In December 1941, Japanese Lieutenant General Masaharu Honma led two divisions to land on the main northern island of Luzon. U.S. Commander MacArthur dispersed his troops and supplies across the nine main islands of the Philippine Archipelago. Therefore, the Japanese landed almost without encountering any obstacles. Masaharu Honma quickly broke through MacArthur's weak defensive line, forcing the U.S.-Philippines to retreat and concentrate on the Bataan Peninsula.
As MacArthur spread his supplies widely throughout the Philippines, the U.S. military was immediately given half of the rations. Masaharu Honma sent 20,500 Japanese troops to attack the defenders of Bataan, and when he withdrew his troops on February 24, he had less than 2,000 men standing up, many of them sick.
Masaharu Honma boasted that he would crush all U.S. resistance in the Philippines within 45 days, and that he had wasted an entire Japanese division in his attack on Bataan without defeating the U.S. and Filipino defenders. Subsequently, Masaharu Honma was severely reprimanded by Tokyo and demoted.
When the Japanese re-attacked on April 3, 1942, with new forces supported by heavy artillery, tanks, and air raids, the survivors of bataan became so weak from hunger and disease that they were unable to provide any effective resistance.
On April 9, 1942, the Commander of Luzon, Major General Edward King, believed in the benevolence of the Japanese and ordered his men to surrender to the Japanese.
Masaharu Honma and his army vented their anger on the sick and exhausted prisoners of war who suffered from the atrocities of the Bataan Death March and the harsh conditions of the Japanese "Hell Camp".
During surrender discussions related to Bataan, General Houma told Maj. Gen. Edward King that his troops would have to march from Bataan to their place of detention at camp O'Donnell, about 100 miles (161 kilometers).
Edward King pointed out to the Japanese commander that his troops had been eating only half of their rations since January, i.e., 3 months, and that everyone was starving and many were sick. He requested permission to transport prisoners of war to Camp O'Donnell by United States military trucks.
Angered by the rebuke of the Tokyo Imperial Headquarters and the demotion of the Philippine General Command, Masaharu Honma was furious and hastily refused the request.
Immediately after Bataan surrendered on April 9, 1942, prisoners of war were searched, and any prisoner found carrying Japanese equipment or other souvenirs was immediately executed.
The Bataan Death March began on 10 April from Mariveles and lasted for a week. In this hellish march, sick and starving prisoners were beaten at will, denied water to drink, and any prisoner who asked for water was killed on the spot.
When the Japanese guards needed a rest, they forced their captives to sit in the scorching sun, without covering their heads, and any prisoner who was left behind or fell due to heat, exhaustion, and lack of water would be killed on the spot unless his comrades were able to carry him.
The Center for Military History of the U.S. Army once estimated that as many as 650 American prisoners of war and 5,000-10,000 Filipino prisoners of war were killed by the Japanese during the Bataan Death March.
The Japanese were particularly cruel to filipinos, who they considered to be america's running dogs. About half of the 20,000 U.S. troops captured by the Japanese in the Philippines were killed by the Japanese before the end of the Pacific War. Some were killed quickly, others slowly because of hunger, disease and cruel treatment.
After Japan's defeat and surrender in 1945, Lieutenant General Masaharu Honma was convicted of war crimes and executed in 1946 for directing his involvement in the brutal killing of prisoners of war after the surrender of Prisoners of War in the United States and the Philippines and during the Bataan Death March.
