Bataan Death March - Phillipines (1942) by PirateOfMangrove on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

The Bataan Death March was the forced transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to the Philippines from April 9 to May 1, 1942. It was later considered one of Japan's most serious war crimes.

The forced march involved 70,000 to 85,000 prisoners of war captured by the Imperial Japanese Army after the three-month Battle of Bataan that ended with the fall of Corregidor.

The 60-mile (97 km) journey began in Cabcaben on the Bataan Peninsula and ended at the O'Donnell Internment Camp. For the prisoners, the ordeal consisted of almost constant walking, day and night, with no food and little water, physical abuse, murder, and other acts of savagery or sadism by Japanese soldiers along the way. Any prisoner who stopped or complained was executed (shot or bayoneted, or had his throat slit). Among the barbaric acts reported, Japanese trucks using the prisoner route systematically ran over anyone who fell to the ground, and from these same trucks, Japanese soldiers deliberately left their bayonets protruding at eye level. Malnutrition was systematic.