On April 9, 1942, 76,000 American and Filipino soldiers on the Bataan Peninsula surrendered to Japanese forces — the largest surrender of American troops since the Civil War. The Japanese had expected 25,000 prisoners. They were unprepared for the number, unprepared for their condition, and — in the judgment of the postwar war crimes tribunal — unprepared to treat them as human beings.

What followed was the Bataan Death March.

The Fall of Bataan

The defense of Bataan had been extraordinary given its circumstances. When Japan struck the Philippines on December 8, 1941, General Douglas MacArthur's forces were unready and quickly overwhelmed. MacArthur withdrew his forces onto the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island, where they held for four months against superior Japanese forces — longer than anyone in Washington had expected.

They held on reduced rations, then quarter-rations. They ate horses, iguanas, and whatever the jungle provided. Malaria, dysentery, and beriberi ravaged the garrison. MacArthur was ordered to Australia in March 1942, leaving General Jonathan Wainwright in command. Reinforcements were not coming.

When the Japanese broke through Bataan's defenses in early April, the men who surrendered were already half-starved, many suffering from multiple diseases. They were in no condition to march anywhere.

The March

The Japanese Army moved its prisoners north from the tip of Bataan to Camp O'Donnell — approximately 65 miles by foot and rail. The march that took place over roughly 11 days became one of the defining atrocities of the Pacific War.

Prisoners were given almost no food or water, despite the tropical heat. Men who fell were beaten, bayoneted, or shot where they lay. Prisoners who stopped at roadside water sources were executed. Groups of prisoners were beheaded or buried alive in incidents documented by survivors. Filipino civilians who attempted to give food or water to the prisoners were beaten.

Between 5,000 and 18,000 Filipinos and 500-650 Americans died on the march itself — estimates vary because record-keeping was impossible under the conditions. Thousands more died at Camp O'Donnell from disease and mistreatment in the weeks that followed.

General Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander, was tried and executed by firing squad in 1946 for his responsibility for the march. He claimed he had been unaware of the atrocities; the tribunal did not accept this.

The Memory

News of Bataan did not reach the American public until January 1944, when escaped prisoners were finally allowed to give their accounts. The reaction was fury that drove enlistment and war bond purchases.

The fall of Bataan — and the Death March that followed — became in American memory the proof of Japanese brutality that justified the firebombing of Tokyo and, in the minds of many, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That framing is reductive, but the underlying anger was real and grounded in documented fact.

The Philippines observes Bataan Day on April 9 each year. In 1960, a Death March marker program was established in Bataan province. The markers run every kilometer of the route.