The Bataan Death March

The forcible transfer of 60,000 to 80,000 Filipinos and Americans began on April 9, 1942. At the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army, these prisoners-of-war marched the length of the Bataan peninsula - approximately 60-70 miles. Thousands would not survive.

Near the southern tip of the remote and rugged Bataan peninsula on the Philippine Island of Luzon lies an unassuming little park displaying Filipino and American flags. Facing the picturesque Manila Bay but wedged between fast-food restaurants and a parking lot, the park also contains a four-foot-high, whitewashed concrete obelisk that identifies this as the starting point of the infamous Bataan Death March. Notorious as one of the "great Japanese atrocities" of World War II, over 75,000 exhausted, sick, and malnourished Filipino and American prisoners of war were force-marched the length of the Bataan peninsula by their Japanese captors, who subjected them to terrible abuse.

The obelisk in the park at Mariveles is one of 138 such markers placed along the route of the Death March. Each sits at approximately one-kilometer intervals from its beginning at the southern tip of the Bataan peninsula to its end at the former site of the prison camp, Camp O'Donnell. A small medallion embedded near the obelisk's tip identifies it as being placed by the Filipino-American Memorial Endowment (FAME) foundation. FAME's website states that its mission is to establish "tangible reminders of the shared values for which Americans, Filipinos, and their allies fought side-by-side in World War II."

For Americans, the collective memory of World War II is triumphalist. Predominant themes tell of "The Good War" when "the Greatest Generation" liberated the world from the fascist grip of Nazi Germany and Japan. For Filipinos, however, Joel Steinberg and others have
noted the "complicated and ambiguous" legacy of World War II.
The Philippines, at that time a colony of the United States, suffered through a brutal Japanese occupation and years of guerrilla warfare against the Japanese and collaboration by many among the Filipino elite, followed by a costly American-led liberation. By the war's end, out of a pre-war population of only 17 million, over 1 million Filipinos, including many women and children, died. For context, that is over double the American (predominantly male combatant) war deaths.

Given the overall scale of wartime suffering experienced by Filipinos, it is perhaps surprising that the Bataan Death March became a part of post-war Filipino collective memory, but it did. Of the troops on Bataan that fought on Bataan and then participated in the Death March, the vast majority were Filipinos. Despite overall "complicated and ambiguous" Filipino collective memory, the dogged resistance and brave sacrifice of the defenders of Bataan was a source of great national pride to generations of Filipinos with direct knowledge of the war. However, even though Filipinos did most of the fighting and dying on Bataan and the Death March, published historiography considers it an American tragedy. This is likely because, during the 1980s and 1990s, the United States experienced a "memory boom," with a succession of memoirs published by American Death March participants. Contrarily in the Philippines, with its "ambiguous legacy" and a much smaller book publishing industry, the accounts of Filipino participants were not widely distributed.

Around this time, FAME volunteers were wrapping up restoration work of World War II sites on the nearby island of Corregidor. They were beginning to consider what other projects the Foundation could take on. FAME is a small, private foundation that, per its website, seeks to establish "tangible reminders of the shared values for which Americans, Filipinos, and their allies fought side-by-side in World War II." The Foundation was formed in the 1980s by the Public Relations Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce, which assembled a group of interested Filipino and American veterans and businesspeople. The group sought to achieve the Foundation's objectives on a strictly limited budget, electing to raise funds only from private sources to retain its independence from any government (Filipino or American) influence. An essential site in the collective memory of both Filipinos and Americans, the Bataan peninsula was accessible to Foundation members, being relatively close to the capital city Manila. Critically for a Foundation operating with limited funds, it was preferable to make the Markers out of cheap materials so they likely would not be stolen. They decided to put a marker at every kilometer point of the Death March along the entire length of the Bataan Peninsula's mountainous terrain, meaning 138 Markers in total. By 2008, almost ten years later, they had achieved their objective.

Each Marker is a simple, unassuming four feet tall concrete obelisk. Relatively cheap to produce and not comprised of any valuable materials, some of the Markers are whitewashed while others are plain concrete. In addition to the small FAME medallion noted above, they display a kilometer number indicating the location on the Death March route and a small image of two obviously distressed soldiers participating in the march.

As a commemoration site, the contrast between the pristinely manicured 152-acre American Battlefields Monuments Commission (ABMC) cemetery in downtown Manila, just a few miles away from Bataan, is stark. A peaceful green oasis in the middle of a bustling capital city, the U.S. government-funded ABMC cemetery is surrounded by a fence guarded by soldiers. As with all ABMC cemeteries, it is tended by a team of gardeners to maintain its immaculate appearance. It is replete with statuary, battle maps, and a visitor center, providing an American-centric perspective on World War II. By contrast, FAME's simple roadside Markers rest mere paces from busy roads, with trucks and scooters regularly speeding by. Meanwhile, the small brick and stone boundaries around the Markers frequently snag roadside litter, challenging the FAME volunteers who attempt to keep the sites tidy.

Having noted the place of Bataan in post-war Filipino collective memory but also reviewed World War II's "ambiguous legacy" for Filipinos, the question arises as to whether Bataan represents a "symbol of freedom and democracy" to today's younger generations of Filipinos as the Bataan Provincial Tourism Office would have one believe? Three FAME Trustees responded to this question to assist in drawing a conclusion. Noting the lack of World War II history in the Filipino high school curriculum, each of them, in turn, responded that, unfortunately, it does not. Given their responses, which are unsurprising given the circumstances, why does FAME go to so much effort to commemorate Bataan by maintaining the Death March Markers after all these years? To quote FAME Trustee Leslie Ann Murray, who was herself a wartime internee of the Japanese, "because if we don't, people will forget about it."

(edited by Laura Bailey)

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