One of the worst war crimes of the 20th century began on the grounds of an elementary school in a small town in the Philippines. At the same time one of the best military survival stories in history began. The most important part of the Bataan World War II Museum, which is located behind Balanga Elementary School, is a life-size model from the day American troops in the Philippines surrendered to Japanese leaders on April 9, 1942.
The museum itself is very small. It occupies only two floors of a building that today seems as large as a modern American neighborhood house. There are wall art with bullet holes from World War II and fighting in the Philippines, as well as wreckage fragments and weapons from the Battle of Bataan. The model is in front of the door.
It does not seem enough to remember that this was the greatest defeat of American troops in history. Tens of thousands of Filipino and American troops launched the Bataan Death March hours after the Japanese surrendered. It was a five-day, 100 km march to a prison camp in the north, during which they received no food or water and it was very hot. Many people would die. Others would be incredibly strong.
The Battle of Bataan
On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At the same time, Tokyo’s forces launched their first strikes on other US military bases in the Pacific. The Philippines was one of the main targets. The Philippines was home to approximately 20,000 U.S. troops when it was a U.S. colony. In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt added approximately 100,000 Filipinos to the U.S. military. Together they were called the United States Army Far East (USAFFE).
Japan’s first air attacks took place on December 8, 1941. Two weeks later, on December 15, 1941, the main invasion force landed on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. In just over three months, they pushed American and Filipino defenders back to the Bataan Peninsula, located across Manila Bay from the Philippine city. The plan of the U.S. leader in the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur, was for his troops to hold out in the southern part of the peninsula until the U.S. Navy could send more troops and supplies to help the defenders under attack.
However, the Americans and Filipinos quickly found themselves running out of food, medicine, and ammunition. General Edward King, who commanded Bataan, disobeyed his boss and told his men to lay down their arms, taking full responsibility for the loss.
“Men, remember this.” You didn’t give up… “You had no choice but to do what I said,” he said. Accounts from the time say that King asked Colonel Matoo Nakayama, the Japanese officer who accepted the surrender, to promise that his men would be treated with respect.
The Japanese said: “We are not barbarians”. According to a trial that would take place after the war, General Masaharu Homma, who led Japanese troops in the Battle of Bataan and was responsible for the men who participated in the death march, allegedly committed war crimes. This happened in 1946.
The march towards death
This place where people abandoned in Balanga is not where the Bataan death march began. Some soldiers came from Bagac on the west coast and from Marilèves on the southern tip of the peninsula. But going north, they would all pass through Balanga.
The path of walking now resembles a road that could be found anywhere in the world. In the Philippines, trucks, cars, and the ubiquitous motorized tricycles and jeepneys that serve as public transportation all share the road. It’s through McDonald’s and Jollibee restaurants, shopping malls and parking lots, farmland and housing projects that are still under construction but promise the latest in high-end living at prices most people can afford. afford. But it was hell on Earth in 1942.
A history book of American and Filipino prisoners of war indicates that they were divided into groups of 100 men each, with four Japanese guards in each group. Their steps were four wide because it was “scorching” hot outside. In a 2012 interview with Air Force News Service, survivor James Bollich explained how painful it was. “They hit us with clubs, rifle butts, sabers and anything they could find. » This lasted all day. Bolich said: “They didn’t let anyone drink water or rest, and they didn’t feed us. »
“As soon as someone fell, the Japanese would kill them,” he said. “It looked like they were setting us all on fire.” Today, there are white concrete markers along the route that remind us of the people who have traveled the path. For example, at mile marker 24 there is one that says “JB McBride and Tillman R. Rutledge, two friends who participated in the Bataan Death March.” At kilometer 100, in front of the soldiers’ cemetery of the former American air base in Clark, there is a sign that only says “Death March”.
Death in a boxcar
For the thousands of American and Filipino prisoners of war, the journey from Bataan to the prison at the former American military camp O’Donnell in Capas, in the north of the peninsula, was not only on foot. The POWs were packed into boxcars for about 30 miles of their journey, from a train station in San Fernando to another about 5 miles from the detention camp.
Inside the smallest of these boxcars there was approximately 240 square feet (22 square meters) of space. The wooden sides, metal tops, and small openings for air circulation transformed them into ovens for the hundred or more prisoners of war who lived inside each.
The last of its kind is at the Capas National Sanctuary, built on the site of Camp O’Donnell, but it would be easy for a tourist to miss. Beyond the parking lot of the huge memorial dedicated to the war dead in the Philippines, it is on display. The boxcar has a roof now, not in 1942. It’s almost a safe place to get away from the hot sun of March 2024.
But on a plaque nearby are the stories of people who lived in a boxcar, perhaps this one, in 1942. It’s scary to be near it, to stick your head through the open door and to think about how horrible it must have been inside. .
“We were pushed into crowded boxcars like animals about to be killed… Men were fighting and trying to stay upright and straight… “The boxcar platform was a sea of filth from people suffering from dysentery. And more.
“We were melted alive in an oven at 110 degrees; we shivered, spit, peed and pooped. I saw people fainting but I had nothing to land on…I don’t know how many of my friends died in that car, but at least 10 must have died. But for the remaining prisoners of war, worse things were yet to come.
Capas was a concentration camp
On the grounds of what was once Camp O’Donnell, it’s hard to imagine what it was like when it was a prisoner of war camp in conditions so poor that Filipinos call it today the Capas concentration camp.
The 133-acre site has more than 31,000 trees, each bearing a white number in remembrance of those who died during the death march. A 70 meter high pillar stands above stone walls on which the names of the dead are engraved. It’s quiet this March morning and I’m the only one who came to the snack and gift stand.