The Bataan Death March

On April 10, 1942 the Bataan Death March began. Nearly 76,000 American and Filipino troops were marched 26.2 miles across the 95-degree desert with no water and next to no food.

Before the march had even began the soldiers were deprived of food and other supplies; the 3 month walk that followed did nothing to help the soldiers who were already wounded or sick.

Many soldiers were killed before the march began. Every soldier was searched for Japanese artifacts or souvenirs, any one found with them was killed on the spot under the assumption that to have any Japanese artifacts meant they had killed a Japanese. Copious numbers of soldiers died on the journey, either by starvation, dehydration, diseases, or severe beatings by the Japanese soldiers. By the time they had reached Camp O’Donell 10,00 men were dead.

One of the main problems that caused so many soldiers to die was the simple mistake of how many soldiers they took prisoner and the unwillingness to correct the rations to feed all of the soldiers. When this was pointed out to Homma, the Japanese sergeant in charge, he refused to correct the miscount of POW’s and to make up for the excess soldiers on the trip many people feel the Japanese were harsher on the prisoners than they would have been.

Important facts

• A surrender agreement sent around 75,000 troops under the control of the Japanese who had rations for around half of this ammount.
• The soldiers walk 26.2 miles across the destert in 95-degree weather and were not allowed to drink water from any road side wells nor take food that was thrown at them by the civilian people they passed
• Around 10,000 soldiers died, American and Filipino alike.

Links

History
Chapter 4 of "My Hitch in Hell"
Facts