Surviving the Bataan Death March

Описание: The Bataan Death March[a] was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of around 72,000 to 78,000 Filipino (about 66,000) and American (about 12,000) prisoners of war (POWs) from the municipalities of Bagac and Mariveles on the Bataan Peninsula to Camp O'Donnell via San Fernando.

The transfer began on April 9, 1942, after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. The total distance marched from Mariveles to San Fernando and from the Capas Train Station to various camps was 105 kilometres (65 mi). Sources also report widely differing prisoner of war casualties before reaching Camp O'Donnell: from 5,000 to 18,000 Filipino deaths and 500 to 650 American deaths during the march.

The march was characterized by severe physical abuse and wanton killings, including the Pantingan River massacre during which up to 400 prisoners were executed. POWs who fell or were caught on the ground were shot. After the war, the Japanese commander, General Masaharu Homma and two of his officers, Major General Yoshitaka Kawane and Colonel Kurataro Hirano, were tried by United States military commissions for war crimes and sentenced to death on charges of failing to prevent their subordinates from committing atrocities, though Masanobu Tsuji, the mastermind behind Pantingan River massacre, could flee, hide himself and escape from the war trial. Homma was executed in 1946, and Kawane and Hirano in 1949, while Tsuji eventually served for several foreign intelligence agencies after the war, disappearing in Laos, April 1961 and being declared dead seven years later.

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