National Former POW Recognition Day

Wednesday, April 9, was National Former POW Recognition Day in the United States and the Day of Valor (Araw ng Kagitingan) in the Philippines. Both memorialize the 83rd anniversary of the surrender of the Bataan Peninsula to invading Imperial Japanese forces.

Every year, there is a formal ceremony on Mt Samat that features the Philippines' president, cabinet, and foreign dignitaries. President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.'s anniversary statement, like last year's, again made no mention of Japan and simply asked Filipinos to follow the example of their country's World War II heroes. 

As you can see from this video, no one, not the president of the Philippine, not the Secretary of the Department of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro, not the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., nor the deputy chief of mission of the US Embassy, Y. Robert Ewing, identified in their remarks who the enemy was during the battle of Bataan. Japan as a perpetrator and invader was missing from all the statements with the exception of the one by the Japanese ambassador, 

Ambassador Endo Kazuya did not directly say who were the "courageous souls who made the ultimate sacrifice." Instead, he listed the various ways Japan has been helping the Philippines. He only observed that "By facing our history and sincerely reflecting on the deeds and sacrifices during those dark times, we lay the very foundation of our future-oriented partnership – one built upon mutual respect, understanding and trust."  The defenders of the Philippines have faded into their islands' invaders. 

In the U.S. the Philippine Embassy and the Washington Filipino Community held a program at the National WWII Memorial remembering Bataan.  On April 5, the Bataan Legacy Historical Society held a grand commemoration at the San Francisco National Cemetery for the 83rd Anniversary of the Bataan Death March and 80th Anniversary of the end of WWII. On April 4, the 14th Annual Chesapeake Bataan Death March Memorial Walk was held in Chesapeake, Virginia and attended by crew members of the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5). 

Neither the House or Senate Veterans Affairs Committees issued statements on April 9. None of the committee members did either. Maybe next year we can organize a letter writing campaign to encourage them to acknowledge National Former POW Recognition Day. Frankly, there is the same silence on National POW/MIA Recognition Day in September. 

By a law, signed by President Ronald Reagan on April 1, 1988, presidents are obligated to issue a proclamation to commemorate National Former POW Recognition Day and the unique service of POWs. This year's proclamation was a bit different from others. It was issued late in the day--proclamations are usually issued the day before--and less focused on POWs. See HERE.

Talking about "Bataan," the Department of Defense removed at least 13 public webpages that mentioned Bataan. This was part of a purge of DOD websites that were believed to display some sort of diversity, inclusion, and equality content. A 59-word list was presented to help identify content for removal. The list included "history," "respect," and "dignity."

This database, put together by Associated Press, identifies 13 webpages removed that mentioned Bataan: 9 about the Bataan Death March Memorial at the Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, MS; 3 reporting honoring Bataan Death March victims at the Osan Air Base in South Korea; and one at the Misawa Air Base in Japan reporting on the Osan ceremony.

When I first looked at this database, when the controversy was reported in March, I only found three webpages that mentioned Bataan. They all originated at an air base in New Mexico. Unfortunately, I did not record this. These pages appear to have been reinstated. 

POW Group Testifies to Congress

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD

to the

Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and House Veterans' Affairs Committee

 

Joint Hearing

 

To Receive Legislative Presentations of Veterans Service Organizations

 

By

Jan Thompson

President

American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society

 

13 March 2024

 

AMERICAN DEFENDERS OF THE PACIFIC

TIME FOR A CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL

&

MEMORIALS IN JAPAN

 

 

Chairmen Tester and Bost, Ranking Members Moran and Takano, and Members of the Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees, thank you for allowing us to describe how Congress can meet the concerns of veterans of World War II in the Pacific.

 

The American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) was founded in January 1946 at the Fort Devens, Massachusetts hospital by former POWs of Imperial Japan. The ADBC represented the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces in the Pacific who participated in the early resistance to, and defensive battles against, the armed forces of Imperial Japan from December 8, 1941 to June 9, 1942. Nearly all the survivors endured four years of merciless imprisonment by Imperial Japan throughout the Empire.

 

Our Memorial Society now represents their families and descendants, as well as scholars, researchers, and archivists. Our goal is to preserve the history of the American POW experience in the Pacific and to teach future generations of the POWs’ sacrifice, courage, determination, and faith—the essence of the American spirit.

 

Background

 

The common perception of an American POW of Imperial Japan is as a casualty of the infamous Bataan Death March 82 years ago next month. The fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines and the start of the March, April 9, 1942, is National Former POW Recognition Day and is recognized with a Presidential Proclamation.

 

In fact, Americans—Marines, sailors, and merchant marines in China and Japan—became POWs of Imperial Japan starting with the first day of the War on December 8, 1941. Over the following months, Americans unprepared for war in outposts throughout the Pacific were surrendered en masse often after furious, unaided battles—Wake Island, Guam, Java, Sunda Strait, Luzon, Corregidor, Mindanao, Kiska, Attu—against the invading Japanese.

 

As POWs, the Americans were subject to torture, abuse, starvation, and neglect. Significantly, they were used as slave laborers for Japan’s military and private industry. The men toiled on the Thai-Burma Death Railway; built airfields with their bare hands—such as at what is now the Antonio Bautista Air Base on Palawan, Philippines; died constructing military projects such as the Soto Dam in Nagasaki Prefecture; and slaved in Japanese corporate mines, mills, and factories. For example, Nippon Steel, which is now attempting to purchase U.S. Steel, used more than 6,000 American and Allied POWs as forced labor with ten percent dying in the process.

 

I testify today to encourage a greater effort to remember and to advocate for these American men and women who gave their all under desperate conditions and who demonstrated determination and resourcefulness against a ruthless enemy. And all this against the backdrop of a long-decided U.S. and British policy to prioritize the war in Europe. The result was that thousands of these soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen became POWs of Japan and suffered some of the War’s worst consequences. One-third did not return home.

 

Our asks

To ensure that the sacrifices and unique history of our fighting men and women in the Pacific during 1941 and 1942 are not forgotten I ask Congress to:

 

1. Award the Congressional Gold Medal collectively to the American defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, as defined in U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich’s and Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez’s forthcoming bill. This group represents every U.S. state, territory, tribe, and military service. It is the most diverse World War II Congressional Gold Medal cohort.

 

2. Call on Nippon Steel and other Japanese companies to acknowledge their history of using American and Allied POWs as slave laborers and to establish an educational foundation to support research and learning about the POW experience in Imperial Japan. Respect for the sacrifices of American veterans should be fundamental to Nippon Steel’s acquisition of a U.S. company. It is the only way that trust can be established.

3. Ask the Government of Japan, to create two central government-funded memorials in Japan, as none exist, to the Allied POWs of WWII. One would be in Tokyo and the other at the Port of Moji on Kyushu, Japan where most of the “hellships”–floating dungeons where POWs were denied air, space, light, sanitation, water, and food–first arrived in Japan to unload their sick and dying human cargo. Currently, the only monuments at Moji are to Japanese war horses, Japanese soldiers, and bananas.

 

4. Instruct the U.S. Department of State to prepare a report for Congress on the history and funding of the 2010-2023 “Japan/POW Friendship Program.” The report should include (i) how other Allied POW reconciliation programs initiated by the Government of Japan in 1995 compare both in funding and programming with the one for the Americans; (ii) how the U.S. program compares with its “kakehashi” people exchange programs in the United States funded by the Government of Japan starting in 2015; and (iii) a breakdown of the budgets of these various exchange programs and the types and ages of participants.

 

5. Ask the Government of Japan to reestablish and institutionalize the “Japan/POW Friendship Program.” Inaugurated in 2010 as a reconciliation visit to Japan for former U.S. POWs and family members, it was modeled after ones initiated in 1995 for British, Dutch, and Australian POWs. Japan ended the visitation program for Americans in 2023. Instead of stopping reconciliation efforts, Japan should transform the American POW program into a permanent educational, remembrance, and exchange initiative that encompasses history, justice, and democratic resilience.

 

6. Ask the Government of Japan to publish in Japanese, English and other Allied languages on the website of the Foreign Ministry of Japan the 2009 Cabinet Decision making a formal apology to all the prisoners of war of Japan and the text of Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki’s May 30, 2009 speech to the final convention of the ADBC offering an apology to the POWs.

 

7. Ask the Government of Japan to honor its 2015 written promise to include the “full history” of Japan’s UNESCO World Industrial Heritage properties of the Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining. Despite the government’s written commitments to UNESCO, the history of POW slave labor at many of the Heritage sites is not included at those locations or at the Tokyo Information Center. Two of these locations are owned by Nippon Steel.

 

High price of freedom

By June 1942, most of the estimated 27,000 Americans ultimately held as military POWs of Imperial Japan had been surrendered. By the War’s end, roughly 12,000 Americans POWs had died in Japan’s squalid POW camps, in the fetid holds of “hellships,” or in slave labor camps owned by Japanese companies. This was a death rate of 40 percent. In contrast, 1.5 percent of Americans in Nazi POW camps died putting the mortality rate for POWs of Japan as 20 times greater.

Eighty-three years after the start of the War in the Pacific, it is time to recognize the Americans who fought the impossible and endured the unimaginable in the war against tyranny and fascism in Asia. The American men and women in the early months of the war in the Pacific fought with limited and outdated weapons and no hope of reinforcement or resupply.

 

Current and future generations can be inspired by their “victory from within.” As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in August 1943, when the outcome of WWII 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.”

 

In return for their sacrifices and service, they ask that their government keep its moral obligation to them. They do not want their history ignored or exploited. What they want most is to have their government stand by them to ensure that they will be remembered, that our Japanese allies respect them, and that their American history is preserved accurately.

 

Ms. Jan Thompson

President, American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor Memorial Society

Daughter of PhM2c Robert E. Thompson USN, USS Canopus (AS-9)

Survivor of the hellships Oryoku Maru, Enoura Maru, and the Brazil Maru

Survivor of the POW Camps Bilibid (Philippines), Fukuoka 3B (Japan), & Mukden (China)

 

See previous testimony to the Veterans’ Affairs Committees for a fuller background

on the history and efforts of the ADBC-MS.

https://www.adbcmemorialsociety.org/

EVENTS OF INTEREST TO THE POW/MIA COMMUNITY

 

3

Do not forget National POW/MIA Recognition Day Friday, September 15, 202

Annually, the Secretary of Defense holds a ceremony at the Pentagon remembering POW/MIAs. Rarely do members of Congress attend (they are all invited and they all have a POW/MIA flag planted at their office doors on the Hill.). Thus, ask your congressperson and senators to join the Friday ceremony at 10:00am on the River Terrace Parade Field at The Pentagon. The ceremony will be broadcast live on the Defense Department website.

The Defense Department POW/MIA Recognition Day Website highlights recovery stories and you can download from the site the annual Recognition Day Poster poster.

For past POW/MIA Posters and to order free copies of this year's poster see here on  the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) website. The DPAA also has National POW/MIA Recognition Day 9-page Tool Kit to help you conduct a meaningful memorial ceremony for POW/MIAs.

EVENTS OF INTEREST

>1898: U.S. IMPERIAL VISIONS AND REVISIONS SYMPOSIUM. 9/8-9. Join the National Portrait Gallery on September 8 and 9 for the 2023 Edgar P. Richardson Symposium, organized around the landmark exhibition 1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions, the Smithsonian's first major exhibition on U.S. imperialism and the pivotal conflicts of 1898. The symposium will convene over 40 scholars and artists from Cuba, Guam, Hawai‘i, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States for two days of panels, roundtables and gallery talks, and a keynote address by 2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner Ada Ferrer. The keynote address will take place Friday, September 8 at 5pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A and public reception. The Museum's Portal Website will soon post the conference.

>MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER OF THE NAVY, JAMES M. HONEA. 9/12, 1:00pm (EDT), ONLINE. Sponsor: US Navy Memorial. Speaker: James M. Honea, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy. Discusses the Navy's recent Three Calls to Action: 1) Warfighting Competency, 2) Professional and Personal Development, and 3) Quality of Life. 

>THE USS HOUSTON: A SURVIVAL STORY. 9/14, 7:00-8:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Loudoun County Public Library. Speaker: John K. Schwarz, Executive Director,  USS Houston (CA-30) Survivors’ Association and Next Generations®. 

 
>ROAD TO SURRENDER WITH EVAN THOMAS. 9/14, Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Alexander Hamilton Society. Speaker: author Evan Thomas, writer, correspondent, and editor for 33 years at Time and Newsweek. 
PURCHASE BOOK 
 
>VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON WORLD WAR II. 9/16,10:00am-1:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Friends of the National World War II Memorial. Speakers: “The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration That Won World War II"with author Edward Aldrich; “A Woman's View of the Pacific Ocean Theater” with Lorissa Rinehart who writes about women, art, war, and their points of intersection and is author of First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent; and “The Merchant Marine in WWII” with Dave Yoho served in World War II in the Merchant Marine and later built a highly successful career as an entrepreneur and business leader. Moderator: best-selling author and Friends’ Resident Historian Alex Kershaw. 

>OCCUPATION: THE LEGACY OF THE ASIATIC PACIFIC WAR. 9/16, 9:00am-5:00pm (CDT), In person and online. Sponsor:  The Admiral Nimitz Foundation.  Speakers: Richard B. Frank, internationally recognized leading authority on the Asia-Pacific War; Dr. Xiaobing Li, professor of the Department of History and Geography and the Don Betz Endowed Chair in International Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO); Ricardo Trota Jose, professor of history at the University of the Philippines, Diliman; Mindy L. Kotler is founder and director of Asia Policy Point. Special guest, Marie Vallejo, author of Dauntless, a book about the First and Second Filipino Regiments. 

>. WAR CRIMES - FROM WWII UNTIL TODAY: 6TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON WWII IN THE PHILIPPINES. 9/23, 10:00am-4:00pm (PDT), In person, Facebook Live. Sponsor: Bataan Legacy Historical Society in partnership with the University of San Francisco's Philippine Studies Program, Memorare Manila 1945 and USF Kasamahan. Speakers: James Zarsadiaz, Director, Philippine Studies Program, University of San Francisco; Prof. Mark Hull, Professor of War Crimes, U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth; Philippine Consul General in San Francisco Neil F. Ferrer; Father Paul Fitzgerald, S.J., President, University of San Francisco; Benjamin Hall, Fox News State Department Correspondent, Eyewitness to War Crimes Today (Via Zoom); Jose Custodio, Fellow, Consortium of Indo Pacific Researchers; Christopher Capozzola, Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Richard Frank, Pacific War historian, author, Tower of Skulls; Marie Vallejo, author of Dauntless, a book about the First and Second Filipino Regiments; Kate LaFerriere, daughter of Frank Innis, former civilian POW in Los Banos; Cynthia Bonta, survivor of the Los Baños massacre, mother of California Attorney General Rob Bonta; and Richard Foye, author of Foye And The Filipinos Bailout, Escape, And Rescue Of A Navy Fighter Pilot In World War Two Luzon, is the son of Ensign William Foye, an F6F Hellcat Pilot and a member of the Air Group Twenty assigned to the USS Enterprise (CV6). 

>WWII: AIR WAR, THE PACIFIC THEATER: ONLINE CONTINUING EDUCATION COURSE. September 4–November 6, ONLINE. Sponsor: National WWII Museum and Arizona State University. Speaker: John Curatola, PhD, Military Historian at the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. 

>EXHIBIT OPENING: THE PRICE OF UNPREPAREDNESS: POWS IN THE PHILIPPINES DURING WORLD WAR II. 9/30, 10:00-11:30am (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY*. Sponsor: MacArthur Memorial. Speakers: Dr. Frank Blazich, Jr., Curator of Modern Military History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and author of Bataan Survivor: A POW’s Account of Japanese Captivity in World War II; Mary McKay Maynard, she and her family spent two years hiding from occupying Japanese forces in the jungles of Mindanao before being rescued by the USS Narwhal as chronicled in My Faraway Home: An American Family’s WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival; and MacArthur Memorial Archivist James Zobel.   *For the virtual option Email macarthureducation@norfolk.gov  and ask to be added to the post-event email list. This list will be used to send a one-time email with a link to the digital exhibit guide and a recording of the exhibit opening event.

>VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY DENIS MCDONOUGH. 11/6, 12:30-2:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON (LUNCH AND FEE) AND ON C-SPAN. Sponsor: National Press Club. Speaker: Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough delivers an update on the state of America's veterans and their families, and on the implementation of the PACT Act.

Upcoming events of interest to the POW community

THE ROLE OF VETERANS IN STRENGTHENING OUR DEMOCRACY. 9/9, 4:00-5:15pm (EDT), IN PERSON AND ONLINE. Sponsor: Brookings Institution. Speakers: Steve Abbot, Admiral (ret.) - United States Navy Former Deputy Homeland Security Advisor to the President; Thad W. Allen, Admiral (ret.) - United States Coast Guard Former Commandant of the Coast Guard; Ellen Gustafson, Co-Founder - We the Veterans Co-Director - Summit Institute Co-Founder - Military Family Building Coalition; Elaine Kamarck, Founding Director - Center for Effective Public Management Senior Fellow - Governance Studies; Craig R. McKinley, General (ret.) - United States Air Force Former Chief National Guard Bureau; MODERATOR: Michael E. O’Hanlon, Director of Research - Foreign Policy, Brookings. 

WAR CRIMES - AN ANALYSIS OF CAUSES & METHODOLOGY FROM WWII IN THE PHILIPPINES TO TODAY. 9/15, 5:30 -7:00pm (PDT), WEBINAR. Sponsor: Bataan Legacy Historical Society. Speakers: Cecilia Gaerlan, Founder & Executive Director of Bataan Legacy Historical Society; Mark Hull is a full professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS. 

THE AMERICAN POW EXPERIENCE AND THE MIA LEGACY. 9/16, 2:30-3:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Virginia War Memorial Assistant. Speaker: Virginia War Memorial Assistant Director of Education Crystal Coon. 

1942: THE PERILOUS YEAR. Explores how that year was truly the hinge point of all of WWII. 9/16-17, IN PERSON OR VIRTUALLY. Sponsor: The Admiral Nimitz Foundation, National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg, Texas. Speakers: Richard B. Frank is an internationally recognized leading authority on the Asia-Pacific War, author of many books on the Pacific War, most recently Tower of Skulls (2020); Craig L. Symonds is a professor of history emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he taught for thirty years and served as History Department Chair; Jonathan Parshall is an independent WWII scholar. He is co-author of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, which is widely acclaimed as the definitive account of that crucial battle; John C. McManus is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. military history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T); Katherine Sharp Landdeck is an associate professor of history at Texas Woman’s University, the home of the WASP archives. FEE.

WORLDMAKING IN THE LONG GREAT WAR. 9/19, 4:00-5:30pm (EDT), WEBINAR. Sponsor: Yale Alumni Academy. Speaker: author, Jonathan Wyrtzen, Associate Professor of Sociology and History , Yale University. PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/3Kt0cn9

12TH ANNUAL AMERICAN DEFENDERS OF BATAAN AND CORREGIDOR MEMORIAL SOCIETY CONVENTION. 9/21-24, IN PERSON. Location: DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, Washington. Speakers include: Author Jody Beck: Your Loving Son Ty: A World War II Story of Hope and Horror in the Pacific; Ralph Longway, Civilian Internee of Imperial Japan during WWII; Sandra Harding: A daughter's story of the personal journeys of an Army nurse and an Army Infantry Officer, their chance meeting on Corregidor and passage from paradise and freedom to internment by the Japanese; Mark Kelso: MIA Cold Case: the story of Lt. Hyman Victor Sherman; 2019 Japanese/American Friendship Visitation Program participants report.

*THE WAR AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY IN THE PHILIPPINES. 9/24,  9:00-11:00am (PHST) , 9:00-11:00pm (EDT). WEBINAR. Sponsor: Ayala Foundation, Inc. - Filipinas Heritage Library, and  U.S. Embassy in the Philippines. Speaker: Joseph P. McCallus, Professor of English at Columbus State University, Columbus, GA, has conducted academic research in the Philippines since 1986. 

FROM STEWARDS TO FLAG OFFICERS: FILIPINOS IN THE U.S. NAVY. 10/19, Noon-1:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: National Museum of the United States Navy and Bataan Legacy Historical Society. Speakers: Luisito Maligat, Management and Program Analyst, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); Lorna Mae Devera, Customer Advocacy Manager, Leidos; Paula Hackbart, President, Filipino American Midshipman Club, U.S. Naval Academy; Moderator: Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, SES, USN (Retired), Director, Naval History and Heritage Command, Curator of the Navy, Washington, DC. 

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/