Remembering the Bataan March
While many people took to the streets to march for their lives (to make it sound overly-dramatic) across the country, Top Kone and 8500 friends marched at White Sands, New Mexico to remember the folks who were lost in the Bataan Death March 76 years ago.
I took today to join a march that honored the men and women who have given their lives, limbs, and health to defend all our rights. The 8,500+ of us marched 26 miles, many with 35 pound backpacks, most of us had signs with the names of friends and fellow unit members who died serving this nation and its people, some even sung cadences. We shook the hands of survivors of the Bataan Death March, shared stories of our friends, and honored their willingness to defend your right to be completely wrong.
Category: We Remember
Participating in this march has been one of my dreams for years.
Mine too. Problem is, it never fit into the Army’s plans for me and now it doesn’t fit into my body’s limitations. A 5K limp is more my speed. Kudos to the participants, and God’s blessing on the original Bataan heroes.
BZ to Top Kone and his fellow marchers!
Here in a few months we will be set up in our new home right down the road from this spot… maybe next year I’ll be doing a limp ruck with them we’ll see what happens
I feel like a douche for not knowing about the memorial march. I know about the Death March, of course, but I didn’t know about this. They should have one in every state, maybe encourage Japanese tourists to participate.
I learned about it when on a trip with our old Venturing Crew to the area. One of our Venturer’s aunts lived there and we’d stay with her while going to the Space Museum and White Sands.
I could never sell the Crew on doing that for a Crew activity, though.
Had a Bataan survivor in our church in El Paso; very nice man. Since moved on, sadly.
Our last survivor in NC was John Mims, passed about 3 years ago. He lived about 25 miles north of here. I had the honor of talking with him several times when I saw him out and about in Aberdeen.
That anyone survived that Hell is a miracle all by itself. I cannot begin to imagine the horrors those survivors faced every day.
An informative read about the march and one survivor:
http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/clemson-legend-ben-skardon-99-to-walk-in-bataan-memorial-death-march-for-10th-time/
This is pretty amazing, thanks for sharing this article.
Back in the early 70’s, my Uncle Harry who belonged to the Brooklyn NY Guard Cav. and who relieved Pershing down Mexico way and also went over to France during WW1 told us that he was in a movie theater watching a news reel of the Bataan death march and actualy saw his Sergeant from his old outfit in the line of march.
God Bless everyone! You are true heroes in my eyes!
My wife’s grandfather was in the USAFFE under MacAurthur and died at Bataan. I’ve never learned from her relatives if it was during the battle our after the 9 Apr surrender on the Death March. His remains were not recovered.
My wife is originally from Leyte, and we’ve taken the opportunity to go over to the Macarthur Landing memorial at Palo near Tacloban.
One of the end points of the Death March was Camp Odonnel near Tarlac in the Philippines. The Prisoners created a concrete cross memorial there. That memorial was moved ehre to the States. It currently can be found at the National POW museum at the Andersonville National Historic Site.
When ever we have extended visitors from out of town we make a day trip to Andersonville. I use it as an opportunity to impress on my kids that freedom doesn’t come for free.
Over the years I’ve taken a couple pictures of that Cross along with some of the other exhibits there. I’ve criss crossed various markers for the Death March on Luzon itself in my travels, and glad I didn’t have to make that March in the heat and humidity.
^^^^^ What he said.
That such men have lived, it is a testament to the grit that humans get when they are forced into unbelievable situations…
All of them are true heroes.
My father survived the Bataan Death March and another 3-1/2 as a POW in Japan. He lived until 2008 saying he never thought he would live that long…
I did the march many years ago when I was young SGT and in superb condition. I can say that it still kicked the team’s collective butts. We went with the heavy group with rucks and found out pretty quickly we had bit more than a mouthful. To honor those who perished during that march so many decades ago, I would do it again at any level of physical condition. If you have not participated, make plans to do so and do it. Every bit of pain you suffer pails in comparison to what The Greatest Generation endured on that island hell.
News of the atrocities and depravities committed by the Japanese guards on allied POWs during the Bataan death march were not made public in the U.S. until Feb 1944, when two American survivors of the death march escaped from captivity and made it to Australia with the help of Filipino guerillas and were debriefed by U.S. G-2 there.
The resulting storm of anger and revulsion stirred by this revelation among the American People and troops overseas made many war correspondents covering the pending invasion of the Marshall Islands wonder if U.S. troops that were about to invade Kwajalein were going to be extra brutal and harsh on any Jap prisoners they were going to take alive during the invasion and fighting.
It turned out that when the U.S. 7th Infantry Division troops invaded the island, they treated the Japanese prisoners they captured with the same decency that U.S. fighting men had always treated the prisoners they captured in any battle; there were no brutalities or harsh treatment of the Japanese prisoners at all. Many of the war correspondents were surprised that American troops had no inclination or desire to take retribution against the jap prisoners, despite the anger and hubbub surrounding recent breaking news about the Bataan Death March. But that’s the way it was; even though we were angered by the news about the Bataan Death March, we fought by the rules of war, despite what our enemies did. That is something to be proud of…
The first time I arrived in the PI, I landed at Cubi Point. I was standing in front of the main cabin door when they opened it. The heat that rushed in knocked me back. The PI was the first place I’ve been where you found yourself slowing down as a survival mechanism.
I can’t imagine the hell those men (were there women in the march?) went through. God bless them all.
A good friend of mine and his wife have participated for the past five years. They do it to honor the wife’s father who survived the original Bataan Death March.