(On April 9, 1942, the US commander of Luzon forces in Bataan surrendered more than 76,000 men, mostly Filipinos to the Japanese. Most of the prisoners of war were forced to endure a 90-mile “death march” to captivity at Camp O’Donnel in Pampanga. — Editor)
April 9, 1942, is a day etched forever in hearts of the brave men who fought in Bataan.
A day when the Filipino nation mourned while the Free World pondered with awe.
Japan thought the Philippine Islands would be captured in a few days of fighting and feared that impregnable Singapore would fight for as long a year.
They guessed wrong.
Singapore crumbled in less than two months. Bataan fought off Lt. General Masaharu Homma’s 14th Army for three humiliating months before capitulating. But not in shame.
Never in Asia, in the 1940s had so few fought so many for so long under the most adverse of circumstances.
The USAFFE defenders in Bataan were outnumbered and outgunned by seasoned combatants of the Imperial Japanese Army, which was supported by war ships, bombers, and fighter planes, tanks, and cavalry fighters. They were well fed, amply supplied with medicine to treat their wounded.
The G.I. Joes of the U.S. Army and the Filipino soldiers of the Philippine Army were unceasingly exposed to hunger. Food ran out in the first month of battle. The rest of their food supplies and medicines remained in the warehouse at Manila Harbor awaiting transport to the battlefield only to be looted by civilians or captured by the Japanese Army.
The Bataan defenders had to suffer the onslaught of malaria. No mosquito nets were issued to Philippine Army soldiers in the USAFFE unlike the American troops and Filipino troops of the Philippine Scouts, a contingent that was part of the U.S. Army.
The canvass shoes with rubber soles issued to Filipino soldiers in USAFFE wore out during the flawed training process making them victims of hookworm attacks because they were barefoot in the Bataan battlefield.
American troops and the Philippine Scouts wore sturdy leather boots. A surplus of leather boots lay idle in Manila warehouses. Their sizes were too large for the smaller feet of Filipino soldiers.
No steel helmets, Khaki Uniform
To underscore the discrimination of Filipino soldiers in the USAFFE, they were not issued khaki uniforms. They were given maong or blue denim uniforms. Neither did they get steel helmets like the Americans and the Philippine Scouts. Filipino soldiers were given cotton caps. Many went bare-headed.
Filipino soldiers were issued hand-me-down World War I 1917 vintage Enfield rifles whose extractors snap into two easily without spare parts to replace them. The Americans and Philippine Scouts were armed with modern Garand rifles.
In 1940 General Douglas MacArthur requisitioned 83,500 Garand rifles for the Philippine Army in USAFFE but the request was denied by the War Department in Washington for reasons unknown.
The Americans and Philippine Scouts were given shelter halves and blankets. None were issued to Filipino soldiers in USAFFE who shivered in their fox holes in the cold night air in Bataan. Many caught colds and pneumonia with the exposure to the elements.
Singapore fell because many of the colonial Indian troops of the British Army defected to the Japanese Army, falling victim to Japanese Propaganda that Asia was for the Asians.
Filipino warriors of USAFFE in the Philippine Army fought and died with the Americans and the Philippine Scouts in the brotherhood of war despite their being discriminated in supply and weaponry.
After learning than more than half of the Philippine Army warriors perished in Bataan, Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon wrote U.S. President Roosevelt on Feb. 8, 1942, for the U.S. to immediately grant independence so that the Philippines could declare a status of neutrality and request that U.S. and Japanese soldiers mutually withdraw from the Philippines in order to save the lives of remaining Filipino soldiers in Bataan.
President Roosevelt wrote a personal message to MacArthur allowing the surrender of Filipino troops but not American soldiers in Bataan. General MacArthur refused. He wanted them to fight until the entire force of Bataan defenders was wiped out.
(The writer Lindy Morrell hails from Cebu City, the son of an American engineer and a native of Cavite. He served as regional director of the National Economic Development Authority before retiring. He now keeps himself busy with his passion for history research. — Editor) /Lindy C. Morrell