The Bataan Death March: WWII’s most horrific war crime
Allied troops surrendered to the Japanese after a three-month battle on Filipino soil in April 1942. Even worse was yet to come – the Bataan Death March…
Image: US prisoners using improvised litters to carry those of their comrades who died during the Bataan Death March | Public Domain
No shortage of war crimes took place during World War II. However, the Bataan Death March stands among the most horrific. The Japanese forced thousands of American and Filipino POWs into a torturous, often lethal 65-mile trek across the Philippines in April 1942.
These victims had already been defeated in the Battle of Bataan, itself a major conflict of the war’s Pacific Theatre. Yes, there’s a lot of backstory to the Bataan Death March. For a detailed rundown, you can watch the acclaimed docuseries World War II with Tom Hanks on Sky HISTORY.
The Bataan Death March is thought to have claimed thousands of lives, with exhausted soldiers dropping dead of disease and malnutrition. That’s if they didn’t die at the end of a rifle or bayonet wielded by their captors. Sky HISTORY examines the events of April 1942 and the lasting legacy of one of the Pacific War's most harrowing chapters.
The Battle of Bataan goes against the Allies
Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 is widely considered to have fired the starting pistol on World War II in Asia. By 1941, Japan also had its eye on conquering other East Asian territories rich in valuable resources, including oil. However, the United States had a strong military presence in the Pacific and would inevitably endeavour to halt the Japanese advance.
Well aware of this danger, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, the United States Pacific Fleet’s naval base in Hawaii, on 7th December 1941. It was an attempt to pre-emptively cripple US naval power, but led the United States to declare war on Japan the following day.
Later that month, Japanese troops landed on the Philippines’ largest island, Luzon, where US and Filipino soldiers were waiting for them. The invaders soon pushed the Allies back to the Bataan Peninsula, where the defenders held out for 99 days before surrendering on 9th April 1942. This is when their troubles really began.
How the Bataan Death March began
Even before the Battle of Bataan got underway, the Japanese had destroyed many Allied aircraft and imposed a naval blockade in the surrounding waters. This all left the Allies without effective air or naval support. It also prevented enough ammunition, food and medical supplies from getting through to the Allied troops.
So, by the time these troops surrendered, not only were they exhausted from the torturously protracted fight, they were also hungry and ravaged by disease. Things weren’t going to get better for them, either. About 75,000 Allied soldiers had surrendered, far more than the Japanese had expected. As a result, they lacked the means to easily escort this many men off the battlefield.
It didn’t help that the Japanese had been trained to see surrender as a despicable, cowardly act rather than simply a strategic move. As far as they were concerned, these surrendered Allied troops had disgraced themselves to the point of essentially forfeiting their human rights. This left Japanese troops only too willing to make them walk the 65-mile route to Camp O’Donnell in the north of Luzon.
What happened on the Bataan Death March?
Though many Allied troops had to walk from Mariveles, at the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula, others joined further along the route. None had it easy, however. Not long after the Bataan Death March began, up to 400 of the POWs were summarily executed in the Pantingan River massacre. Others had to keep walking lest they be beaten, bayoneted or even shot dead.
The men were required to walk in blisteringly intense heat, with their Japanese captors all the while denying them any large supplies of food or water. Some of the captives became so dehydrated that they resorted to drinking from dirty puddles. Others were so fatigued that they simply fell to the floor, with trucks subsequently driving over them.
Those who survived long enough to reach the San Fernando railhead were stuffed into overcrowded boxcars. These would take them to the Capas train station, from where they would need to walk the final few miles to Camp O’Donnell. Even at this POW camp, the number of daily deaths among the inmates would go into the hundreds.
It is thought that, of the 75,000 POWs who embarked on the Bataan Death March, just 54,000 reached Camp O’Donnell. Determined to avenge their countrymen’s deaths, US forces eventually pushed the Japanese out of the Philippines in 1945, as the wider Pacific war drew towards its conclusion.
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