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A Scar That Never Heals The Bataan Death March, a 65-mile forced march of defeated American and Filipino troops by the Japanese, resulted in 15,000 deaths during the march, 26,000 deaths within two months in the POW camp, and over 35,000 additional deaths during three years interment in the camp (Aviles38). The Holocaust, the most widely recognized atrocity of World War II, claimed the lives of 6 million Jews by starvation, disease, or extermination (Keegan34). For us, these events paint a nightmarish picture of freedom lost and hell found. For the survivors of these attritions, unforgettable scars had been left on the hearts of those who witnessed or experienced first hand the sights, sounds, and smells of death by the hands of their captors. The Bataan Death March Eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft attacked the Philippines, destroying most of the U.S. Air Force on the islands (Paul67). Weldon Hamilton, a U.S. Airman in the Philippines describes the results of the attack, “The Japanese bombers attacked, and it was a disaster. Our planes went up the first day, and they were almost all lost. They strafed the rest on the ground. Without air power, we were transformed into infantry” (qtd. in Aviles38). The American-Filipino infantry were forced to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula to hold off the Japanese attack. But after four months, lack of logistical supply took its toll on the Allied defenders. Disease and Hunger began setting in. Hamilton remarks, “We were out of food. So, we ate the 26th Cavalry--Every single horse” (qtd. in Aviles38). Major General Edward P. King, commander of troops on Bataan, had two choices, surrender or die. On April 9, 1942, King ordered the surrender of 78,000 troops to the Japanese (Aviles38). The Japanese assembled their captives and stripped them of their belongings. The captured soldiers were divided up into groups of about 300 and told to march.
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