● American naval had victory at battle of Midway, in June. This marks the turning point in the pacific war
● The Mass murder of Jewish people at Auschwitz begins
During 1943
● The surrender at Stalingrad marks Germanys first major defeat.
● Allied victory in North Africa enabled the invasion on Italy to be launched
● Italy surrendered but Germany took over the battle
● Brithish and Indian forces fought Japanese in Burma
During 1944
● Allies landed at Anzio and bombed the monastery at Monte Cassino
● Soviet offensive gathered pace at Eastern Europe
● D Day: the Allied invasion of France, Paris is liberated in August
● Guam liberated by the US. Okinawa and Jima were bombed
During 1945
● Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops
● Russians reached Berlin: Hitler commited suicide and Germany surrendered on May 7th
● Truman became president on Roosevelts death, and Attlee replaced Churchill who became prime minister in 1940
● After atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on August 14th.
The Japanese invaded the Philippine islands in December 1941, with their 14th Army consisting of two full divisions (the 16th and 18th), five anti-aircraft battalions, three engineering regiments, two tank regiments, and one battalion of medium artillery, led by Lt General Masaharu Homma.
They faced a defending force of ten divisions of the Philippine army. So numerically the advantage belonged to the defenders, how ever in reality it didn’t work out like this
At the end of the first week in December 1941, the Philippine forces consisted of 20,000 regulars and 100,000 totally raw reservists, most of these had been called in no more than three months before the war. Many of the troops were illiterate and couldn’t communicate with each other as they spoke there native dialect depending on the area they were from. The officers spoke English, Spanish and the national language Tagalog. Unfortunately Tagalog was only spoken in and around the capital Manila. The uniforms issued were fibre helmets, the men were never issued with steel helmets, they had canvas shoes, short sleeved shirts, and short pants hardly suitable for the jungles and Bataans surprisingly cold nights
In addition to the Philippine army, Bataans forces had 11,796 Americans and several regiments of Philippine scouts who had been part of the US army in the Philippines for many years prior to the war, these soldiers were well trained.
There were also many civilians who had fled from the advancing Japanese, they entered Bataan through there own fee will yet they had to be fed from the military supplies. Because of this, food became an immediate problem. They should have had a plentiful supply of rice but unfortunately this was left in the warehouses upon the withdrawal to Bataan and was destroyed by the Japanese. In Mid January rations were cut to half, only a month later these rations were cut yet again to half giving them an intake of only 1,000 calories, this consisted of rice and fish, or what ever meat could be found. Most of the meat came from the horses and mules of the 26th cavalry, or such mammals as the water buffalo, occasionally they ate things like monkeys and snakes. Food supplies which were being stored on Corregidor hardly ever found there way to the front lines of Bataan. In reality it was MacArthurs fault, that they starved on Bataan. He went to extraordinary lengths to make sure no food was taken to his men. he left fifty million bushels of rice at the depot at Cabanatuan. Then later just 70 miles from Bataan quartermasters found 2000 cases of canned fish but were ordered directly and repeatedly by MacArthur’s headquarters to abandon them or face court martial.
Malaria was a huge problem in Bataan as it was one of the most heavily mosquito infested areas in the world at the time, the medication to offset the effects of malaria ran out early in the campaign.
On April 3rd 1942 General Hommer finally launched his long awaited final push to crush the Philippines. He broke through the final line of defence easily because of the state of the troops at this time.
Of the 11,796 American soldiers on Bataan on April 3rd 1942, about 1,500 were in one of Bataans two field hospitals after the surrender. Some not many made there way across the 2 miles of shark infested waters to Corregidor, when they got there they were assigned to beach defence. Around 9,300 Americans reached camp O’Donnell after completing the death march in which around 700 died.
Of the 66,000 troops it is approximated that around 2,500 of them remained in the hospitals of Bataan, around 1,700 of them escaped to Corregidor, and a small number of them remained as work details for the Japanese after the surrender.
Bataan fell to Japan on April 9th
It is important to remember that the ‘battling Bastards of Bataan’ did not surrender but in fact were surrendered as specific orders were given to the Bataan garrison to surrender. Initially, some commanders refused to do so and were threatened with court-martial if they failed to obey a lawful order
At the time of the order to surrender they only had two days rationings left for the troops and medication to treat the countless number of Bataan defenders suffering from the deleterious effects of malaria were exhausted. Ammunition of every type was about to run out, many of the soldiers were weak, diseased and lacking physical strength
After many days of continuous aerial bombardment and artillery barrages, the men of Bataan were weak, to prevent a slaughter of his troops General King opted to surrender, when they later gathered in prison, camp O’Donnell, king told them “you did not surrender, I did. That responsibility is mine and mine alone”
Official figures estimate that between 44,000 and 50,000 of the Filipinos arrived at O’Donnell after completing the March, between 12,000 and 18,000 of their number are unaccounted for presumed to of died on the death march. Unfortunately the death tole does not end here, during the first 2 months of camp O’Donnell’s existence more than 1,500 Americans were to die. At least 25,000 Filipino’s died by July 1942 in the same camp due to a direct result of Malnutrition on Bataan, disease and the injury’s caused by the Japanese on the death march.
Although Bataan fell to Japan on the 9th of April.1942 it was retaken by an American force on February 17th
There are only around 1,200 survivors of Bataan today
