The Bataan Death March and the 66-Year Struggle for Justice · Bataan Death March survivor James Murphy of Army Air Corps described how 500 American POWs were brutally treated at

The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 6 | Issue 4 | Article ID 2714 | Apr 01, 2008

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The Bataan Death March and the 66-Year Struggle for Justice

Kinue TOKUDOME

The Bataan Death March and the 66-YearStruggle for Justice

Kinue TOKUDOME

April 9, 2008 marks the 66th anniversary of thefall of Bataan which resulted in the largestsurrender by the United States Army in itshistory. Over 77,000 American and Filipinotroops were to become victims of one of themost brutal episodes in the Pacific War—theBataan Death March.

The March: Beginning of the Ordeal

In 1941, the Filipino people were alreadypromised independence from the United States,which had seized the islands nation from Spainduring the Spanish-American War. But with theJapanese expansion to Southeast Asiabeginning to pose a threat, Gen. DouglasMacArthur was recalled to active duty toprepare for a possible Japanese attack. Whenthe attack did come, MacArthur’s initial plan tohalt the Japanese invasion at the beachesfailed. As a result, tens of thousands of UStroops who retreated to Bataan, the peninsulain central Luzon, did not have enough food ormedicine to sustain their fight. MacArthur, whomoved his headquarters from Manila to theisland of Corregidor across Bataan, continuedto send orders: never surrender.

Then on March 12, 1942, he escaped toAustralia. This left the men in Bataan to keepfighting until their ammunition, food, andmedicine ran out, upsetting the Japanesetimetable for victory and giving the UnitedStates precious time to recover from the Pearl

Harbor attack. By the time more than 11,000American and 66,000 Filipino soldierssurrendered on April 9, 1942, they werestarving and most were stricken with malaria,beriberi or dysentery. “Thousands of troops andhundreds of planes” that MacArthur hadassured them were on the way to rescue themnever arrived.

Bataan Death March survivor Lester Tenney ofthe 192nd Tank Battalion wrote years later:

“In every battle there comes a timewhen one group of warriors mustbe sacrificed for the benefit of thewhole…,” declared PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt during oneof his fireside radio chats in March1942. The battle he spoke of wasthe battle of the Philippines, andthe warriors were those fightingAmerican men and women onBataan and Corregidor…. [1]

Then began the March. The Japanese militaryhad no plan to systematically torture andmurder the POWs. But it sought to moveAmerican and Filipino soldiers out of Bataanquickly so that it could immediately launchattacks on Corregidor. The Japanese soldiersalso despised POWs who chose to surrenderinstead of fighting to death.

Bataan Death March survivor Glenn Fraziertestified in the recently aired PBS documentaryThe War, “If we had known what was ahead ofus at the beginning of the Bataan Death March,I would have taken death.” He described whathappened next:

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And they immediately started beating guys ifthey didn’t stand right or if they were sittingdown. We didn’t know where we were going...And all our possessions were taken away fromus. Some of them had rings that they just cutthe fingers off, and take the rings. They pouredthe water out of my canteen to be sure that Ididn’t have any, any water. I saw them buriedalive. When a guy was bayoneted or shot,laying in the road and the convoys were comingalong, I saw trucks that would just go out oftheir way to run over the guy in the middle ofthe road. And when by the time you havefifteen or twenty trucks run over you, look likea smashed tomato or something. And I sawpeople that had their throats cut because theywould take their bayonets and stick it outthrough the corner of the truck at night and itwould just be high enough to cut their throats.And beating with a rifle butt until there justwas no more life in them.

G l e n n F r a z i e r ’ s t e s t i m o n y(http://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_5336.htm).

Glenn Frazier in PBS documentary “The War”

Harold Poole of Army Air Corps a lsoremembered:

Some of the guys would just faint,they were that weak. This guy wasno more than five feet away. Hewas lying facedown. The guardpoked him and he didn’t move fastenough, so he got the bayonet

right through his back….

I could hardly believe what Isaw….

I wanted to jump that guard andgrab his rifle and wrap it aroundhis neck, and I could have in thosedays. I was still in pretty goodshape and those guys were a lotsmaller than us. I could havejumped up and wrapped that gunaround his neck and he’d neverhave known what hit him. But youknow, there was another guardbehind him and he would have shotme and that would have been theend of me, see. [2]

Louis Read of the 31st Infantry Regimentwitnessed a killing of his fellow POW:

One incident at Lubao shook meup. I spent all my time during theday standing in line for the onewater hydrant to fill my canteen. Iwas almost up to the hydrant whena Japanese officer came up, lookedus over, and selected a rather tall,good-looking soldier, who was justin front of me, out of the line. Theofficer, for no apparent reason,turned over this man to a group ofsoldiers who took him across theroad, tied to a tree and used himfor bayonet practice. From myplace in line, I saw the whole thing.After he was dead they took hisbody and threw it into a largebamboo clump. Then, just as I gotto the hydrant, the Japanesesoldiers pushed me aside andwashed the blood off of theirbayonets. [3]

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After trudging for four to seven days andreaching to the town of San Fernando, Filipinoand American POWs were herded into boxcars.They were packed so tight that they couldhardly move. Doors were shut and thetemperature inside the boxcars quickly rose.Men gasped for air and some died whilestanding. Those who survived four-hour ride inthe boxcar prison had to walk another fewmiles from Capas to reach their destination,Camp O’Donnell.

No one knows exactly how many died on theBataan Death March, but even by the mostconservative estimate approximately 6,000Filipinos and 650 Americans lost their lives.

Carrying the dead to gravesites, April, 1942

The death toll rose even higher after theyarrived at Camp O’Donnell. Captain John Olsonwas Adjutant of the American Group at CampO’Donnell and kept records on the deaths thattook place there. He later wrote:

Camp O’Donnell’s appearance inthe endless stream of History wasbrief, but dramatic. During its lesst h a n n i n e m o n t h s a s aconcentration area, it saw some1,565 American and over 26,000Filipino, all in the prime of life,per i sh ignomin ious l y andneedless ly . Because of thecallousness and inefficiency of anenemy who relentlessly applied anatavistic code of conduct to dealing

with helpless individuals, theywere not treated according to thecodes subscribed to by most of thenations of the Twentieth Century.Though what happened to theAmericans was reprehensible, thestudied extermination of theFilipinos, whom the Japanese hadostensibly come to free from the“Tyrannical Oppression” of theImperial Americans, is utterlyinexplicable. [4]

Hellships

The ordeal continued for American POWs whosurvived the Bataan Death March and CampO’Donnell. Most of them, together with thePOWs who were captured after the fall ofCorregidor, were eventually sent to Japan tobecome forced laborers. The ships whose holdsPOWs were crammed into were aptly called“Hellships.”

The late Col. Melvin Rosen who survived theBataan Death March described what it was likeon a Hellship:

Over 600 men crowded in a metalhold with no ventilation other thanone hatch. There were no sanitaryfacilities. We did use some emptyfood buckets, but they were soonoverflowing…By nightfall the holdwas pitch black, and men wentmad from lack of water and food.They were completely crazed andwere drinking urine. Although I didnot personally see any, I believethere were murders and drinkingof blood. The conditions in the holdand of the people were beyondbelief….

The daily death rate on the BrazilMaru escalated from about 20 to

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40. Now we were sailing in theEast China Sea with snow comingin our open hatch. Men froze todeath, died of starvation, died ofthirst, and died of a myriad ofdiseases. Again there were nosanitary facilities, and so the holdwas ankle deep in feces, urine, andvomit. [5]

Although many died from diseases during thevoyages, the majority of deaths on Hellshipsoccurred when American submarines andbombers attacked and sank these unmarkedships. Thousands of POWs perished. OneHellship, the Arisan Maru, lost all but eight ofits entire human cargo of 1,800 AmericanPOWs when it was sunk by a US submarine.

Forced Labor in Japan

POWs who survived Hellship voyages werethen forced to work in mines, factories anddocks owned by Japanese companies such asMitsui, Mitsubishi, and Nippon Steel. Beatingand other abuse continued while food andmedicine were never adequate.

Bataan Death March survivor James Murphy ofArmy Air Corps described how 500 AmericanPOWs were brutally treated at MitsubishiOsarizawa copper mine in northern Japan.

We were subjected to perilousworking conditions and strenuousphysical labor beyond belief. Theguards and officials were trainedto be barbarous and savage intheir day-to-day exploitation andcontrol of us. The egregious actagainst us by the Japaneseincluded beatings with clubs,rifles, shovels, picks and otherobjects. We were struck with fistsand kicked with booted feetcausing gashes, contusions and

ulcers.Even though our conditions ofmalnutrition, starvation, disease,and illnesses were plainly evident,the Japanese did nothing toremedy these. We were not fed;our illnesses and diseases were nottreated; but they continued towork us harder and harder toincrease copper mine production.[6]

Lester Tenney, who was forced to work atMitsui coalmine in Kyushu, remembered thatbrutality of Japanese guards increased asAmerican bombings of Japanese citiesintensified in the winter of 1944.

I was hit with the swinging chainthree times, all within a month ortwo and always for the samereason: the Americans had bombedone of the Japanese cities andkilled some of the residents. I hadexpected some form of retaliation.When I was hit with the chain thefirst time, it fell across my lowerback. I felt as if my back had beenbroken in two. [7]

By the end of the war, 1,115 American POWsdied in Japan from abuse, diseases, and evenexecutions.

After the War

The US government and its military leadersfirst learned about the Bataan Death Marchand the atrocities inflicted on Americansoldiers in the summer of 1943 from one of theofficers who had survived the Bataan DeathMarch and later escaped from the prison campin Mindanao. But the media were not allowedto publicize it until January of 1944. Once theylearned about it, the American public wasshocked and outraged by the Japanesebrutality. The outrage was shown in President

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Truman’s address after the dropping of theAtomic bombs:

We have used it against those whoattacked us without warning atPearl Harbor, against those whohave starved and beaten andexecuted American prisoners ofwar, against those who haveabandoned all pretense of obeyinginternational laws of warfare. [8]

General Masaharu Homma, the commandinggeneral of the Japanese Army in the Philippinesduring the Bataan Death March, was tried andexecuted on April 3, 1946. Hundreds of prisonguards who abused POWs would meet the samefate.

But in a mere six years, the outrage was to bereplaced by geopolitics prevailing in the FarEast. In 1951, the US government signed thePeace Treaty with Japan, which included aprovision waiving claims of former POWsagainst Japan. The United States needed Japanwithin its camp against the Communist Sovietbloc and chose not to seek compensation fromJapan. Former POWs of the Japanese felt thatthey were sacrificed by their own governmentagain.

During those days, however, former POWswere busy rebuilding their lives whilestruggling to come to terms with their wartimesufferings.

Bataan Death March survivor Carlos Montoyaof the 200th Coast Artillery described his post-war struggle:

For the first five years after thewar, I drank heavily. I was stillvery angry. I drank to get mymemory out of me. One time mywife was pregnant and I took herto our doctor whose office was on

the third floor of a bank building.We were waiting for the elevator inthe lobby on the first floor. Theelevator door opened and out camea Japanese person. I jumped onhim and got him by the throat. Iput him on the floor and waskicking him and hitting him.People around us didn't know whatwas happening and called thepolice. The police came and askedwhat was wrong. So my wife toldhim that I was a prisoner of war inJapan. I was going to kill thatJapanese. When the police foundout what the fight was about hesaid to the poor Japanese to getgoing. So I had to watch myselfthat I wouldn't see Japanese….In 1972, I even went back toNiigata with the full intention ofkilling the guard who had torturedme while I was a POW. I carriedmy pistol. Looking back now, I wasstill mentally sick at that time. Ihad a lot of anger. [9]

Each survivor had to find his own way to dealwith the painful memory of being a POW of theJapanese. Not many people understood “posttraumatic stress disorder” in those days.

Robert Brown of Army Air Corps was only 17years old when he walked the Bataan DeathMarch. He weighed 82 pounds when he wassent to a POW camp in Mukden, Manchuria. Hewas liberated by Soviet forces in August 1945.When he came home, he did not know how toreadjust to normal life:

I came home, but I was still injail… I couldn’t sleep… I couldn’tconverse with anybody. I spokesome Japanese and knew someChinese cuss words. But I couldn’ttalk to anyone…There were nojobs. I was uneducated, for all

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purposes. I knew I could survive ina prisoner-of-war camp, but whatelse could I do? The only thing Icould do was to drink.

One time, I was sleeping and washaving flashbacks. My mothercame in to shake me and wake meup. I came out of the bed and heldher by the throat. I woke up andsaid, "What in the hell am I doing!"I told her, "Mother, don't evercome in and touch me when I amsleeping because I don't knowwhat I am going to do." [10]

Bataan Death March survivor Abie Abraham ofthe 31st Infantry decided to stay in thePhilippines after General McArthur personallyordered him to exhume bodies of Americansoldiers who died on the Bataan Death March.He discovered hundreds of remains along theroute of the Bataan Death March, some of thembelonged to his friends:

I went for the body of my oldfriend, Luther Everson, whom Ihad known well before the war. Irecalled that as we were waveringand staggering out of Balanga, wecrossed a bridge and I saw Lutherfall. He tried to get up and fellagain. I saw a Japanese soldierclub him to death.

From under a bamboo thicket wedisinterred his grave. The diggershanded me a skull. I shudderedand showed them the deep crackleft by the Japanese club. All eyesstared as though awe-stricken.

“Sergeant Everson and I used todrink at the NCO Club before thewar,” I told them. “Now I 'mholding his skull! A good and kindhuman being killed because he was

sick, hungry, and thirsty, andtired….” [11]

Very few were lucky to find a medium withwhich to express their POW experience. BenSteele of Army Air Corps is a survivor of theBataan Death March and nearly a year offorced labor in a Japanese coalmine. But he ismost famous for his drawings and paintingsdepicting his experiences as a POW of theJapanese. He began to draw while in a prisoncamp in the Philippines, but all but two originaldrawings were lost. He would recreate many ofthose drawings after he came back home.Eventually, his artwork became one of the mostcomprehensive and expressively powerfulvisual records of the prisoner-of-war experienceunder the Japanese.

Ben Steele “The Water Line” [12]

Seeking an Honorable Closure

It was not until 54 years after their liberationthat survivors of the Bataan Death March andother former POWs of the Japanese filedlawsuits against the Japanese companies thatenslaved them. Such lawsuits became possibleunder a California law enacted in 1999. Theapplicable portion of the law reads:

Any Second World War slave laborvictim…may bring an action torecover compensation for laborperformed as a Second World Warslave labor victim or Second WorldWar forced labor victim from any

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entity or successor in interestthereof, for whom that labor wasperformed, either directly orthrough a subsidiary or affiliate.[13]

Lester Tenney was the first plaintiff to file alawsuit against Mitsui. Soon, more than thirtylawsuits were filed against almost sixtyJapanese companies. The governments of boththe United States and Japan sided with theJapanese defendant companies and stronglyurged the court to dismiss the cases based onthe Peace Treaty.

On September 25, 2001, three formerAmbassadors to Japan, Walter Mondale,Thomas Foley, and Michael Armacost, wrote anopinion piece for the Washington Post. Arguingagainst bills pending in Congress to supportPOW lawsuits, they wrote that such measures,“would undermine our relations with Japan, akey ally. It would have serious, and negative,effects on our national security….Why wouldCongress consider passing a law that couldabrogate a treaty [the San Francisco PeaceTreaty] so fundamental to our security at a timethe president and his administration are tryingso hard to forge a coalition to combatterrorism?"

After more than four years of pre-trialmaneuverings, POW forced labor lawsuits wereall dismissed. The court found the Californialaw to be unconstitutional because it wouldinterfere with the federal law (treaty). But onecould not blame the POWs for filling theselawsuits. They simply tried to exercise the rightthey had under the California law. The authorof this law, former California Senator TomHayden, wrote to this author when she askedhim if he was aware that his law might be inconflict with the Peace Treaty:

We consulted lawyers and lookedat the Treaty. There is nothing

about the Treaty that can abrogatethe right of an individual to seekredress for slavery or forced labor,nor anything barring a state fromprotecting its citizens in such case.[14]

Yet his law was found unconstitutional andplaced aging former POWs on an emotionalrollercoaster for four years.

That their own government tried to block theirday in court at every step of the way hurtformer POWs more than anything else. Theycould imagine that the Bush administrationwould not want to see anything that upset thevaluable ally, Japan, in its war against terrorand later its war in Iraq. Still, knowing that theUS government could have facilitated asettlement, as it did for the German slave laborvictims, they again felt that they weresacrificed. The poem they used to recite inBataan evoked renewed emotion among theDeath March survivors:

The Battling Bastards of BataanNo mamas, no papas, no UncleSam,No aunts, No uncles, no cousins,no niecesNo pills, no planes, no artillerypieces,And nobody gives a damn.

Because the goal for the lawsuits was to bringan honorable closure to their wartimesufferings, former POWs did not consider thedismissal of their lawsuits to be the end of theirfight. They hoped that the legally exoneratedJapanese companies and the Japanesegovernment would come forward, acknowledgethe POW abuse during WWII, and offer asincere apology without concerns aboutcompensation. That never happened.

In April of 2007, about 70 members of

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American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor(ADBC), the national organization of formerPOWs of the Japanese, gathered in the nation’scapital to attend their annual convention. Mostof them were in their late 80s and 90s andknew that this would be the last time that sucha large number of former POWs of the Japanesewould be in Washington DC together.They passed a resolution that sought an officialapology from the Japanese government. LesterTenney, the Vice Commander of ADBC, haddrafted the resolution and planned topersonally deliver it to the Japanese Embassy.Although he had asked the Embassy weeks inadvance for a brief meeting with AmbassadorKato Ryozo or anyone who would receive theresolution, his request was ignored. On the dayTenney and the longtime leader of ADBC,Edward Jackfert, intended to visit the Embassy,they called the Embassy asking if they coulddeliver their resolution. They were told that noone would be available to meet them.

A few weeks later, President Bush acceptedJapanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s apologyfor the “Comfort Women” issue when they metin Washington DC.

Children’s Effort to Honor POW Fathers

Al though there has been very l i t t legovernmental effort in the United States orJapan to remember and honor those whowalked the Bataan Death March, someAmericans are finally realizing that thesespecial veterans deserve much better than theyhave been treated so far. The most dedicatedamong them are children of POWs.

In January of 2006, the “Hellships Memorial”was dedicated in Subic Bay in the Philippines.The late Navy Captain Duane Heisinger, whosefather died on a Hellship, spearheaded theeffort to build this memorial. The inscription hewrote ends with the following sentences:

This memorial will offer a place of

qu ie t re f l ec t i on to fu turegenerations who must discover theextraordinary sacrifice of theseheroes, not only that they maydraw inspiration from theirexample but also to reaffirm theenduring hope of a world set freefrom war.

The Hellships Memorial willforever speak of this hope, servingas an anchor holding fast againstthe slow currents of complacencyand forgotten loss.

This memorial was established andis supported by former prisoners ofwar of the Japanese, family andfriends of those who died, andthose who survived the endlessnightmare of being a POW.

Hellships Memorial (Subic Bay) Inscription(http://www.us-japandialogueonpows.org/Hellship%20inscription.htm)

Federico Baldassarre, whose father survivedthe Bataan Death March, has been workingwith members of the Filipino Bataan veteran’sorganization and descendants of marchers topreserve one of the boxcars that carried POWsin the last part of the Death March. Theirtireless efforts came to fruition in October of

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2007 when they successfully placed the boxcarin the Capas National Shrine, which housesboth the American and Filipino Memorials forthose died in Camp O'Donnell.

Boxcar in which Bataan Death Marchers were carriedto Camp O’Donnell

Baldassarre, who has been helping “BattlingBastards of Bataan” for many years, wrote tothis author:

For those of us whose father,grandfather, uncle or great unclerode the rail from San Fernando toCapas in April, 1942, the boxcar isa priceless relic, a physicalmanifestation of their horrificjourney from Bataan to CampO'Donnell.

We can only imagine how it musthave felt after marching for four tofive days on Bataan's East Road,while being purposely dehydrated,starved, beaten, watching thosearound you being shot, bayoneted,decapitated, buried alive at therest stops, having the intensetropical sun and it's relentless heatanesthetize their senses, andexperiencing the macabre, andtaunting, cruelty of their guards, tobe suddenly thrust into theboxcars, jammed so t ightlytogether that those who died hadno room to fall.

It now sits amongst the spirits ofits former passengers. There it sitsfor all of us to visit.

Retired Army Colonel Gerald Schurtz’s fathersurvived the Bataan Death March, but died on aHellship. Today, Col. Schurtz is one of theorganizers of the Bataan Memorial DeathMarch held annually at White Sands MissileRange in New Mexico.

The event that was started by the Army ROTCDepartment at New Mexico State University in1989 with just 100 participants has grown intoan enormously popular event. On March 30,2008, more than 4,400 participated in the 19thannual Bataan Memorial Death March. Theyran or walked either the full 26.2 miles or thehonorary course of15.2 miles to honor thosebrave heroes who fought in the defense of thePhilippines during WWII.

Each year, survivors of the Bataan DeathMarch are invited as special guests. One of theparticipants described his feeling upon meetingthem:

Meeting the original March'ssurvivors was a very humblingexperience. They truly are awe-inspiring men. Standing beforethem, I really did not know how tothank them for their sacrifices, andfor their courage in facing amerciless enemy. While I wasshaking the hands of the survivorsat the start/finish line, one of themlooked at me and simply said"Thank You for being here". I haveno words to express the emotion Ife l t a t tha t moment . I w i l lremember that for the rest of mylife. [15]

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Death March survivor Robert Brown shakes handswith participants

Among the marchers in recent years were“wounded warriors” who lost their limbs in thewar in Afghanistan or Iraq and parents of thesoldiers who died fighting there. They paidtribute to the originalBataan Marchers by walking with theirartificial legs or wearing a shirt with a pictureof their fallen son printed on it.

Col. Schurtz hopes to have participants fromJapan in the future.

Bataan Death March on TV and Screen

In the fall of 2007, PBS aired a documentary onWorld War II, “The War,” produced by KenBurns. It was reported that 37.8 million peoplewatched it during the initial broadcastpremiere. [16]The episodes of American military POWs andcivilian POWs of the Japanese were prominentlyfeatured in this documentary. Bataan DeathMarch survivor Glenn Frazier said that he wasat the right place at the right moment to beselected to appear in the documentary. Whenhe spoke about his POW experience and hispost war struggle with hatred towards theJapanese, Ken Burns said that was what hewanted him to say on the camera. In the lastepisode of this 15-hour documentary, Frazier

recounted his struggle with the hatred that hadconsumed him nearly 30 years after the war.

When I left Japan I had all kinds ofhatred for these people. And it wasso imbedded into me, I felt like Iwas justified to have hate... But Ihad to get rid of that hate, and ittook me 29 years to realize thatthat's why my health was goingbad. That's why my whole life wasmiserable, because of the hate...

And they, and my preacher ask, thepreacher I was going to asked meto, I had to give, forgive myself andhad to forgive them. I said,'Forgive the Japanese? You'rekidding. How in the world can I dothat?' I said, 'They've neverapologized to me. Or anybody else.They never made any effort to, tosmooth over what they did to us.So why shouldn't I hate 'em. Ihafta.' He said, 'Well, you notgonna make it that way.' ...

( F r a z i e r t e s t i m o n y h e r e(http://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_5323.htm).)

Encouraged by the general population’srenewed interest in the Bataan Death Marchand the success of a movie like “Letters fromIwo Jima,” Hollywood is now making a film onthe Bataan Death March. The story will focuson the t r ia l o f Genera l Homma. Thepromotional website shows a synopsis of thefilm:

1945 Tokyo/Philippines. Fouryoung military lawyers receive theleast desirable assignment in theentire postwar occupation of Japanfrom Supreme CommanderDouglas MacArthur – they are torepresent a Japanese General whohas been accused o f be ing

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responsible for the notoriousBataan Death March.At first they do their best to evadetheir new career-destroyingassignment. Then they begin todiscover that General Homma,known as the “Beast of Bataan,” isa good and honorable man whowas not, in fact, involved with thecrimes for which he was accused.But MacArthur bears a secretgrudge against Homma, who wasthe only Japanese officer to everdefeat him in battle.

The young American militarylawyers endeavor to save Hommafrom his obvious fate, fighting notonly their own commandingofficers but also Homma himself,who knows he is destined to die.

This is a story in which villainsturn out to be heroes, heroes turnout to be villains, and a group ofyoung soldiers, along with animprisoned alleged war criminal,provide a lesson in courage. [17]

The producer of this film, Jonathan Sanger,wrote to this author:

There is no attempt, in the film, tounderplay the atrocities committedon the Bataan Death March, nor todishonor, in any way, the memoriesof Bataan survivors. The movieclearly establishes events thatoccurred as told by participants inthe trial of General MasaharuHomma. Issues of commandresponsibility are treated in what Ihope will be an evenhanded way.

This is a story of war at its worstand we hope it will be viewed byboth Americans and Japanese in

that light. [18]

Sixty-Six Years Later

“American Defenders of Bataan andCorregidor” has been holding an annualconvention since 1946. Young ex-POWs in theimmediate post war years are now in their late80s and 90s and their numbers are dwindling.They have decided that they will disband theirorganization in the spring of 2009. LesterTenney will be sworn in as their last NationalCommander in May, 2008. He is determined toobtaining an apology from Japan before the 63-year-old organization of former POWs of theJapanese ceases to exist.

Tenney has been invited by the Chief ofOperations of the USS Arizona Memorial to siton a panel on Memorial Day to discuss andreview events of the war in the South Pacific.He decided to extend his trip to Japan to makeone more, and likely his final, effort to obtainan apology from the Japanese government andthose companies that enslaved AmericanPOWs. In his letter to Prime Minister FukudaYasuo he wrote:

Mr. Prime Minister, it is our desireto resolve the POW issue. Doing sowil l no doubt be in the bestinterest of we former POWs andyour honorable country, and will atlast bring closure to we oldsoldiers of this long-ago tragicevent. We survivors are enteringour twi l ight years, and ourorganization will soon be forced todisband due to the demise of itsremaining members. When thattime comes, there will be nosurvivors left to accept an apology.

Col. Melvin Rosen passed away on August 1,2007, at the age of 89 and was buried atArlington National Cemetery with full military

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honors.

Other Bataan survivors are busy.

Tenney (88) recently received an offer from awell known Chinese reporter and majorChinese publisher to have his story of WWIIand his life as a POW of the Japanese translatedand published in China. His book, "My Hitch inHell" would be retitled to "My Time in Hell." Itwould be the first first-person account, to bepublished in China of the horror of the BataanDeath March and the three and a half yearsspent as a POW of the Japanese.

Glenn Frazier (84) has just published a book,“Hell’s Guest,” and is giving speeches acrossthe country. Harold Poole (88) will be featuredin a documentary now being made by JamesParkinson whose book, “Soldier Slaves,”chronicled Poole’s POW experience and hislawsuit. Louis Read (87) is active in theAmerican EX-Prisoners of War organization andin the local Purple Heart Chapter. John Olson(90) is a historian for the Philippine ScoutsHeritage Society. James Murphy (87) recentlyfinished writing his POW memoir with his wifeNancy. Carlos Montoya (92)’s biography,“Carlos,” was published by his nephew J. L.Kunkle last year. Robert Brown (83) recentlywent back to Mukden (now Shenyang), Chinawhere the Chinese government restored theJapanese POW camp and turned it into amuseum. He was also awarded a Purple Heartand a Bronze Star just recently. Abie Abraham(94) still volunteers at VA hospital. Ben Steele(90) just made a presentation on his POWartwork during the Bataan Memorial DeathMarch in New Mexico.

Acknowledgements

The Bataan Death March survivors and thechildren of Bataan marchers, whose stories Ihave introduced in this essay, have beenhelping me understand the history of AmericanPOWs of the Japanese for many years. I thank

them all for sharing their stories, their feelingsand their hope for a lasting friendship.

Bataan Death March survivors then andnow

Kinue Tokudome is a Japanese writer. She hascontributed articles to Japan Focus on theJapanese military comfort women and on USPOWs.She maintains the bi l ingual website(http://www.us-japandialogueonpows.org/),“US-Japan Dialogue on POWs.”

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She wrote this article for Japan Focus. Postedon April 8, 2006.

Notes

[1] Lester Tenney, My Hitch in Hell: TheBataan Death March (Washington, 1995) XV.[2] James W. Parkinson and Lee Benson,S o l d i e r S l a v e s : A b a n d o n e d b y t h eWhite　House, Courts, and Congress(Annapolis, MD, 2006), p. 68.[3] Interview by the author, 2004.[4] John E. Olson, O’Donnell: Andersonville ofthe Pacific (1985), p. 177.[5] Interview by the author, 2002.[6] Interview by the author, 2004.[7] Tenney, p. 163.[8] President Truman’s radio address on August9, 1945.[9] Interview by the author, 2005.

[10] Donald Knox, Death March: The Survivorsof Bataan (New York, 1981), p. 463, andinterview by the author.[11] Abie Abraham, Ghost of Bataan Speaks(PA, 1971), p. 163.[12] Ben Steele, Prisoners of War (Billings, MT,1986), Cover Illustration.[13] California Code of Civil Procedure Section354.6[14] Email from Tom Hayden to the author,Nov. 27, 2003[15] From the official website of BMDM(http://www.bataanmarch.com/).[ 1 6 ] F r o m P B S w e b s i t e(http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20071120_kenburns.html).[ 1 7 ] S e e w e b s i t e(http://www.filmbridgeinternational.com/beast_of_bataan.htm).[18] Email from Jonathan Sanger to the author,March 14,2008.