I cheated and wrote about two connected stories. This one's long and broken into two parts. If you're actually reading this, consider yourselves warned.
I often feel very grateful for the friends I’ve made at this site. Even though I’ve made a veritable life of learning war stories and retelling them to others, I doubt I would have ever reached beyond what I learned about the Canadians in the wars or what they did in the movies. If I never met Mariska from the Netherlands, I have no idea when I would have learned about the Dutch Hongerwinter; if not for Mr. East in Toronto, I probably never would have learned about the Angels of Bataan. This year, if The Mask never asked, I probably wouldn’t know a thing about the escape from Davao Penal Colony in the Philippines.
The story really deserves to begin with the fall of Bataan in April of 1942. For three months, Filipino and American troops stubbornly defended the last peninsula of Luzon Island in the Philippines. Most of these men were untrained, inexperienced, and in many cases were actually coast guard, constabulary, or other non-combat unit. These men were facing 75,000 of the Empire of Japan’s toughest, most hardened troops. Even with superior numbers, the Filipino and American soldiers had obsolete weapons and gear, were suffering tropical disease and malnutrition, and had accepted that there would be no reinforcements and no retreat. A violent Japanese offensive on April 3rd shattered the remnants of the defenders. The following week on April 9th, approximately 15,000 U.S. and 60,000 Filipino troops and civilians were surrendered at Bataan.
The surrender at Bataan remains the largest Filipino surrender in the country’s history, and remains the largest surrender of American soldiers in American military history.
The Japanese invaders, not knowing the dire situation the defenders were in, had expected a month more of resistance and were still getting their logistics under control; they were not prepared for 75,000 prisoners of war that needed to be moved out of the theatre of operations in front of Corregidor. The most pragmatic solution was to simply march the POWs out of Bataan. The route was 25 miles to Balanga, then 31 miles to San Fernando. Trains would then move the prisoners to Capas, and finally marched 9 miles to the abandoned Camp O’Donnell. Again, the Japanese soldiers did not factor the starved and disease-ridden state of their prisoners.
In a show of force or just plain cruelty, the Japanese executed about 400 Filipino officers and non-commissioned officers following the surrender well before the march. The men killed then, in a way, were fortunate to never have to see what was to come next…
Imagine 75,000 people, all half-starved and exhausted. Imagine how many are suffering from malaria, dysentery and all other form of tropical disease. Now imagine them being marched by force for 60 miles over the course of several days under sweltering tropical heat and jungle. To complete the initial picture, now imagine how, due to the overwhelmed Japanese logistics, these prisoners were being withheld food and clean water for three days until they reached Balanga, and even afterward were given sporadic food if even.
Now imagine thousands of men simply dropping dead from exhaustion and heat stroke. Men beaten, shot or bayoneted for falling behind in the march. Men beheaded by Japanese officers on horseback living out samurai fantasies. Men too exhausted to continue, falling, and left behind for truck tires and tank treads to finish them off. Men buried alive. Men having their swollen fingers severed so the Japanese soldier doing the act could steal his ring. Men, still living, tied to fences and having their stomachs slashed open. Men forced to defecate and urinate as they walked, never being allowed to stop for even this one basic need. Men crammed onto unventilated boxcars, transported by rail back-to-chest, dying where they stood…
As guided by their overzealous idea of bushido, the Japanese did not see a warrior who could surrender himself to the enemy as anything better than an animal. They treated their prisoners as such.
Even at the village stops and the penal colonies, cramped conditions meant rampant spread of every sort of malaria, dysentery – even long-conquered diseases like tuberculosis and beriberi made their way through the American and Filipino prisoners. Men continued to die daily…
…the Allies needed to know…
