Death of an Army

Bataan Death March by Ben SteeleApril 9, 1942 - 

The following is an excerpt from the late Antonio A. Nieva’s book, Cadet, Solider, Guerilla Fighter, a personal history of a Bataan Death March survivor and Hunter s ROTC guerrilla. I found his words poetic, moving, and timely.

Nieva (Tony) was an ROTC officer at the Ateneo de Manila when he was recruited to join the USAFFE’s mobilization in preparation for the Pacific War. After his release from the Japanese POW Camp O’Donnell, he joined the Hunters-ROTC Guerrillas. The Japanese granted Filipino soldiers "parole" in June 1942.

He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal of the U.S. Army for his “marked contribution to the defense of Bataan."

Cadet, Soldier, Guerrilla Fighter: Remembering Bataan and Corregidor 

by Antonio A. Nieva (Author), Pepi Nieva (Editor), Paperback – April 21, 2016.

The last battle was not really a battle. The word presupposes two contending armies at least still capable of combat.

By the end of March [1942], the USAFFE was no longer an army. Just a collection of sick, hungry, forsaken men in defensive positions across the peninsula from Manila Bay to the China Sea. Divisions were down to 1,500 men at most; regiments to 500 effectives. That is, if one can call an ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-armed, ill-everythinged civilian-soldier combat effective. The famed Philippine Scouts and the all-American regiment had been whittled down too ― the Scouts by combat casualties, the Americans by disease.

Whatever was left of the valiant Cavalry, the rear guards of all the retreats, had become dismounted infantry. Its mounts and pack-mules had been converted to tapa (dried meat), tasty enough if pungently horsey and slightly wormy.

It had been over on April 9, two days ago. Tony had known even then but refused to admit it, nursing still a forlorn hope for a miracle. He had known that night when his section had been sent out to contact the battalion command posts (the signal wires had been out since dusk and the men had faded into the night) and verify what the Colonel suspected.

On the reverse slope of the San Vicente ridge, they had come upon the 1st Battalion command posts’ wanton disarrays ― the dug-out churned by a giant hand; equipment and corpses strewn about like post-typhoon debris in a squatters’ barrio. Only the Major seemed relaxed, lying on his back, eyes closed in peaceful slumber…except he had no legs. Tony was thankful for the darkness.

Somewhere along a trail (littered by once-upon-a-time familiar faces), Lt. Dima lay on his side, bent knees and arms enfolding his groin, crooning a death lullaby to himself.

“Patay na ‘ko (I’m dead already),” his last gasp between flickering life and recognition in the dimming eyes. Just three words, his ultimo adios.

By midnight, the battalions had evaporated. In the Regimental Command Post, the Colonel to the assembled staff said, ”It’s over. Save yourselves. Good luck.”

Three phrases, the Regiment’s elegy.

What else could have been said?

The death of a man or of a regiment is just a statement of fact.

What is the death of an army like? There is no cohesive picture, just a series of disconnected rushes of a grade-B horror movie. It is the obscene grimace of a blackened face peering up from a foxhole; a spread-eagled figure on the ground too exhausted to give a damn; a half-hearted stand atop a vantage knoll, firing without aim or conviction at scattering dolls on the trail below; an old-timer noncom at the wheel of an un-startable truck, teary rivulets of frustration winding down furrowed cheeks; a haggard general brandishing a rifle at zombies with glazed eyes and deaf ears ― King Canute trying to stop the tide, confident still in the power of his stars; a bloated carcass bobbing on a lively stream (was it man or beast?); an anti-tank squad calmly dismantling its gun, idly watched by civilians squatting under a shadeless tree; the stench of frying meat from a burning tank; hollow-eyed men beside roadsides munching the visors of their coconut helmets like children chewing handkerchiefs to still the uncontrollable trembling. And white flags blooming in the jungle green.

Cayab was the first, bullet in the thigh. From A STRAY bullet!

“Against this tree?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Riple? Bala? “

“No need, sir.”

“Cigarillo? “

“Salamat, sir.”

“Canned goods?”

“Have got, sir.”

“White flag?”

“Undershirt, sir.”

“Adios, bata.”

“Adios, sir.”

So they walked on, without looking back. Except Pedro, once, twice, then running back. Adios Pedro also. No greater love.... in deed.

Only six now, they fell in with a rear-guard unit shuffling down a trail with fatigue-heavy legs, once a Company, now just twenty Philippine Scouts led by an old, bony-faced Sergeant.

“Your officers?” Tony asked.

“Ours dead, others left with the other ‘Mericans,” the old Sarge replied with an “I-don’t-care-now” voice.

Above a trail junction, they halted. The men deployed automatically if lethargically out of habit. Two grass-thatched tanks nosed uncertainly at the road fork, their gun-snouts sniffing around as if testing the wind; the supporting infantry milling about behind them, their rotten-vegetable sweat-smell polluting the morning breeze.

“Let them by,” Tony told the Sergeant who nodded, a flicker of relief in his eyes at Tony’s tone of command (he was not wearing any insignia of rank).

Later at sunset at another hummock, Tony passed around cigarettes broken to half-sticks and lit his own.

“Light up before they come,” Tony said noting the hesitation in the Sergeant and the men. They had just fired two volleys at tiny hunchbacks on the bald hillock across the vale.

“Go ahead, light up; they know where we are,” Tony repeated, ”last smoke before dark.”

Moments later, probing whizzes. The men flattened, pressed closer to the contours of the knoll, still sucking on the last millimeters of the butts (the last cigarette before the firing squad?). Tony, cuddled in the embrace of a shell hole, felt the old Sarge tap his shoulder.

“Niol, you and your men go now, we Scouts take care of that,” pointing at the enemy’s direction.

“Adios, ‘Gen,” Tony said without discussion but with wonder at the old soldier’s undying pride.

On and on they walked. To somewhere, anywhere, just to get away. Passing the vanquished on the waysides with white-pennanted sticks; passing the lifeless in ditches looking happier than the living; passing ammunition and fuel dump volcanoes (the tremors of their eruptions more earthquakey than nature’s own). Passing by a 155 crew still firing (oh yes, there were still a valiant few); passing gangrene-stenched hospital tents and nurses, smiles betrayed by apprehensive eyes (and valiant women too).

Passing by an American field kitchen, the mess sarge Manila-old-timer friendly.

“Chow? Got stew.”

“My men too?”

“Help yourselves.”

Hard bread and watery stew. Tasting tinny but good, so good, after nothing.

“Thanks.”

“For nothing (in Spanish yet). Por nada.”

Por nada, the men went on dying. The Japanese bombing, strafing, machine-gunning, and bayoneting relentlessly. Despite up-raised hands and cast-down arms. By orders or from anger.

The enemy, wound and scar and memory of the USAFFE’s past routs and unexpected revivals still bitter fresh, continued the killing. No chances. No quarter. No mercy. ”Mercy is to prolong the war.” It was the Japanese, this time, who still expected miracles.

In the face of the anguish around him, General Edward P. King, the newly appointed Commander of the Luzon Forces (one of four subterfuge titles created to stall the impending surrender to the Japanese, because no single commander could negotiate the surrender of all the Philippine forces) ignored the foolish, unrealistic order to counterattack.

It was all quiet on the Bataan front save for the sporadic booming of ammunition and fuel caches, the final defiant protests against the victorious foe. The last miles to Mariveles were junkyards of broken vehicles, broken armaments, and broken men with broken dreams. The defeated, like beggars in churchyards on St. Anthony’s Tuesdays, decrepit, unwashed, in rags, huddled in dejected clusters. Many sprawled in the dust ambiguously dead or alive.

That Easter Week, the USAFFE Luzon Force died. The once-proud army that had decimated the original invasion forces had crumbled to scattered fragments of broken men. On the 9th day of April, 1942, the “largest force the United States had ever lost” surrendered.

There were no recriminations, however. ”Each man had done his best, and none need feel shame.” The battling bastards of Bataan had been overcome as much by Japanese arms as by starvation and disease. From the halls of the U. S. Congress, the British Parliament, and the “free world” poured paeans of praise — Bataan was the shining symbol of defiance and hope in those dark days of defeat; the defenders’ sacrifice had gained precious time for the Allied counterattack; the “free world” owed them an eternal debt of gratitude and so many more words to that effect.

Sadly, so quickly forgotten. For, when the “forces of democracy” finally triumphed, most of the Filipino battling bastards remained illegitimate sons, still with “no papa, no mama, no Uncle Sam” — and no U.S. back pay either.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Thus passes the glory of the world]

Rediscovered but not recovered

Tayabas by Ben Steele

On Memorial Day, May 27, 77 years after his death, Gordon B. Northrup II of Spring Street in Pembroke, Massachusetts was remembered. A plaque and a wreath were placed near the Northrup family home on Spring Street, at the intersection of Pleasant and Oak streets.

Pvt. Northrup was a member of the Army Air Corps, 3rd Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group At Iba, Zambales Province, Luzon. The 3rd Pursuit Squadron was based at Iba, a small grass field on the China Sea across the 2,000-foot Zambales Mountains from Fort Stotsenberg and Clark. Iba Field was barely large enough to accommodate the 18 Curtis P-40Es that made up the 3rd Pursuit Squadron, but it was the closest fighter airfield to the approach routes to the American military installations around Manila. Previously, Iba had been used primarily as an advanced field for gunnery training on the ranges in the nearby Zambales.

Because of its location, Iba was a logical choice for a radar site. In all, seven radar sets had arrived in the Philippines by early December, but Iba was the only one operational when war came on December 8, 1941. Iba was also the first Air Corps field to be attacked. The Iba attack came shortly before Japan's planes descended upon Clark Field. By evening of the 8th, both Iba's radar command and the air field were destroyed. Half the men on the ground were dead.

In mid-December, the men of the Army Air Corps and Navy in the Philippines, had lost their planes, hangars, ports, and ships. They were given WWI rifles and reassigned to provisional infantry units to fight off the invading Japanese on Bataan. Many first learned to shoot and fight in combat.The US Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) on Luzon soon all retreated to the Bataan Peninsula. All were seasoned, hardened soldiers by the time they were surrendered on April 9, 1942.

The surrendered were gathered at various points on Bataan with many at the city of Mariveles on the tip of the peninsula. The trek up and out of the peninsula, became known as the Bataan Death March. It was made of up of three phases each punctuated by brutality, cruelty, and death from thirst, starvation, disease, and murder.

First was a 65 mile march to the San Fernando train station. There they were packed standing in unventilated boxcars for a 24-mile train trip to Capas. From there the survivors were marched seven more miles to Camp O'Donnell, a makeshift POW camp from an unfinished training facility.

To escape the hellish conditions at O'Donnell, a number of men volunteered for work details outside the Camp. One was the infamous Tayabas Road Detail. Ptv Northrup was among the 300 POWs who arrived at the work site on 29 May 1942. With no shelter, mosquito nets, clean water or medicine men sickened and died rapidly of malaria, pneumonia, and other tropical diseases.

On 28 July 1942, the Japanese finally closed down their road-building effort in Tayabas. Only 187 men were still alive, and all were deathly ill. Northrup was among the dead; he died June 30, 1942. The horrors of Tayabas, although documented in many memoirs, is best depicted in Montana's Ben Steele's drawings and paintings.

Northrup was buried in an unmarked grave in Tayabas. His body was never recovered. And his hometown never recognized his death.

This all changed Memorial Day 2019. Memorial Committee Chairperson Linda Osbourne organized the creation and installation of a memorial plaque to Ptv. Northrup. The Forgotten Soldier of Pembroke is no longer forgotten.

Daughters and Widows of POWs in Japan

Steele (L) Pruitt (R)

In October 2017, by invitation of the Japanese government, two widows and four daughters of former POWs of Japan visited the sites of their loved one's enslavement. They visited a now closed Ube Industries coal mine, the location of Japan's "show" camp, and Dowa Industries' copper mine in Sendai. Below are brief profile of the POWs and the women who returned to Japan.

Ben Steele, who became a well-known artist in Montana, was the focus of, Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath. His widow and the widow Charles Pruitt visited the Ube Industries coal mine in Yamaguchi Prefecture where their husbands were slave laborers.

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BENJAMIN CHARLES STEELE

Shirley Emerson Steele, 92, is the widow of Benjamin Charles Steele. They met while he was teaching at the high school in New London, Ohio and were married August 31, 1952. Active in the Billings First United Methodist Church, Mrs. Steele taught English at the local high school before devoting herself to raising their adopted son Sean. She is accompanied by her step-daughter Rosemarie Steele, 70, who recently retired after 32 years as Wheatland Country, Montana elected treasurer. She is active in the local Kiwanis Club and was one of the club’s first five women members. She is Mr. Steele’s older daughter from his first marriage.

Benjamin Charles Steele was born November 17, 1917 in the small Montana town of Roundup and grew up riding horses, roping cattle, and occasionally delivering supplies to the well-known western artist Will James. On September 9, 1940, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at Fort Missoula, Montana. After basic training at March Field, California, he received instruction at Kirkland Field, Albuquerque, New Mexico to be an aircraft dispatcher and was assigned to the 7th Materiel Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group. He arrived in the Philippines aboard the USAT Willard A. Holbrook on October 23, 1941.

He was at Clark Field about 40 miles northwest of Metro Manila on December 8th when Imperial Japan began its invasion of the Philippines by bombing this air field and others. After the near total destruction of the American Far East Air Force by December 10th, Steele and 200 members of the 19th Bomb group were withdrawn to the Bataan Peninsula with men from the 27th Bomb Group to form the 2nd Provisional Infantry Regiment. They had had no training, and many did not even know how to load their WWI Springfield rifles. U.S. and Filipino forces on Bataan were surrendered on April 9, 1942. Steele, at Cabcaben Field near the tip of the Bataan Peninsula, began the Bataan Death March at one of its longest points. For six days he and 75,000 other sick, starving, and exhausted men made their way 65 miles north up to the train junction of San Fernando. From there, they were packed into unventilated boxcars for a 24-mile trip to Capas. The next three miles were by foot to Camp O'Donnell, an unfinished training camp for the Philippine Army. Trying to avoid the constant death at the Camp, Steele joined a group of 300 men selected for the Tayabas Road Detail. The work that was so brutal, and the conditions so harsh tha fewer than half the men survived. Near mortally sick from beri beri, dysentery, pneumonia, blood poisoning, and malaria, Steele was sent to Bilibid Prison on August 15th where he stayed for18 months. Although expected to die, he clung to life and kept his sanity by covertly sketching Montana scenes—cowboys, horses and barns—and the human degradation and cruelty surrounding him. He did so at great risk, as he could have been shot if his sketches were discovered. When able, he was sent to Cabanatuan to do be an agricultural slave labor.

On July 4, 1944, he was loaded aboard the freighter Sekiho Maru (Canadian Inventor), which came to be known as the Mati Mati Maru (Wait Wait Ship). On September 1, after many breakdowns, a typhoon, and a stop in Formosa, the surviving prisoners, their beards long, hair matted, and skin covered with ulcers and open sores, stumbled down the gangway at Moji, Japan. He was taken to Hiroshima # 6B - Omine (Sanyo) in Yamaguchi Prefecture (Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s home prefecture) 75 miles from Hiroshima. He worked in a dangerous mine as a slave laborer for Ube Kosan's Sanyo Muen Kogyo Sho (Ube Industries' Sanyo Smokeless Coal Works, today’s Ube Industries Ltd., the great grandson of Akira Tawarada the first president (1942) of the consolidated Ube Industries, Yoshimasa Hayashi, is currently Japan’s Education Minister). Steele believed he felt the atomic blast at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

In mid-September 1945, he was evacuated to the hospital ship USS Consolation, taken to Okinawa and then flown to San Francisco by the 19th Bombardment Group C54 and assigned to Fort George Wright Hospital in Spokane, Washington, where he remained until he was discharged July 10, 1946. Steele painted scenes from his capture as he went through his long recovery, including trying to regain the 80 pounds he lost. “I had lots of problems to work through,” he said, “and the doctors thought the art was a good idea.”

After the war, Steele earned a diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1950, a B.S. in Education from Kent State University, and a M.A. in Art from Denver University. While teaching high school art in Ohio, he married his second wife, Shirley on August 31, 1952. He retired in 1982 from Eastern Montana State College (today’s Montana State University Billings) as head of the Art Department. He had many one-man shows of his art and his illustrations appear in over 20 books and several documentaries. His WWII POW collection is at the University of Montana and his sketchbooks are at the MacArthur Memorial Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. He is the focus of Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath (2010) and the subject of a 2016 documentary by Jan Thompson, Survival Through Art.

He said he learned to forgive his Japanese captors because of his relationship with Harry Koyama, a Japanese-American art student. “He’s been a part of my life since I met him in college in the 1960s,” Koyama, a modern, western artist with a gallery in Billings, said about Steele. “That’s even more of a humbling experience to know that I had not just an effect, but a positive effect on his life.”

Steele passed away September 25, 2016. Hundreds attended his memorial service in the Montana Pavilion at MetraPark. He is buried in Sunset Memorial Gardens, Billings, Montana. On August 24th, 2017, the Ben Steele Middle School opened in Billings.

Philippines POW#: 本-1546
Japan POW#: 359

Congressman: Greg Gianforte (R-MT), https://gianforte.house.gov/


CHARLES L. PRUITT

Doris Jean Pruitt, 88, is the widow of the late Charles Pruitt. Judith Ann Pruitt, 70, is their oldest of three children. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts and worked in property management in Boston for over 20 years and then for the Closet Factory in design/sales for 15 years. She is an active member of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society and serves on their board. Currently, she is the organization’s Treasurer and Convention Chair.

Charles L. Pruitt, one of nine children, was born in Sweetwater, Tennessee on November 6, 1920. He joined the U.S. Navy on September 6, 1940 and received his recruit training in Norfolk, Virginia. His first duty was as a Yeoman aboard the USS Lexington (CV-2). In April 1941, he was transferred to the 16th Naval District at Cavite, Philippines where he was a carpenter’s mate assigned to the Naval Ammunition Depot, Cavite Navy Yard to train as a mine technician. The Navy Yard was bombed and destroyed on December 10, 1941 shortly after Imperial Japan’s invasion. In the immediate aftermath, he helped operate a crane on Sunset Beach, three miles from Cavite, unloading munitions and assisting in the mining of Subic Bay that is about 65 miles northwest of Cavite and Manila.

Like most of the U.S. Navy on the Philippines, he became an infantryman. This makeshift “Navy Infantry” consisted of 150 ground crewmen from Patrol Wing Ten, 80 sailors from the Cavite Naval Ammunition Depot, 130 sailors from USS Canopus (AS-9), 120 sailors from the base facilities at Cavite, Olongapo, and Mariveles, and 120 Marines from an antiaircraft battery. He fought in the Battle of the Points (January 22 to February 18, 1942) at Lapay-Longoskawayan repelling successfully part of a 2,000-strong landing Japanese force.

On February 23rd, most of “Navy battalion” was transferred to Corregidor, three miles from Bataan in Manila Bay. He was assigned beach defense with the 4th Marines under the command of Major Max Clark at Ramsey Ravine, one of the critical points in the defense of the fortress island. Corregidor fell May 6, 1942. The Japanese first moved their nearly 12,000 prisoners on the island to the exposed, rocky beach at the 92nd Garage. There, the POWs waited nearly three weeks (May 24th) in the tropical sun with little food, water or sanitation before they were put in small boats to Manila. After being forced to wade ashore, the POWs were marched through Manila in what has become known as the “March of Shame” to Bilibid Prison POW Camp. From there, by rail and by foot they made their way to Cabanatuan #3 prison camp. In late September 1942, Cabanatuan #3 was closed and the prisoners were relocated to Cabanatuan #1 to be organized for work details. Pruitt was sent to labor at Camp Murphy and Zablan Field. On August 27, 1944, he was among the 1,035 POWs boarded on the Mitsubishi-made “Hell ship” Noto Maru that made its way via Formosa, air raids and sub attacks to Moji, Japan (September 4th).

He was then among 50 men taken to Hiroshima # 6B - Omine (Sanyo) in Yamaguchi Prefecture (Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s home prefecture) 75 miles from Hiroshima. He worked in a dangerous mine as a slave laborer for Ube Kosan's Sanyo Muen Kogyo Sho (Ube Industries' Sanyo Smokeless Coal Work, today’s Ube Industries Ltd., the of great grandson of Akira Tawarada the first president (1942) of the consolidated Ube Industries, Yoshimasa Hayashi, is currently Japan’s Education Minister). Pruitt was one of eight men at the camp who did not wait for liberation forces to arrive at his camp. They somehow made their way down to the south end of the island of Kyushu and met up with American forces. For unknown reasons, he was registered as “liberated at Fukuoka #9 Miyata” a mine in central Kyushu. He proceeded to hitch-hike on air transports from Japan all the way to San Francisco. He briefly stayed at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital took another military transport to Olathe, Kansas where he finished his trip back home to Tennessee via a Trailways bus to Memphis. He spent the next six months at the Naval Hospital in Millington, Tennessee.

After his return to Sweetwater, Tennessee, he married his sister’s friend, Jean DeButy, on October 28, 1946. Their first child, Judith Ann, was born August 5, 1947. He remained in the Navy for 20 years, and retired in 1960 as a Chief Warrant Officer. Pruitt, a talented woodworker, taught cabinet-making at Tennessee schools until 1981. In retirement, he served as Commander of the Smokey Mountain Chapter of American Ex-POW organization (AXPOW). He was also the National Commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor for 1994-1995. Mr. Pruitt passed away December 4, 1998 and is buried at the Tennessee State Veterans Cemetery.

Philippines POW#: 1-12247
Japan POW#: 469

Congressman: Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN 3rd)

BURKHART, THOMAS F.

Caroline Burkhart, 70, is the daughter of the late Thomas F. Burkhart. She grew up as an Army “brat” throughout the United States and now lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she pursued a career in real estate. She is an experienced researcher of the American POW experience with Imperial Japan and a former vice president of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society.

Thomas F. Burkhart was born May 6, 1914 in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in July 1937 and was assigned as a medical clerk to Hamilton Field, California. In June 1941, he was discharged from the Army Air Corps and commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve. He was immediately sent to the Philippines aboard the SS President Pierce. He arrived June 24th and was assigned to Fort McKinley outside Manila, the headquarters for the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) Philippines Department. He became an officer with the Headquarters Company of the 45th Infantry, Philippine Scouts, an elite U.S. Army unit composed of American officers and Filipino enlisted men. After Imperial Japan’s December 8, 1941 invasion of the Philippines and USAFFE’s December 23rd activation of War Plan Orange-3 (WPO-3), his battalion helped defend the withdrawal of American forces on Luzon to the Bataan Peninsula. Barely a month after being promoted to 1st Lieutenant, on January 24, 1942, he earned a Silver Star for “Gallantry in Action” at the Battle of Abucay Hacienda (January 15-25, 1942) helping maintain the first battle position on Bataan.

Sick with malaria, Burkhart was in the open-air General Hospital #1 near the tip of Bataan when Major General Edward King surrendered the Bataan Peninsula to Japanese forces on April 9, 1942. At the end of the month, the patients were taken by truck up to San Fernando and there made to stand in packed boxcars for the 24-mile trip to Capas, Tarlac. As he told his family, “hell would be a refrigerator” compared with being in these poorly ventilated, rolling prisons that were like ovens under the sweltering tropical sun. As those who endured the Bataan Death March, he was forced to march the last three miles to Camp O’Donnell, a makeshift POW camp from an unfinished Philippine Army training camp. In early June, the Japanese fearing the deaths of all the prisoners from the horrific conditions of the Camp began to release their Filipino POWs and transfer the others to a new facility at Cabanatuan. It is estimated that 1,550 Americans and 22,000 Filipinos died at Camp O’Donnell, the overwhelming majority with the first eight weeks.

On November 6 1942, he was among 1,500 prisoners packed into the coal bunker of the unmarked “Hell ship” Nagato Maru. It took three tortuous weeks for the ship to make its way from the tropics to the cold of Northeast Asia. The ship stopped at Takeo, Formosa before arriving at the port of Moji on Kyushu, Japan. Burkhart nearly blind from malnutrition, was first taken to Osaka POW Camp #4-B Tanagawa. This camp provided POW slave labor for the Toshima Group (today’s Tobishima Corporation) to build a breakwater and submarine base. The camp was notable for having one of the highest death rates among the mainland POW camps. He was soon (January 15 1943), moved to the Hiroshima #1-B Zentsuji POW Camp on the island of Shikoku. Although Zentsuji, is often referred to as a “propaganda show camp,” conditions were harsh and the men were punished for any perceived offense often on a whim of the guard in charge. The enlisted men at the camp were slave stevedores for Nippon Express Co. (Nippon Tsuun) at Sakaide Rail Yards and the Port of Takamatsu. As an officer, Burkhart worked in the camp garden and tried to raise rabbits. On June 23, 1945, he and 334 officers were transferred to POW Camp 11-B Rokuroshi deep in the Japanese Alps near the industrial town of Fukui (destroyed by air raids July 1945). They were to do subsistence farming, even though they had arrived in the camp late in the growing season and no land had been cleared for cultivation. Because Rokuroshi had not been identified by the Japanese government as a POW camp, it was one of the last to be found (September 8, 1945). He was quickly evacuated to Manila on USS Tryon and then sent to San Francisco on the USS Storm King.

Burkhart remained in the Army and made a career with the Quartermaster Corps, retiring in 1957 as a Lt. Colonel in U.S. Army Reserve. Throughout his life he was plagued by health problems most likely caused by the illnesses and hardships of being a POW. For a number of years after retirement, he worked as a government contractor in the food service industry. In 1972, at 57, he passed away and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Philippines POW#: 1-03739
Japan POW#: NA
Congressman: John P. Sarbanes (D-MD 3rd)

JOHN J. MCCORTS

Mary Jane McCorts Blaine, 62, is the daughter of the late John J. McCorts. She is a life-long resident of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and works for the Pennsylvania State Employee Credit Union (PSECU). For the past 20 years, Ms. Blaine has been an active member of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society.

John J. McCorts was born May 19, 1921 in Stillions, Arkansas, the older of two boys, and named for his maternal grandfather. After his parents’ divorce, his family moved to his maternal grandmother’s farm near El Dorado, Arkansas. At some point they moved to Abilene, Texas where he graduated from high school and enlisted in the U.S. Army one year later in 1940. He was trained to be a radio operator with the Signal Corps. Likely sent to Philippines sometime between June and October 1941, his first assignment was with the 228th Signal Operations Company that was constituted on September 2, 1941. It is unclear when in January 1942 or how he moved from Ft. McKinley to Corregidor Island in Manila Bay to work on signals intelligence in the Malinta Tunnel. On May 6, 1942, when Corregidor was surrendered by Major General Jonathan Wainwright, he was taken prisoner while repairing wire near the Tunnel. His family did not know if he was dead or alive until Christmas 1942 and only then through a newspaper article in the Boulder City, Nevada newspaper.

Like most of the 12,000 men on Corregidor, he was moved to the rocky beach at the 92nd Garage, After nearly three weeks (May 24th) in the tropical sun with little food, water or sanitation, they were put in small boats to Manila. The men were then made to wade ashore before being paraded six miles down Dewey Boulevard on a “Victory March” now called the “March of Shame” before the Filipino and foreign residents to the old Spanish-built prison of Bilibid. Many of the POWs were chained together with collar shackles and suffered the Japanese soldiers urinating on them. The following day they were moved by train and foot to the squalid Cabanatuan POW Camp.

McCorts was among the 300 POWs and 2,000 Imperial Japanese Army troops boarded on Lima Maru September 20, 1942 to Takao, Formosa. The men were taken to Taiwan POW Camp #2 – Taichu for two months. On November 15, 1942, he was sent to the Port of Moji in Japan aboard the “Hell ship” Dainichi Maru. From there, he was taken north to the Mitsubishi-owned shipyard and POW camp Tokyo #1-D Yokohama at Yokohama. He was a riveter inside ships under construction. The noise and constant beatings he received to his head caused permanent damage to his hearing.

At some point, he was transferred north to the Sendai #8B Kosaka POW Camp to be a slave laborer at a copper mine and smelter owned by Fujita-gumi Construction Company (today’s Dowa Holdings Co., Ltd.). There is now a museum in Kosaka reviewing the history of the local mine, which was one of Japan’s most productive as well as the origin of Dowa Holdings’ metal and mining business. The Kosaka Mine Office Museum and mine are pictured on Dowa’s website. There is no mention at the museum of the Allied POWs who slaved there.

He was liberated on September 11, 1945 and returned to the United States on October 15, 1945. He spent nearly a year at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, California and Birmingham General Hospital in Van Nuys, California. Bewildered by freedom and the job environment, he rejoined the Army’s Signal Corps. Over the years, he traveled most of the world as part of his service and sometimes on his own, including: Russia, Greece, Italy, Egypt, Korea, France, Germany, Singapore, and Viet Nam.

His Russia posting in the late 1940s, landed him in the midst of a 1953 investigation by Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) into possible espionage and un-American activities at the U.S. Army Signal Corps facility at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. He was discharged and denied a promotion. McCarthy’s charges soon proved scurrilous and McCorts was reinstated. The experience, however, left him angry and bitter and prompted him to turn down a promotion to Master Sergeant. He remained on active duty until 1963 and retired from the Reserves in 1970. He used his GI benefits to pursue his college education at Temple University, where in 1972 he received a B.A. in Social Administration.

His first post-service job was as an electronic communications specialist with the Pennsylvania Department of Civil Defense. After graduation from Temple, he changed career paths and worked in the Pennsylvania State Department of Health and Welfare where he started as a case worker, then a field auditor, and retired as policy director.

In 1992, McCorts developed a rare cancer often found in people who had long-term, low-level exposure to copper cyanide as found in the Dowa Holdings’ mine. Although his cancer was in remission, he suffered from a series of strokes and other medical issues and passed away on February 10, 2001. He is buried in the Indiantown Gap National Cemetery, Annville, Pennsylvania.

Philippines POW#:
Japan POW#: 796

Congressman: Lou Barletta (R- PA 11th)

BATAAN DEATH MARCH 75TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIONS

Over the next few days, numerous ceremonies will be held to honor the fallen and survivors of the Bataan Death March on its 75th anniversary and National Former POW Recognition Day, April 9th. 

WASHINGTON, DC

75TH COMMEMORATION OF ARAW NG KAGITINGAN [BATAAN AND CORREGIDOR DAY]. 4/7, 3:15-4:30 PM, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Embassy of the Philippines. A wreath laying ceremony at the WWII Memorial at the National Mall. 5:30-7:30pm Commemoration Program at the Romulo Hall of the Embassy of the Philippines. Location: Embassy of the Philippines, 1600 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Contact: http://www.philippineembassy-usa.org/news/5507/589/75th-Commemoration-of-Araw-ng-Kagitingan-on-07-April-2017/d,phildet/  Information: veterans@philippinesveteransaffairs.org  

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

75^TH COMMEMORATION OF ARAW NG KAGITINGAN (DAY OF VALOR). 4/8, 9:00 AM, Chicago, Illinois. Wreath laying ceremony (weather permitting) at the Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Bridge at the corner of State Street and Wacker Drive, Chicago to pay tribute to thousands of Filipino and American soldiers who displayed extraordinary gallantry and courage beyond the call of duty in defending Bataan and Corregidor in 1941-1942. After the wreath laying ceremony, a short program will be held around 10:00-11:30 AM at the Kalayaan Hall of the Consulate General of the Philippines, 122 S. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1600, Chicago, Illinois 60603. Contact: http://www.chicagopcg.com/; chicagopcg@att.net and http://www.chicagopcg.com/pr16-17.pdf

CALIFORNIA

BATAAN DEATH MARCH 75TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION. 4/8, 9:00am-Noon, The Presidio, San Francisco, California. 9:00AM Laying of Wreaths at the ABMC WWII West Coast Memorial at Kobbe & Washington Aves. 10:00AM Commemorative Program At Pershing Square/ Presidio Officers Club. Contact: www.bataanlegacy.org; Program http://zif7.r.ah.d.sendibm4.com/zmo9s9vonf.htmland http://usa.inquirer.net/1829/bataan-death-march-75th-year-rites-set-sf-presidio-april-8     

NEW YORK

75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH COMMEMORATION. 4/8, 1:00-4:00 PM. Bataan Road, Orangeburg, New York. Ceremony, concert, presentations. Contact: Jerome Kleiman, https://www.facebook.com/events/1168848923170955/

VIRGINIA

75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH AND UNVEILING THE BEN STEELE COLLECTION. 4/9, 2:00-4:00 PM, Norfolk, VA. Sponsor: MacArthur Memorial. As part of the unveiling, the Memorial will screen the documentary film Survival Through Art. Produced by American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society President and professional filmmaker Jan Thompson and narrated by Alec Baldwin,Survival Through Art tells the story of Ben Steele's remarkable life. Location: MacArthur Memorial Visitors Center, 198 Bank Street, Norfolk, VA 23510. Contact: http://www.macarthurmemorial.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=62&month=1&year=2017&day=12&calType=0 or

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ben-steele-collection-unveiling-tickets-31132965538

6^TH ANNUAL BATAAN DEATH MARCH MEMORIAL WALK/RUN.  4/22, 6:00AM-2:00PM, Chesapeake, VA. Sponsored by the SSG Jonathan Killian Dozier Memorial VFW Post 2894 and FilVetRep. Location: Dismal Swamp Canal Trail North Parking Lot, 1113 George Washington Highway South, Chesapeake, VA 23323 Contact: https://www.virginia.org/listings/Events/BataanDeathMarchMemorialWalk/

https://www.facebook.com/Chesapeake-Bataan-Death-March-464188050284397/

MINNESOTA

BATAAN MEMORIAL WREATH LAYING CEREMONY. 4/9 10:00 AM, Brained National Guard Training and Community Center, 1115 Wright Street, Brainerd, MN  56401. Mr. Walter Straka, the last surviving member of the Brainerd 34th Tank Company as it began, and A Company 194th Tank Battalion after federalization, will lay the wreath while Taps is played. The names of those who were killed in combat or captivity will be read as their dog tags are hung on the barrel of the M3 Stuart tank. Contact: Captain Chris Bingham (651) 268-8117,http://www.brainerdbataan.com/wreath-laying-ceremony.html ;

20TH ANNUAL BATAAN MEMORIAL MARCH, 9/9, Brainerd, Minnesota.  http://www.brainerdbataan.com/

NEW MEXICO

COMMEMORATIVE CEREMONY HONORING 75TH ANNIVERSARY. 4/9, 4:00-6:00 PM, Las Cruces, NM. Sponsor: The Remember Bataan Foundation of Las Cruces. Location: Veteran’s Memorial Park, 2651 Roadrunner Parkway, Las Cruces.

http://www.bataanmuseum.com/event/commemorative-ceremony-honoring-75th-anniversary/

BATAAN MEMORIAL CEREMONY. 4/8, 1:00 PM, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sponsor: Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Foundation of New Mexico. Location: Bataan Memorial Park, 748 Tulane Drive, NE, Albuquerque. Contact: MAJ Richard A. Luena, USAF-R (Ret.), https://www.facebook.com/events/1763311350552957/

BATAAN MEMORIAL CEREMONY. 4/9, 10:00 AM-2:00 PM, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sponsor: New Mexico National Guard. Location: 200th CAC marker on the southeast side of the Bataan Memorial Building, 407 Galisteo Street, Santa Fe. http://www.bataanmuseum.com/event/nmng-honors-world-war-ii-bataan-veterans-on-75th-anniversary/

Ben Steele In Memoriam

ADBC-MS President Jan Thompson 

gives an eulogy at the Steele memorial

Ben Steele - a Bataan Death March survivor whose art helped him maintain his sanity as a prisoner of war of Japan during WWII as well helped him forgive his captors - died in Montana on Sunday, September 25, 2015. He was 98. He had been in hospice care for more than a year.

It seemed like the entire state came out for his memorial service on October 4th at the Montana Pavilion at MetraPark. The 2,000 seat venue was full and the 90-minute service broadcast live. Montana's Governor Steve Bullock ordered flags across the state a half-staff for the day and issued a proclamation:

I hereby order all flags flown in the State of Montana to be flown at half-staff on Tuesday, October 4th, 2016, in memory of the life of Benjamin Charles Steele, WWII Veteran, Bataan Death March survivor, devoted educator, and artist. 

Ben Steele was a Montanan of immeasurable character who portrayed the courage of his generation with a sketchbook and a joyful laugh. He taught all of us never to give up on the importance of inspiring future generations after overcoming incredible adversity.

Steele was born on Nov. 17, 1917, in the small Montana town of Roundup and grew up riding horses, roping cattle and occasionally delivering supplies to the well-known western artist Will James. “His parents told him not to hang out much with Will James because he was a drinker, but Dad never said a bad word about him,” his daughter Julie Jorgenson told The Billings Gazette.

In October 1941, US Army Air Corps Private Steele arrived at Clark Field in the Philippines to join the air crews maintaining the war planes arriving from America. On December 8th, Japan began its invasion of the Philippines by bombing Clark and other US air bases. After the near total destruction of the American air force on the Philippine Islands, Steele and other airmen were evaluated on December 24th and sent to fight with the US Army Infantry on the Bataan Peninsula. He and all the troops on Bataan were surrendered on April 9, 1942.

Along with thousands of Filipino and American soldiers, he endured the 65-mile Bataan Death March under a scorching tropical sun up the Bataan peninsula to a make-shift POW camp at Camp O'Donnell in Capas. Along the way, the men were robbed, bayoneted, starved, beaten and killed. All suffered from four months of desperate fighting from malnutrition, exhaustion, dysentery, and malaria. Over 10,000 Filipinos and 600 Americans died on the March.

Ben Steele

The death rate escalated at the POW camp with about 20,000 Filipinos and 1,500 Americans dying there because of disease, starvation, neglect, and brutality. In June, to get out of the camp, Steele joined the Tayabas Road detail. This proved even more difficult than the March, especially since none of the soldiers knew when it would be over. For most, it would end in death. Out of the original 325 soldiers, Ben was one of only 50 who survived the work camp.

By August, Ben became so ill from beri beri, dysentery, pneumonia, blood poisoning, and malaria that he could no longer work. He was sent to Bilibid Prison for 18 months. Although expected to die, he clung to life and kept his sanity by covertly sketching Montana scenes--cowboys, horses and barns--and the human degradation and cruelty POWs were subjected to. He did so at great risk. Steele acknowledged he could have been shot if his sketches were discovered.

Canadian Inventor

On July 4, 1944,  he was put on board the freighter Canadian Inventor, which the prisoners called Mati Mati Maru. The POWs endured 62 days en route to Japan. The ship arrived at Moji, Japan on September 1. Most ships bringing POWs to Japan docked at Moji. He was sent the next day to be a slave laborer at a coal mine owned by Sanyo Muen Kogyosho, today's Ube Industries.

The POW camp linked to the mine was Hiroshima #6-B (Omine Machi). It was so close Hiroshima, that he heard the explosion of the atomic bomb dropped on that city on August 6, 1945. In 1996, to the Company's credit, they allowed a memorial to built near the mine the POWs who toiled there.

In mid-September 1945, he was evaluated to the hospital ship USS Consolation, taken to Okinawa and then was flown to San Francisco by the 19th Bombardment Group C54 and assigned to Fort George Wright Hospital in Spokane, Washington, where he remained until he was discharged on July 10, 1946. Steele painted scenes from his capture as he went through his long recovery, including trying to regain the 80 pounds he lost. “I had lots of problems to work through,” he said, “and the doctors thought the art was a good idea.”

In 1950, Ben graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Education degree from Kent State University two years later and a Master of the Arts degree from Denver University in 1955. He also pursued further graduate study at the University of Oregon, Illinois State University, and Montana State University. He served as post crafts director for the Department of Army at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1953 and as staff crafts director for the 3rd U.S. Army in 1956. In September 1959, he started teaching in the art department of Eastern Montana College, today's University of Montana, Billings, acting as director and eventually as head of the art department until June 1982. He retired as Professor of Art Emeritus.

He said he learned to forgive his Japanese captors because of his relationship with Harry Koyama, an art student of Japanese heritage. “He’s been a part of my life since I met him in college in the 1960s,” Koyama, a western artist with a gallery in Billings, said about Steele. “That’s even more of a humbling experience to know that I had not just an effect, but a positive effect on his life.”

click to order

Steele’s powerful images of his time in captivity are housed at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture at the University of Montana in Missoula. While many people knew Steele’s war stories and what he endured as a prison of war, “it’s his personality, his warm caring personality that made people love him,” his daughter says. “His students would come up to me and say, ‘Ben and I have a special bond.’ But he made everyone feel special.” Steele’s survival was chronicled in the 2009 New York Times best-seller Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath by Michael and Elizabeth Norman.

A documentary of Steele’s life, Survival Through Art, narrated by Alec Baldwin and filmed by ADBC-MS President Jan Thompson has just been completed. In March 2016, ground was broken for Ben Steele Middle School in Billings. 

Ted Cruz Compares His 21-Hour Speech To Bataan Death March

By Ben Steele, survivor*

One journalist was bolted alert toward the end of Senator Ted Cruz's (R-TX) 21-hour filibuster against the Affordable Care Act, when the Senator compared his tirade to enduring the infamous Bataan Death March.

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed on September 25th posted the video of the Senator making the comparison and wrote:

“Now in 31 minutes we will be concluded,” Cruz said. “I don’t want to miss the opportunity within the limited amount of time is imperative that I do, which is to thank the men and women who have endured this, this Bataan Death March. And I want to take a little bit of time to thank by name. I want to start by thanking the Republican floor staff and cloakroom. I want to thank Laura Dove for her fairness, for her dealing with crises and passions on all sides and for her effectiveness in the job. And this is an interesting occurrence to occur so early in her job and I thank her for her service.”

The Bataan Death March occurred in 1942 after the American defeat at the hands of the Japanese in the Philippines. U.S. government totals say 12,000 American troops were forced to march up the east coast of the Philippines to Camp O’Donnell, which would serve as a prisoner of war camp. Many died on the way because of beatings, executions, and malnutrition.

For those of you who share Mr. Kaczynski's indignation, you can educate the Senator about the inhumanity and horrors of the Bataan Death March by emailing him directly HERE.

*We have a number of signed poster copies of Mr. Steele's painting of the Death March available for those who donate $100 (tax deductible) or more to support our research. You may want to purchase one to send one to Senator Cruz. Email us.

Search for POW remains in the Philippines continues

Painting by Ben Steele

U.S. and Philippine Governments Partner to Investigate Remains of 

American service members in the Philippines from World War II

JPAC FACT SHEET

Manila, January 18, 2013 –This week, personnel from the U.S. and Philippine governments will begin preliminary investigations into possible locations of the remains of American Prisoners of War (POWs) and those Missing in Action (MIAs) in the Philippines.

 The effort is led by the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), based in Honolulu, whose humanitarian mission is to conduct global search, recovery, and laboratory operations to identify more than 83,000 unaccounted-for Americans from past conflicts.  Alongside Philippine partners, the JPAC team will be searching for evidence of about 80 Americans who remain unaccounted-for from World War II.  A nine-member investigation team will work with Philippine partners to authenticate leads from eyewitnesses and conduct field research at numerous locations throughout the Philippines to determine whether a return visit for excavation is merited.

 “These investigations have the potential bring long desired closure for the families of American service members who went missing while serving their country in the second World War,” said Brian L. Goldbeck, Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy.  “We are truly grateful to our Philippine partners for working closely with us to facilitate this project.”

 The joint investigations follow the signing of a Statement of Intent on June 3, 2011 between the United States and the Philippines to collaborate in researching, investigating, recovering, and conducting forensic reviews of American POW and MIA remains.  As part of the agreement, JPAC personnel are required to respect all Philippine national and local laws and regulations, local customs, traditions and courtesies.

 All activities are being closely coordinated with and facilitated by the Government of the Philippines, with involvement from the Philippine Departments of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Health, Interior and Local Government, Environment and Natural Resources; the National Museum of the Philippines; the Bureaus of Customs and Immigration; the Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement; the National Bureau of Investigation; the National Commission on Indigenous People; the Armed Forces of the Philippines; and the Philippine National Police.  

For press inquiries, please contact the U.S. Embassy Information Office at 301-2363 or email at mnlinfooffice@state.gov.

Commemoration April 24&25

70^th Anniversary of the Defense the Philippines, Bataan Death March and the Fall of Corregidor to be Held in Washington

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 9^th 2012, Washington, DC – Commemorative events will be held in Washington, DC April 24-25 to remember the heroic American defense of the Philippines against Imperial Japan in the early months of World War II. Survivors from the Bataan Death March and the battle of Corregidor will attend.

The 70th Anniversary of the infamous Bataan Death March is today, April 9^th, and the surrender of Corregidor marking the fall of the Philippines is May 6th.

The veterans from the Battle of the Philippines coming to Washington include past national commanders of the now-disbanded American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) who traveled to Japan in 2010 and 2011 to receive an official apology from the Government of Japan for their maltreatment and to visit their former POW camps. The death rate and incidence of post-traumatic stress for American POWs of Japan was the greatest of any American conflict.

Participating is Bataan Death March survivor Dr. Lester Tenney of California, the last national commander of the ADBC and instrumental in persuading the Government of Japan to offer American former POWs an apology and a program to visit Japan. He is the founder of Care Packages from Home for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Also participating is Death March survivor Mr. Ben Steele of Montana who has chronicled the horrors of the Death March and Japan’s POW camps through his award-winning paintings and drawings. Mr. Donald Versaw of California is the last of the “China Marines” (4th Marine Regiment who were stationed in Shanghai, China) who fought on Corregidor. Mr. Rolwand Towery of Texas, who fought in the battle for Corregidor, is a Pulitzer prize winner. Mr. Joe Alexander of Texas at 14 was the youngest member of the Army Air Corps on Bataan and became a POW of Japan at 15.

Veterans attending:

Dr. Lester Tenney, 92, San Diego, CA. Bataan Death March, Illinois National Guard, Company B, 192^nd Tank Battalion from Maywood Illinois

Mr. Joseph Alexander, 85, San Antonio, TX. Bombing of Clark Field, Army Air Corps 440th Ordnance Aviation Bombardment Squadron

Mr. Donald Versaw, 91, Lakewood, CA, Corregidor, 4^th Marines Band (China Marines), 2^nd Battalion E Company

Mr. Ben Steele, 94, Billings, MT, Bataan Death March, Army Air Corps, 7th Material Squadron, 19th Bomb Group

Mr. Roland Towery, 89, Austin, TX, Corregidor, Army, Battery C, 60^th Coast Artillery

Special Guest: Ms. Kinue Tokudome, Kagoshima, Japan. Founder of the US-Japan Dialogue on POWs, who accompanied the POWs on their return to their POW camps.

The schedule of events includes a wreath laying at the World War II Memorial, a roundtable discussion on the legacy of the Bataan Death March hosted by Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-CA) and Mike Honda (D-CA), a luncheon hosted by the Disabled American Veterans association and The Heritage Foundation with today’s Wounded Warriors, a dinner hosted by the VFW, and a reception hosted by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). There will also be meetings with Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell.

According to Mindy Kotler of Asia Policy Point, a Washington research center, the Commemoration “will be unique and likely last opportunity to honor these heroes.” These men “made history during World War II by participating in the defense of the Philippines as well as recently by accepting one of the very few official, specific Japanese government apologies for its wartime atrocities.” These veterans now hope that the Japanese companies that used them as slave labor while they were POWs will follow the example of their government.

FOR MORE INFORMATION