White House Proclamation

As every president starting with Ronald Reagan in 1988, President Biden recognized National Former POW Recognition Day. He is the first to mention the Bataan Death March, but like many previous presidents on events remembering Japanese atrocities, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he neglected to mention who was the perpetrator of this war crime or who was the enemy. Where the Bataan Death March happened is also missing. 

A Proclamation on National Former Prisoner Of War Recognition Day, 2022

APRIL 08, 2022

On April 9, 1942, tens of thousands of American and Filipino prisoners of war began what would become known to history as the Bataan Death March. Thousands died during the march, but the indomitable spirit of those prisoners was never broken. Eighty years later, our Nation continues to honor their courage and recognize the more than half a million service members who sacrificed their own freedom as prisoners of war to ensure that our Nation and the values of freedom and democracy always prevail.

Former prisoners of war stand among the bravest of our Nation. They fought valiantly and served with honor — and under often agonizing conditions as prisoners, they demonstrated incredible personal courage, love of country, and devotion to duty. Through their extraordinary sacrifices and selflessness, they helped ensure freedom for millions of people. They are heroes.

I join all Americans in expressing our deepest gratitude to every service member who has endured being a prisoner of war and to their families, caregivers, and survivors. Their service — knowing all the risk and danger it could bring — is a credit to their character and to our Nation. On this day and every day, we remember the hardships of captivity they survived in service to our Nation. We also remember all the brave women and men who died as prisoners in foreign lands during our Nation’s past wars, and we grieve with those at home who prayed for their loved ones’ return. Their faith, love of family, and devotion to our Nation inspire us all, and we will always remember their sacrifices.

Today, our brave men and women in uniform carry on the rich legacy of our former prisoners of war — unrelenting in battle, unwavering in loyalty, unmatched in decency, and prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our Nation.

May God bless our former prisoners of war and their families, and may God protect our troops.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 9, 2022, as National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day. I call upon Americans to observe this day by honoring the service and sacrifice of all former prisoners of war as our Nation expresses its eternal gratitude for their sacrifice. I also call upon Federal, State, and local government officials and organizations to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

Never Forget the Bataan Death March

Eighty Years Ago The horrors of today's war in Ukraine recall some of the atrocities committed by the Japanese empire during World War II.

by Mindy Kotler, proprietor the American POWs of Japan blog

Published April 9, 2022 in the National Interest

Pvt. Lester Tenney of Illinois’ 192nd Tank Battalion felt lucky. The Japanese officer’s sword missed his head and neck. Although he was left with a large gash on his shoulder, medics could quickly sew it up and he was soon back on the dusty road up the Bataan Peninsula. To fall behind or to falter guaranteed death. Like the civilians of Ukraine’s besieged cities, the surrendered soldiers and civilians on the Bataan Death March were defenseless and at the barbarous mercy of the invaders. It began eighty years ago today, on April 9, 1942.

The Bataan Death March is remembered as one of the greatest war crimes of World War II. The Japanese commanders involved were prosecuted for crimes against humanity or for violating the international laws of war and executed. So seminal in American history were these events that Bataan is part of the American lexicon as a metaphor for a tortuous undertaking. It is why National Former Prisoner of War (POW) Recognition Day is held every April 9th. 

It is also one of the few Japanese war crimes for which the Japanese government has made a specific effort to atone. In 2009, the Japanese ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki, prompted by Tenney, traveled to the last convention of the American POWs of Japan and offered his country’s apology.  The ambassador also arranged a visitation program to Japan for surviving POWs.

“We extend a heartfelt apology for our country having caused tremendous damage and suffering to many people, including prisoners of war, those who have undergone tragic experiences in the Bataan Peninsula, Corregidor Island, in the Philippines, and other places,” he told the men and their families.

This apology, which never appeared on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, was repeated to four visiting delegations of American POWs by three Japanese Foreign Ministers. Japan’s current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, when serving as foreign minister, met with the 2013 POW group. Among them were two Bataan Death March survivors, including a Native American survivor, as well as two widows of Death March survivors. To his credit, he participated in the first principle of reconciliation, which is to hear their story.

The full story is that the Death March came after four months of combat starting when Japan attacked the Philippines within hours of bombing Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. A three-month siege of the Bataan Peninsula accompanied by a starvation diet, air and artillery bombardment, and disease had taken their toll. The Allies’ Europe-first policy combined with Japan’s control of the sea and air ensured that neither resupply nor reinforcement of the Philippines would come.

In the early morning hours of April 9, 1942, the newly appointed commanding general of Am-Fil forces on the Bataan Peninsula, Maj. Gen. Edward P. King Jr., realized that his troops faced slaughter if they continued to fight. He decided the rational course was to order the men and women under his command—against Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s orders—to surrender. Thus, 78,000 troops (66,000 Filipinos and 12,000 Americans) were taken captive by Imperial Japan.  Among them there were dozens of European civilians—Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, Norwegians, Germans, Finns, Dutch, and British—who had volunteered to join the fight. In addition, there were at least 10,000 in two field hospitals in Bataan. It is the largest contingent of U.S. soldiers ever to surrender.

Focused on saving his exhausted and ailing troops, King could not imagine the horrors that surrender would hold. On the same day as the surrender, the Japanese put the survivors on what has become known as the Bataan Death March. It is estimated that perhaps 2,000 either swam the three shark-infested, mined miles to the fortress island of Corregidor (No one on Corregidor was on the Death March) or disappeared into the jungle. Those who made it to Corregidor became immediately members of the 4th Marines fighting shore defense. Corregidor and the associated three island fortresses surrendered on May 6th. 

The Bataan Death March was a poorly commanded effort to move the surrendered troops and civilians on the peninsula to a POW camp one hundred miles north. The result was that the Japanese neglected the sick and killed the wounded; denied the POWs food, water, and medical care; and abused, robbed, and tortured them. Many men stamped into the road by tanks or shot trying to drink from a stream remain missing. 

For most, the first leg of the Death March was sixty-five miles from the port of Mariveles at the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula up the East Road to a train terminal at San Fernando. Others arrived at the East Road at the village of Pilar after a sixteen-mile trek from Bagac on the west side of Bataan. It took an average of five days in the tropical heat for the terrorized, sick, and starving men to reach the station. There they were stuffed standing one hundred at a time into small, unventilated boxcars for a twenty-four-mile ride north to the town of Capas. Many died in these rolling ovens.

The survivors were forced to walk another five miles to Camp O'Donnell, an unfinished Philippine Army training camp. With only two spigots of water and no sanitation, the camp was quickly compared with the Confederacy's Andersonville prison camp. Hundreds died of disease, starvation, dehydration, and despair. Most of the deaths from the Death March happened here or at its successor camp, Cabanatuan. 

Survivors of the Bataan Death March endured three-and-a-half years of death camps, brutal labor, and unimaginable indignities and injury. Many were taken to Japan aboard hellships to be slave laborers for Japanese companies in Formosa, Japan, Manchuria, and Korea.  Again they were denied food, medical care, clothes, and adequate housing. 

Tenney ended up in Mitsui’s Omuta coal mine near Nagasaki. The working conditions were so severe that POWs traded their meager meals to have their arm or leg broken so that they would get a short reprieve from going back underground. Today, the mine is a UNESCO World Industrial Heritage site.

More than half the Americans taken prisoner on Bataan died before war’s end. This was greater than the overall death rate for American POWs of Japan, which was 40 percent. It was more deadly to be a POW than a combat Marine in the Pacific. By comparison, the death rate for Americans taken prisoner by the Nazis was less than two percent.

As horrifying as the Bataan Death March was, it was not an exception in Japan’s war. Other death marches were imposed upon American and Allied POWs throughout the Pacific.Torture and executions were commonplace. Death from overwork and malnutrition were the norm. Abuse was systematic.

How a country treats the defenseless and dependent is a measure of their citizens’ values. How the victims endure the neglect and damage inflicted upon them also reflects values. Like the men and women on Bataan, there is much to admire in the Ukrainians. They persist and endure.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in August 1943, when the outcome of World War II was still uncertain, “The story of the fighting on Bataan and Corregidor—and, indeed, everywhere in the Philippines—will be remembered so long as men continue to respect bravery, and devotion, and determination.” This still holds true eighty years later.

That Famous Photo on Bataan - No Survivors

Captured Japanese Photo, National Archives and Records 
Identifier:  NWDNS-127-N-114541

Bataan Death March The First Day

April 9, 1942

From left to right 

Private First Class Samuel Stenzler (September 15, 1895-May 26, 1942)

Private First Class Frank Spear 

(April 15, 1919-July 9, 1945) 

Captain James McDonald Gallagher 

(October 18, 1915-April 9, 1942) 

Their hands are bound because they were found to possess either Japanese money, personal photos of Japanese, or some other contraband. The figure to the extreme right is a Japanese soldier, who the three appear to be listening to.  None of the three men would survive captivity.

Samuel Stenzler was born in Tluste, Poland (then part of Austria) to a Jewish family and immigrated to the United States as a child. He married and resided in San Antonio, Texas, applying for American citizenship in 1909. Stenzler registered for the draft in World War I and was a member of the American Expeditionary Force. He returned to civilian life following the war, but after the death of his wife, he rejoined the United States Army on February 27, 1940. He was assigned to Company C, 31st Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Division, the premier American fighting unit in the Philippines. The 31st Regiment fought in the Battles of Layac (January 6, 1942) and Abucay Hacienda (January 17-24, 1942). C Company renamed the Abucay battlefield "Dead Men's Hill" because of their losses and the high number of Japanese casualties. The 31st Infantry Regiment fought a delaying action through April 1942 but was short of food, ammunition, and reinforcements throughout the campaign; the unit never had more than 60% of its authorized strength available. Company C was surrendered on April 9, 1942 with the rest of the 31st Regiment. Stenzler, 46, died at Camp O'Donnell on May 26, 1942, probably because of disease and starvation. His remains were repatriated and reburied at Long Island National Cemetery on October 18, 1949.

Frank Spear was born in Ledalis, Missouri. A Mormon, Spear enlisted on August 13, 1941 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and arrived in Manila aboard one of the last transports before the war began and was assigned to the Far East Air Force's 4th Chemical Company (Aviation). When the 31st Infantry was depleted in combat, Spear and the rest of 4th Chemical were assigned to the regiment because they had infantry training. Spears served with I Company after the Battle of Abucay Hacienda. After surviving Camp O'Donnell, Spear was sent on the hellship Koho Maru on September 20, 1943 to Tokyo POW Camp Niigata Camp 5-B, arriving in Osaka, Japan on October 5. Camp Commandant Lt. Tetsutaro Kato personally executed Spear on July 9, 1945, after Spear became insane with hunger and had attempted to escape several times. Spear was bayoneted in front of the whole camp. Kato was sentenced to death for killing Spear by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, but his sentence was commuted to 20 years by General Douglas MacArthur. When control of Kato was returned to the Japanese government in 1950, he was released with time served in 1952. Kato wrote Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai [I Want To Be A Shellfish] a novel dramatizing his wartime experiences and incarceration, claiming he was ordered to kill Spear by his superiors. The novel was made into a successful television movie in 1959 by Tokyo Broadcasting Service, and remade for television in 2007 and into a theatrical film in 2008. Spear's insanity, brought on by years of malnutrition, confinement and torture, is not mentioned, nor is Spear mentioned by name. Spear is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.

James M. Gallagher was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from Georgetown University in 1936. He attended Reserve Officers Training while in college. After college he joined the United States Army. When he arrived in the Philippines, he was assigned as a training officer to the 33rd Infantry Regiment of the 31st Infantry Division of the Philippine Army. Gallagher was killed the day this photo was taken or soon after. His family published a book of his letters home in memory of him. Gallagher was also honored in the annual of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. Gallagher was left off the official Prisoner of War rolls because he died on the Bataan Death March; his body was never recovered. He is also memorialized at Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. Gallagher was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

The Czechs on Bataan

Czechoslovak courage: Volunteerism in World War II

The Philippine Star 

– Article submitted by the Embassy of the Czech Republic

April 9, 2022 

In line with the Day of the Valor or Araw ng Kagitingan celebrated today, programs to honor the heroic defense and valiant fight of the men and women of war are conducted. Aside from the Filipino and American soldiers, the Embassy of the Czech Republic also pays tribute to the Czechoslovak nationals who volunteered to defend the Philippines during the Second World War.

This story of the Czechoslovak defenders of Bataan is unique, though unknown. Since they were nationals of Czechoslovakia, which at that time was under Nazi protectorate, the Japanese forces had guaranteed their safety. Nonetheless, they still chose to offer their service and therefore, were considered as the only nationals to serve in the US Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) from countries occupied by the Nazi forces. In the words of Karel Aster, one of the Czech defenders of Bataan who passed in 2019, “Fighting for the Philippines at that time was like fighting for the liberty of Czechoslovakia.”

This period in the history of the Czech Republic and the Philippines leaves an indelible mark on Czech-Philippine relations. The courageous decision to fight for the liberty of a country that was not their own was captured not only in the shrine dedicated to them in Capas, Tarlac but also in the headstones and walls of the missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.

With more than 16,000 graves of military dead and approximately 36,000 names on the Walls of the Missing, the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial is the largest of its kind. In the vastness of its lands, measuring 152 acres, lie the immense stories of the Second World War. These stories are the subject of an educational tour hosted by the erudite guide, Vicente Paolo Lim IV.

During the visit of the members of the Embassy of the Czech Republic led by Ambassador Jana Šedivá, Mr. Lim introduced that the stronghold in Bataan from Jan. 7, 1942 to April 9, 1942 delayed the Japanese forces from advancing in the Pacific, eventually leading to Allies’ victory in World War II.

He also shared the importance of the role played by the Czechoslovak volunteers during the war. For one, they were in charge of supply and logistics, and included in their responsibilities was to retrieve the rice-milling equipment in Abucay line, exposing them to 36-hour enemy fire. This rice-mill equipment was significant in increasing the ration of food for the US forces. Thus, Jan Bžoch, Pavel (Paul) Fuchs, Leo Hermann, Fred Lenk, Otto Hirsch and Arnošt Morávek earned the American Medal of Freedom – the highest civilian distinction of the US.

Among those who volunteered, two of the graves are found at the Manila American Cemetery: Leo Hermann and Pavel (Paul) Fuchs. Each of them carried unique experiences during the war. Based on archival records, Hermann died as a prisoner of war in the Japanese concentration camp, Fukuoka, on April 2, 1945. Meanwhile, Fuchs passed in Camp O’Donnell on May 25, 1942 due to dysentery. Aside from the Czechoslovaks who volunteered for the Allied forces during the war, another grave of an American soldier of Czech origin was visited. Charles Stejskal was assigned as an infantry replacement to M Company, 172nd Infantry 43rd Infantry Division who participated in the Lingayen Gulf invasion and other subsequent operations. He was killed on Jan. 24, 1945 near the town of Rosario in Northern Luzon.

The Czechoslovak volunteers experienced various horrors in the war – from encounters with artillery fire; the infamous death march; prisoner of war camps and the hell ships where lives were lost, and in all these stories the common theme of horror and desperation is evident.

Mr. Lim is the great-grandson of a Philippine war hero, Brigadier General Vicente Lim, who heroically laid down his life for his country. For him, the dedication to tell the stories of World War II is a personal mission in order to serve as a reminder of the havoc of wars.

Similar to the story of Czechoslovak volunteers, Brig. Gen. Lim dedicated his life to defend the Philippines from foreign powers. His tactical mind and strength in strategy helped in the stronghold of Bataan. It was also in Bataan that the Czechoslovak volunteers and Brig. Gen. Lim fought together; while the Czechoslovak volunteers were dismantling and retrieving the rice mill, Brig. Gen. Lim was with the 41st Infantry Division, commanding the frontline for defence. With Mr. Lim’s personal affiliation with the story of Bataan through his great-grandfather, it has become important for him to tell the story of the past so that people will learn from it and not commit the same errors.

The visit to the cemetery was also very personal for Ambassador Šedivá. With the ongoing war in Europe when Ukraine is facing an unprovoked invasion from Russia, it is timely to remember the history and lessons of previous World Wars.

“It is important that we recall the lessons of the past – that there are no victors in wars, and civilians, especially women and children, remain to be at risk the most. While the war seems far from our door, we will all be affected in one way or another, regardless of where we are,” remarked Ambassador Šedivá.

The Czech Republic, as one of the countries that have previously been occupied by foreign invaders, remains steadfast in its commitment to remember the past and to stand for those whose liberty is challenged. In celebration of the Day of the Valor or Araw ng Kagitingan, the Embassy of the Czech Republic recalls the past and remembers those who laid down their lives for freedom.

And, in the continuing fight and worsening situation in Ukraine, it encourages the public to continue to call on all parties of the conflict to fully respect international law, and to avoid repeating the horrors of the past. 

Remembering the Bataan Death March

Eighty years ago this week, the men and women on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines were fighting against all odds.

Four months of combat starting when Japan attacked the Philippines within hours of bombing Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941 and three months of starvation diet, air and artillery bombardment, and disease had taken their toll.  The U.S.-British Europe-first war policy combined with Japan's control of the sea and air was fundamental to the failure of supply and reinforcement.

In the early morning hours of April 9th, the new (March 11) commanding general of Am-Fil forces on the Bataan Peninsula, Major General Edward P. King Jr., decided that his troops would face slaughter if they tried to continue to fight. Fully aware that the 9th was the anniversary of the South's 1865 surrender at Appomattox, he ordered the men and women under his command—against General Douglas MacArthur’s orders—to surrender. Thus, 78,000 troops (66,000 Filipinos and 12,000 Americans were taken captive by Imperial Japan. Possibly 10,000 were in two field hospitals at the time. This is the largest contingent of U.S. soldiers ever to surrender.

Focused on saving his exhausted and ailing troops, General King could not imagine the horrors that surrender would hold. The same day as surrender, the Japanese put the survivors on what has become known as the Bataan Death March (BDM). It is estimated at maybe 2,000 either swam the three shark-infested, mined miles to the Fortress Island of Corregidor (NB: no one on Corregidor was on the BDM) or disappeared into the jungle. Those who made it to Corregidor became immediately members of the 4th Marines fighting shore defense. Corregidor was surrendered May 6th.

During the infamous Bataan Death March the Japanese neglected the sick and killed the wounded; denied the POWs food, water, and medical care; and abused, robbed, and tortured them.  These acts were both capricious and systematic. They became a constant for every POW of Imperial Japan. Thousands died. The first leg of the BDM March was 65 miles from the port of Mariveles at the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula up the East Road to a train terminal at San Fernando. There the men were stuffed standing one hundred at a time into unventilated box cars for a 24 mile ride north to Capas. There the survivors--many died standing--were forced to walk another four miles to an unfinished Philippine Army training camp that was Japan's first POW camp on the Islands, Camp O'Donnell. With only two spigots for water, the camp was quickly compared with the Confederacy's Andersonville prison camp. Most of the deaths from the March happened here or at its successor camp Cabanatuan.

Survivors of the March endured three and a half years of death camps, brutal labor, and unimaginable indignities and injury. Many were taken to Japan aboard hell ships to be slave laborers for Japanese companies. More than half the Americans taken prisoner on Bataan died before war’s end. The death rate for American POWs of Japan was 40%, whereas for those in Nazi POW camps it was less than 2%.

Thus, April 9th, are the 80th anniversaries of the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines and the start of the Bataan Death March. The BDM is one the greatest war crimes of World War II. So seminal in American history were these events that Bataan is part of the American lexicon as a metaphor for a tortuous undertaking and is the origin for this week’s National Former POW Recognition Day.

If you want your congressperson or two senators to remember this eventful day, I urge you to contact them immediately and ask why they are going into recess on Thursday without offering any statements or attending any memorial events. A Tweet will not do. Here is American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society Jan Thompson' s testimony last month to the House and Senate Veterans Committees., https://www.veterans.senate.gov/services/files/592D704A-75C7-4392-BF1A-523B0ABB814B

The Japanese have not forgotten. They arranged and have leaked the fact that the Speaker of the House of Representatives and a large delegation of members of congress will meet with the Japanese PM in Tokyo on April 9th.

If you want to participate in a memorial event, here is a list of what I could find. 

1. FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 11:00 am. World War II Memorial, Washington, DC.

Hosted by The Philippine Embassy 

Annual ceremony at the National WWII Memorial by the Pacific Victory Arch at the Southern Fountain Coping by the engravings of the words “Bataan” and “Corregidor” 

https://www.nps.gov/wwii/index.htm 

https://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org/ 

The Philippine Ambassador and Filipino military officials attend. Helping organize the event is Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project (FilVetREP) that is headed by General Tony Taguba, who is best known for his investigation of the war crimes at Abu Ghraib prison. 

On April 2nd, FilVetsREPs hosted a memorial walk/run at The Marina on Daingerfield Island in Alexandria, Virginia.

Contact: Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project

5002 Halley Farm Ct.

Alexandria, VA 22309

info@filvetrep.org 

2. SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 11:30 am, USS Hornet Sea, Air & Space Museum  Alameda, CA.

Hosted by Bataan Legacy Historical Society, the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society and the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society

Remembrance and Reconciliation, Bataan Death March 80th and honoring those on the three ship hellship voyage to Japan from December 1944 to January 1945. Planes from the USS Hornet bombed two of the ships, killing over 600 POWs. These men included Amb Walter Mondale's first cousin and the Smothers Brothers' father. Of the 1,600 men who boarded the Oryoku Maru in Manila on December 13, 1944, less than 300 survived the war. The event is organized by the Filipino American organization, Bataan Legacy Historical Society. 

>Governor Gavin Newsom has been invited. His maternal grandfather Arthur Menzies was with 60th Coast Artillery Regiment on Corregidor. He was a POW who was taken by hellship to Japan where he was a slave laborer for Nippon Steel mining coal. Menzies committed sucide in front of his twin daughters in 1973 when Newsom was 6. 

Contact: Cecilia I. Gaerlan, Executive Director,

Bataan Legacy History Society

(510) 520-8540, cecilia@bataanlegacy.org 

http://www.bataanlegacy.org/index.html 

3. SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1:00pm Symbolic March, 2:00 pm Program, Dominican College, Orangeburg, NY

Hosted by the Philippine American Cultural Foundation

 

Remember Bataan. Symbolic March on Bataan Road at  the site of the former Fort Shanks, followed by a formal program at Dominican College. 

WATCH the Symposium via Live-Stream, starting at 4:00 pm EDT, HERE.

Program HERE.

Gathering for March at 12:30pm at Tappan Zee High School, Dutch Hill Rd., Orangeburg, NY,

Program at Dominican College, Hennessy Center, 495 Western Hwy S, Blauvelt, NY 10913

Camp Shanks was built when the story of Bataan was still fresh in everyone’s memory. Two intersecting streets at the camp were named Bataan Road and Victory Road. This was to remind the troops departing for Europe that if they could emulate the courage, fortitude and spirit of men on Bataan and Corregidor victory would be achieved.

 

Contact: Jerome Kleiman, Executive Director

Philippine American Cultural Foundation 

 (845) 641-4217

 jeromekleiman@att.net

 

4. MARCH 20th – 27th. White Sands, New Mexico

Hosted by the White Sands Missile Range and the New Mexico National Guard

Annual Memorial Death March organized since 1989

The past two years has been held as a virtual only event.

The March has grown from 100 to almost 10,000 in the last in-person event.A number of Senators would join.

Contact: White Sands Missile Range Public Affairs Office  

FMWR-Bataan P.O. Box 400

White Sands Missile Range, NM  88002

https://bataanmarch.com/

usarmy.wsmr.atec.list.pao@mail.mil  

5.  SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2022, Noon (Closing Ceremony), Chesapeake, Virginia

Hosted by the VFW, SSG Jonathan Kilian Dozier Memorial Post 2894

Annual Bataan Death March Memorial Walk held at the Dismal Swamp Canal Trail,

1113 George Washington Hwy, Chesapeake, VA 23323

The event consists of three different walks starting at 7:00 am of various distances as well as a memorial ceremony dedicated to the survivors and other veterans. The event is open to all.

https://walkchesapeake.wixsite.com/chesapeakebataan

Contact: LTC Carl M. Dozier, AUS, Ret.  Gold Star Father, bulldoziero5@gmail.com,

VFW Post 2894 commander or 

Jose Vazquez, (757) 362-4227, jose@latinopridestore.com or walk.chesapeake@gmail.com 

6. SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 10:00 am, Wreath Laying Ceremony, Brainerd, Minnesota

Hosted by the Brainerd National Guard 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 194th Armor Regiment 

Annual ceremony at the Brainerd Training and Community Center (National Guard Armory), 1115 Wright St., Brainerd, MN 56401

The ceremony be livestreamed on the following Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/194thRegimentBataan 

https://www.facebook.com/194Armor/ 

On September 22nd there is a Memorial Death March run. 

Contact: (651) 268-8113, 194regiment@gmail.com 

Event contacts: Capt Michael Popp, (651) 268-8681

Sgt First Class Jade Caponi, (651) 268-8123,  jade.a.caponi.mil@army.mil     

Battalion Commander, Lt Col Jacob Hegestad 

7. SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm, Rededication of Bataan Memorial Park, Fort Bayard, New Mexico

Hosted by several community organizations

Annual festival and commemoration. This year’s event will take place between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm. https://www.grantcountycommunityfoundation.org/fiscal-sponsees-2-1

https://www.facebook.com/events/711559393170557/?active_tab=discussion 

Contact: Ms. Liz Lopez, (575) 574-2964, egarcia3264@gmail.com 

8. SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 6:00 am, Bataan Death March Commemoration

Valdosta, Georgia

Hosted by Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office

First held in 2021. The course is broken up into three legs, each 8.7 miles long, Marchers can cover one or two legs or complete the whole course.

 

Contact: Lt Rob Picciotti,  lcsobdmt2022@gmail.com with the subject line “BATAAN MARCH.” $20 fee.

 

9. INDEFINITELY POSTPONED, Bataan Memorial Park, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Honoring New Mexico's 200th and 515th Coast Artillery men, defenders of Luzon, Bataan and Corregidor

https://www.krqe.com/interactives/map-new-mexico-veterans-monuments-and-memorials/ 

https://www.cabq.gov/parksandrecreation/parks/prescription-trails/87106/bataan-park 

 

Contact: (505) 226-4899, bataan.nm@gmail.com 

10. SATURDAY, MAY 7, 10:00am-Noon, Bataan & Corregidor Commemoration

Hosted by the ADBC Museum, Education & Research Center, Wellsburg, West Virginia

Memorial service followed by lunch at the ADBC Museum, Education & Research Center,

Contact: Mr. James S. Brockman, Curator

945 Main Street, Wellsburg, WV  26070, (304) 737-7295, jim.brockman@wvlc.lib.wv.us 

https://adbcmuseum.com/ 

  

11. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2022. Maywood Bataan Day, Maywood, Illinois

Maywood Bataan Day Organization

Every Third Sunday in September. Begun in 1942, by the American Bataan Clan (ABC)m it is the oldest continual ceremony honoring the men of Company B, 192nd Tank Battalion who fought on Bataan. The town had the greatest number of soldiers from one town on the Bataan Death March. 

One of the featured speakers at the first rally was Illinois Governor Green (1941 – 1949), who remarked, “…the heroism of the men who defended Bataan and Corregidor and our other outposts will endure forever, giving new inspiration and new courage to free men everywhere”.

 

Contact: Col Richard A Mcmahon, Jr., President, ramcmahon1@aol.com 

https://mbdo.org/