- Date:
- April 9, 1942
- Location:
- Luzon
- Philippines
- Context:
- Pacific War
- World War II
- Key People:
- Homma Masaharu
- Harold K. Johnson
Bataan Death March
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What was the Bataan Death March?
The Bataan Death March was a brutal forced march of approximately 66 miles (106 km) in the Philippines during the early stages of World War II in April 1942. About 76,000 prisoners of war, including 66,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans, were forced by the Japanese military to endure this march.
The prisoners were marched from Mariveles, on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula, to San Fernando, and then transported in unsanitary boxcars to Capas before walking an additional 7 miles (11 km) to Camp O'Donnell. The captives faced severe brutality, including beatings, shootings, and beheadings, with many dying of starvation and disease. Approximately 2,500 Filipinos and 500 Americans died during the march, and another 26,000 Filipinos and 1,500 Americans died at Camp O'Donnell.
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Where did the Bataan Death March take place?
The Bataan Death March took place in the Philippines in April 1942. The 66-mile (106 km) march began in Mariveles, on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula. 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced by the Japanese military to endure the march north to San Fernando, where they were transported by rail to Capas. From there, the prisoners walked an additional 7 miles (11 km) to Camp O’Donnell, a former Philippine army training centre used by the Japanese military to intern Filipino and American prisoners.
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Who were the people forced to march in the Bataan Death March?
During the Bataan Death March in April 1942, approximately 76,000 prisoners of war, including 66,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans, were forced by the Japanese military to endure a grueling 66-mile (106 km) march in the Philippines. The march commenced in Mariveles, located on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula, and proceeded north to San Fernando.
Throughout the march, prisoners faced brutal treatment from Japanese soldiers, who regarded surrender as dishonorable. Captives were subjected to beatings, shootings, bayonet attacks, and beheadings. Those who collapsed from exhaustion or fell behind were often executed. The survivors were crammed into small boxcars, leading to further deaths from suffocation and disease. Approximately 2,500 Filipinos and 500 Americans died during the march, while an additional 26,000 Filipinos and 1,500 Americans perished at Camp O’Donnell due to starvation and illness.
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Why did the Bataan Death March happen during World War II?
The Bataan Death March occurred because Japanese military leaders underestimated the number of prisoners they would capture after the Battle of Bataan and were logistically unprepared to handle them. After the surrender of approximately 76,000 Filipino and American troops on April 9, 1942, the Japanese military ordered the prisoners to march 66 miles (106 km) from Mariveles to San Fernando.
The Japanese soldiers considered surrender a disgrace, leading to brutal treatment of the prisoners, who were beaten, shot, and beheaded. Exhausted and sick prisoners were given little water in the tropical heat, and thousands died from starvation or disease at Camp O’Donnell.
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What made the Bataan Death March so deadly and difficult for prisoners?
The Bataan Death March was deadly and difficult due to the Japanese military's underestimation of the number of prisoners, leading to severe logistical and material inadequacies. The Japanese soldiers, who viewed surrender as dishonorable, brutalized the captives, denying them water in the tropical heat. Exhausted prisoners who fell behind were often bayoneted, shot, or beheaded. At the San Fernando railhead, prisoners were crammed into small boxcars, leading to many deaths from lack of air. Thousands more died from sickness and starvation at Camp O'Donnell.
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How is the Bataan Death March remembered or commemorated today?
The Bataan Death March is remembered as a legend of the evils of war. The story of the Bataan Death March has come to dominate the role that the Philippines played in World War II.
After the war, the Japanese commander, Gen. Homma Masaharu, was charged with responsibility for the march and abuses at Camp O’Donnell. He was convicted and executed. Veterans formed the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor to press for reparations from Japan and better treatment from the U.S. government. In the 1980s, the U.S. officially recognized the suffering and sacrifice of these veterans, awarding them the Bronze Star and classifying them as 100 percent disabled for government pensions.
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Bataan Death March, march in the Philippines of some 66 miles (106 km) that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced by the Japanese military to endure in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II.
Mainly starting in Mariveles, on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula, on April 9, 1942, the prisoners were force-marched north to San Fernando and then taken by rail in cramped and unsanitary boxcars farther north to Capas. From there they walked an additional 7 miles (11 km) to Camp O’Donnell, a former Philippine army training centre used by the Japanese military to intern Filipino and American prisoners. During the main march—which lasted 5 to 10 days, depending on where a prisoner joined it—the captives were beaten, shot, bayoneted, and, in many cases, beheaded; a large number of those who made it to the camp later died of starvation and disease. Only 54,000 prisoners reached the camp; though exact numbers are unknown, some 2,500 Filipinos and 500 Americans may have died during the march, and an additional 26,000 Filipinos and 1,500 Americans died at Camp O’Donnell. (See Researcher’s Note: Bataan Death March: How many marched and how many died?)
Lead-up to the march
Within hours of their December 7, 1941, attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Japanese military began its assault on the Philippines, bombing airfields and bases, harbours and shipyards. Manila, the capital of the Philippines, sits on Manila Bay, one of the best deepwater ports in the Pacific Ocean, and it was, for the Japanese, a perfect resupply point for their planned conquest of the southern Pacific. After the initial air attacks, 43,000 men of the Imperial Japanese 14th Army went ashore on December 22 at two points on the main Philippine island of Luzon. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of all Allied forces in the Pacific, cabled Washington, D.C., that he was ready to repel this main invasion force with 130,000 troops of his own.
MacArthur’s claim was a fiction. In fact, his force consisted of tens of thousands of ill-trained and ill-equipped Filipino reservists and some 22,000 American troops who were, in effect, an amalgam of “spit-and-polish” garrison soldiers with no combat experience, artillerymen, a small group of planeless pilots and ground crews, and sailors whose ships happened to be in port when Japanese forces bombed Manila and its naval yards. At the landing beaches, the Japanese soldiers quickly overcame these defenders and pushed them back and back again until MacArthur was forced to execute a planned withdrawal to the jungle redoubt of the Bataan Peninsula. This thumblike piece of land on the west-central coast of Luzon, across the bay from Manila, measured some 30 miles (48 km) long and 15 miles (24 km) wide, with a range of mountains down the middle.
MacArthur had planned badly for the withdrawal and had left tons of rice, ammunition, and other stores behind him. The Battle of Bataan began on January 6, 1942, and almost immediately the defenders were on half rations. Sick with malaria, dengue fever, and other diseases, living on monkey meat and a few grains of rice, and without air cover or naval support, the Allied force of Filipinos and Americans held out for 99 days. Though they ultimately surrendered, their stubborn defense of the peninsula was a significant propaganda victory for the United States and proved that the Imperial Japanese Army was not the invincible force that had rolled over so many other colonial possessions in the Pacific.
It was against this backdrop that the Bataan Death March—a name conferred upon it by the men who had endured it—began. The forced march took place over some two weeks after Gen. Edward (“Ned”) King, U.S. commander of all ground troops on Bataan, surrendered his thousands of sick, enervated, and starving troops on April 9, 1942. The siege of Bataan was the first major land battle for the Americans in World War II and one of the most-devastating military defeats in American history. The force on Bataan, numbering some 76,000 Filipino and American troops, is the largest army under American command ever to surrender.