by the Japanese on the USS Missouri on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo
Bay, General Wainwright returned home to a hero's welcome, where received both
his fourth star, promoting him to full General as well as the Medal of Honor
from President Harry S. Truman. He then went on in January of 1946 to assume
command of the 4th Army in Fort Sam Houston, Texas and retired from active duty
in August of 1947. General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV, US Army, Retired,
MH, died 2 September 1953 and was buried with full military honors in Arlington
National Cemetery alongside his father, who had also been a career army officer
who had died in the Philippines many years earlier.
As for Lt. General Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March: He was executed outside Manila by a US Army firing squad on 3 April 1946.
COPYRIGHT © 2002 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN. All writers retain rights to their work.
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