Erna Nonato

Period 7/ Social Studies

Mrs. Newmark

"Banzai! Banzai!" the Japanese screamed over and over again, as their heavy tanks and soldiers attacked the Abucay-Mauban defense line. It was early January, and since December had the Japanese taken over provinces in southern and northern Luzon of the Philippine archipelago. Lt. General Masaharu Homma—commander of the Japanese 14^th Army (and commander of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines) led a force of 43,000 veteran troops. These troops were supported by air, as well as by sea by Mitsubishi bombers, Japanese Zero fighters, and a huge naval force. With battles won in the north and south, the Japanese were closing in on their main objective: the capture of the capital city of the Philippines: Manila.

Grimly had General MacArthur, the commanding general of the USSAFE (United States Armed Forces Far East), activated War Plan Orange-3—the plan of defense of the Philippines against the Japanese. The Filipino-American army was caught unprepared. MacArthur had not expected an attack from the Japanese until April—no one ever suspected that the Japanese would strike so soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. War Plan Orange-3 called for a retreat to the Bataan peninsula. Since the peninsula was a mountainous region filled with jungles, it was the perfect place to hold a last defensive counter-attack should the defense of the Luzon and Mindanao islands ever fail. The Filipino-American army was to hold off Japanese overtures while a powerful naval fleet would speedily come from Pearl Harbor to defeat the Japanese fleet, and then proceed to relieve the exhausted, battle-weary men on Bataan. But Pearl Harbor had been attacked, the US naval forces temporary crippled as 8 battleships and 11 smaller ships were damaged, and five battleships sunk. Help would not be forthcoming for a long time…

Over 80,000 men from the American-Filipino armies situated on the island of Luzon retreated towards the Bataan Peninsula. "It was Christmas-eve night," Mr. Cohen Thomas Roland recalled. "We evacuated Manila, and went to Bataan—a peninsula jutting out of Luzon…we were to defend Manila Bay and Corregidor." The defense of Corregidor was crucial, as it was a small island, heavily fortified with huge guns—it guarded any sea approaches to the city of Manila. I think the military leaders were wise in choosing the Bataan peninsula to defend the island of Corregidor, and Manila. There were only three usable roads to get to the peninsula, and only one bridge, which led to the only road onto Bataan. Over 15,000 Americans (Mr. Roland and his infantry included), and 65 Filipinos crossed over the Layac Bridge. All were tired, hungry, wounded, and dirty. Men were ordered to destroy the bridge—their last connection to the rest of Luzon. On this peninsula, they were to make their last defensive maneuver against the Japanese.

"We set up defense lines in Bataan…" Mr. Roland, Corporal of the 31^st Infantry Regiment, along with others of the Ground Forces set up a defense line—called the Abucay-Mauban line. It was 10 miles south of Layac Bridge. The eastern end of the defense-line was to be protected by General Parker’s forces at the village of Abucay, while General Wainwright’s soldiers were to defend the western end at the village of Mauban. Mr. Roland and his regiment were fighting out in the front. "I was scared, " he said, "…was on the front line—had to shoot anything that moved, or get shot myself; don’t let anybody ever tell you that they weren’t afraid." I would be frightened too. Mr. Roland, and his infantry—all the defenders of Bataan made ready to do battle, poorly equipped, and with limited supplies. Their foes were highly equipped, and with a huge amount of supplies—the odds were against them. Luckily, General Homma had underestimated the American-Filipino armies, and supposed them a weaker and smaller enemy. He sent the most-experienced of his troops to the Dutch East Indies. The supposed "final assault on Bataan", was executed by less experienced troops, and for a while, the defenders of Bataan held off the Japanese at the Abucay-Mauban line.

What I have to say about the Japanese, is that they are amazingly persistent. They had thrown a rift between General Parker and Wainwright’s forces by scaling Mt. Natib—the center of the defense line, and thought to be impassable. Since the Americans and Filipinos thought that the Japanese would consider Mt. Natib too high to breach, they left the center of the defense line undefended! As for me, I want to scream in frustration at the Japanese Army’s stubbornness in scaling that 4,200 feet high mountain! From Corregidor, MacArthur realized that both bodies of the army would be cut off and captured, and wisely ordered a retreat of all forces. Mr. Roland and his infantry regiment retreated to the next defense line: the Bagac-Orion Line.

Meanwhile, the heavily fortified island of Corregidor—the island that protected Manila and Manila Bay was under siege by the Japanese. After being heavily bombed, and with surprising few casualties, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided that Gen. MacArthur should take command of all Allied forces in the Pacific. So on February 22, 1942, Gen. MacArthur reluctantly left Corregidor and the Philippines with these last famous words: "I shall return!" He left giving all those in Bataan with doubts of ever winning and ever seeing the end of battle, hope that help would eventually come.

"War is h—l," stated Mr. Roland flatly. "That was just four months and you wouldn’t believe it. It was lucky any of us survived." Four months had taken its toll on the men’s spirits and health. "We didn’t get any help—since they trapped us on Bataan, they cut off our supply line. Couldn’t get food, no medicine, no ammunition, no replacement troops—no one else sent us anything! We were out there, on our own, fighting the Japanese on the peninsula." The situation was dire, for the defenders of Bataan were cut off from the rest of the world, and they were down to less than one-third normal daily rations. With no flour, Mr. Roland was introduced to rice as his staple diet. Daily rations included small amounts of canned meat or fish, carabao (a water buffalo), and salt, sugar, and on good days, canned milk. Starvation, disease, and injuries were prevalent, and it weakened the brave men of Bataan. Yet grimly, they held their position.

It was realized that their situation became much worse, when on April 3, 1942, fresh Japanese troops arrived to reinforce the Japanese 14^th Army. The dreaded enemy was more than ready to attack in force once again. A huge hole was formed in the center of the defense line because of the unceasing heavy artillery and aerial bombardment. "I fought for four months on the front line—they had air superiority over us—we didn’t have any planes, ran out of ammunition, no food, there was constant bombing and shelling." On April 7, the men were unable to hold out anymore—the Bagac-Orion Line was broken.

By nightfall of April 8, General King (commander of the forces on Bataan) decided that Bataan is to surrender. He wanted to stop losing countless of lives in trying to win in a situation that clearly indicated Japanese victory. Demolition troops were put to work torching gas and ammunition dumps. The ground had trembled as if from a minor earthquake beneath the army’s feet. The huge explosion can be seen from the island of Corregidor—everybody then knew, that the arduous Battle of Bataan was over—the United States had put the humiliating white flag of surrender flapping in the cool night air.

Mr. Roland and the 31^st Infantry Regiment got captured. He had thought almost gratefully that at last, at last! The four long months of battle was over. He never suspected that his brief respite from the torture of endless fighting was not respite at all—but another form of torture. He knew the Japanese were a harsh people; that he would get treated roughly as a prisoner of war. But he never in his mind had an inkling of what would next ensue: the Death March of Bataan.

At nine o’clock on the morning of April 9, General Edward P. King climbed into a Jeep with some members of his staff to the town of Lamao. There he met Col. Motoo Nakayama—the senior operations officer sent by General Homma to represent him. Seeing the man before him was not General Wainwright, Nakayama was displeased, and initially refused to accept any surrender that did not include all forces in the Philippines (including those on Corregidor). King requested that he be allowed to organize and move his own troops out of the Bataan peninsula to the place where they plan to store all the prisoners, when he realized that Nakayama was not interested in granting his request and would not accept anything but unconditional surrender.

The reason that Nakayama was so unreceptive to King’s request of moving his own troops from Bataan is because General Homma had already made plans for this situation. Over 70,000 soldiers surrendered, and frankly, the Japanese were surprised. They had estimated about 30,000 prisoners not more than twice that size! I almost pitied the Japanese right here. Major General Yoshikata was put in charge of the operation of moving the Filipinos and Americans, and he divided it into two phases.

In the first phase, all prisoners were to move on foot to Balanga on the narrow road running along the east coast of the Bataan peninsula. The troops, who were defending the western side of the peninsula, were to start from the town of Mariveles. This walk was twenty-eight miles. Those who were defending the east side of the peninsula were fortunate, in that they started their march from the Cabcaben airfield, and they had walked only nineteen miles.

The second phase of the operation, the captured troops were to go from Balanga to Orani, and out of the peninsula passing the town of Lubao to the railhead at San Fernando. From Balanga to San Fernando is thirty-five miles. The Japanese never really thought the Filipinos and Americans were to walk the whole way. Yoshikata thought of the use of available trucks to drive captives to San Fernando with four food stops and two medical stations along the way. Supposedly when the captives were at San Fernando, they were to be shipped by train to the town of Capas. And from Capas they were to walk the whole seven miles to Camp O’Donnell—an abandoned Philippine army training camp.

This plan had seemed sound to the Japanese, but they had never taken into consideration that they might have more prisoners than estimated, or that the Japanese 14^th Army’s medical and vehicles were barely enough for the Japanese army itself. When a General Kawane inspected Camp O’Donnell, he reported that it is enough for as many as thirty thousand men. This situation gave me the weird feeling of déjà vu, as I recall that the Civil War prison camp, Andersonville, had the same space problems—only those prisoners were spared of ever walking to their prison camp.

A minority of men actually got out of the Death March. Trucks were actually available at the time that they were captured, and twenty hours later, these few lucky men were the first prisoners to set foot on Camp O’Donnell.

Mr. Roland, unfortunately, was not one of those in the lucky minority. Instead of taking a mere twenty hours to reach the camp, it took him five grueling days to reach Camp O’Donnell. Days, that seemed more like months. He was subjected to an inspection where some of his personal items got taken away by the Japanese. Word had passed that you have to "Get rid of your Japanese stuff." Men were executed if caught with loot from Japanese; most Americans believed that the Japanese considered robbing dead soldiers a capital offense.

Soon they were on their way up a road that, for all its many twists and turns, progressively continues east. They arrived at Cabcaben Airfield, where they expected the relief of a rest for the night. Some men had just fallen exhaustedly asleep, when they were kicked and shouted at to return on the road again. For two hours they walked, and walked! And then the Japanese turned them around again. To their bewilderment, they reached Cabcaben again on midnight. Many men slumped down in exhaustion and immediately went to sleep.

Dawn came, and with it brought shouts and kicks from their Japanese captors. On they trudged. Many men don’t have proper sun helmets for their headgear. Those that didn’t have sun helmets used handkerchiefs or towels over their heads. They had arrived at Balanga after nineteen miles of walking.

"When we surrendered, they marched us to the camp—they didn’t give us any food or medicine, I had malaria because of the mosquitoes…we ate anything we could get—snakes, lizards, monkeys…we absolutely had no help from the outside." From the way Mr. Roland has described it so vividly, I don’t think I would have survived the death march. Mr. Roland’s main concern was to get food and water. "The Japs wouldn’t let us have water…there were these Artesian wells—all bubbling from the ground, and they wouldn’t let us have water from the wells." There was an incident when six Filipinos darted to the Artesian wells mentioned; they were so thirsty—probably delirious, and the Japanese shot them. A few did not die, and they kept on pitifully trying to crawl on their bellies to get just a tiny sweet taste of water—and none of them reached it, they were shot repeatedly, bullets piercing their backs.

"Thousands died—they couldn’t keep up." Many men died from diseases that made them weak for the march. Malaria, beri beri, dysentery… Men also died from being shot by the Japanese, mostly because some captives were slow to follow orders. "We didn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand us—it was quite a barrier."

Mr. Roland was sent to Camp O’Donnell, and it was a testament to his strength and endurance that he survived that camp. "You had to do exactly what they want you to do, " Mr. Roland reported, "or the punishment is death…if you got caught trying to escape—death, if you got caught stealing—death…the Japanese didn’t care anything about us." Mr. Roland recalls when one man got caught stealing a wrinkled, old, little turnip: "…stole a little ol’ turnip and it cost him his life. They locked him in his cell, and didn’t feed him or nothing, and he starved to death." The camp that was finally closed in late May, because too many people were dying there. He later got moved to another prison camp, Cabanatuan, where he stayed until the end of the war.

Mr. Roland’s anxious family back in Kansas on their tobacco farm had no idea if he was alive or dead. I think it was very cruel of the Japanese to withhold from the Americans, a list of the people captured, diseased, and those that are still alive. "The Americans had no way of knowing who was still alive, dead, or nothing, " Mr. Roland declared. "My parents never knew what happened to me—I was listed as missing in action, assumed captured; it was not until the war was over and then they found me, and wired my parents."

I never expected for the Japanese to be as brutal as they were. Mr. Roland said, "that one good thing about World War II, was that we showed the rest of the world that we are determined and brave…but it took a long while and many lives to prove it—I hope it doesn’t happen again." And I couldn’t agree more with him. The defensive stand on Bataan showed the rest of the world—especially the Japanese, just how strong we were to have held them off for so long, even though we were ill-equipped and starving. We held out to the very end and surrendered a hero’s surrender!