The Bataan Death March

1. The Bataan Death
March:
The Forgotten Atrocities of
WWII
Kyle Roy

3. Thesis
What was the experience of a POW in the Bataan
Death March and subsequent events?
The experience by American and Filipino POWs is
typical to other allied POWs in WWII, who were
subject to brutal actions displayed by the Japanese.
Themes:
Brutality/Inhumanity
Soldiers as Expendable
Systematic Nature of Japanese

4. Americans in the Philippines
Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere
The Coming of War

5. This Means War!
Attacks on Pearl Harbor and Clark Air Force Base
American Declaration of War on Japan

6. The Philippines

7. Battle of Bataan
January 1942
Slow Defensive Battle
Fall of Philippines:
April 9, 1942

8. Surrender

9. Approximately 75,000 started the march
Rounded up in Mariveles
“So it was going to be a
Death March”

10. The Route of the Death
March

14. San Fernando
Kept in barbed wire pens
Loaded on to “40 & 8’s”

17. Camp O’Donnell
Former Philippine Army Facility
Converted to POW prison by Japanese

18. Work Details
Labor Camps/Prisons
Philippines, Japan, Formosa (Taiwan), etc.
For Those Who Survived

19. “Hell Ships”
Japanese transport POWs around Asia
Old merchant ships
Not marked to show POWs aboard
Many sunk by Americans, who ended up killing their own
soldiers.

20. Labor Camps

21. Toward the End of WWII:
Americans gaining ground in Pacific Theater=Worse
treatment for POWs
Red Cross Packages and Other Supply Drops
Japanese Surrender
Liberation

22. War Trials
Nearly 6,000 Japanese soldiers indicted
Japanese War Crime Charges
Yamashita Standard

23. Japanese Defense
Never Ratified Geneva Convention
Race War
Liberating fellow Asians
Officers Unknowing
Actions Never Reported

24. Conclusion

25. Sources
Daws, Gavan. Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific. New York: W. Morrow, 1994.
Dyess, William E., Charles Leavelle and Stanley L. Falk. Bataan Death March: A Survivor’s Account. Lincoln,
NE: Nebraska University Press, 2002.
Kelly, C. Brian. Best little stories from World War II. Nashville, Tenn.: Cumberland House, 1998.
Lael, Richard L.. The Yamashita Precedent: War Crimes and Command Responsibility. Wilmington, De.: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1982.
Michno, Gregory F (2001). Death on the Hellships: Prisoners at Sea in the Pacific War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute
Press.
Morton, Louis. The Fall of the Philippines. Minnetonka, MN: The National Historical Society, 1995.
Norman, Michael, and Elizabeth M. Norman. Tears in the Darkness: The Story of The Bataan Death March and
Its Aftermath. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009.
Taylor, Lawrence. A Trial of Generals: Homma, Yamashita, MacArthur. South Bend, Ind.: Icarus Press, 1981.
Tenney, Lester I.. My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March. Washington: Brassey's, 1995.
The Bataan Death March. The History Channel. A&E Television Networks 2002.
Young, Donald J.. The Battle of Bataan: A History of the 90 Day Siege and Eventual Surrender of 75,000 Filipino
and United States Troops to the Japanese in World War II. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992.
Zincke, Herbert, and Scott A. Mills. Mitsui Madhouse: Memoir of a U.S. Army Air Corps POW in World War II.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2003.