80 Years Later: Bataan Death March POWs Deserve Commemorating

This picture, captured from the Japanese, shows American prisoners using improvised litters to carry those of their comrades who, from the lack of food or water on the march from Bataan, fell along the road, in the Philippines, in May 1942. U.S. Marine Corps/Archives.gov, Public Domain

Commentary

On April 9, 1942, the United States experienced its largest military surrender, followed by the infamous Bataan Death March. About 76,000 American and Filipino soldiers, already weakened by months of fighting on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines with no supplies, were taken as POWs by the Japanese. They were then forced to march 65 miles to a prison camp, where thousands perished along the way.