On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and ten hours later, it again attacked the U.S. Far East Air Base at Clark Airport in the Philippines, officially declaring war on Japan, and the Pacific War with the United States and Japan as the main opponent broke out in full swing.
At the beginning of the war, because the United States hoped to gain priority in the Atlantic theater, that is, the European battlefield, and hoped that the defenders of the Pacific Theater would only use the opponents to effectively contain their opponents. Coupled with fighting in the rainforest, most American soldiers suffer from malaria, athlete's foot, pellagra, scurvy and other diseases. Fighting under such conditions can be described as more difficult than difficult.
On March 11, 1942, MacArthur, commander-in-chief of the U.S.-Philippines coalition, left the Philippines, and General Wainwright took over as commander of the U.S.-Philippines. MacArthur walked forward and gave Wainwright a bag of cigars and two cans of shaving cream, hoping he could hold out and wait for him to return from Australia with supplies. General Wainwright also gave a promise, but this situation cannot be solved by a single promise.
On April 9, 1942, the Japanese launched a general offensive, and the defense line of the well-known cregidore island collapsed completely, and General Wainwright led the soldiers to surrender to Japan after sending a final telegram to Washington for the sake of their soldiers' lives. (Wainwright was later held in a prisoner-of-war camp in northeastern China, and later witnessed japan's surrender aboard the USS Missouri, and was regarded as a war hero by the American people.) ）
There were 78,000 prisoners of war, all of whom were U.S.-Philippines prisoners on the Bataan Peninsula. The Japanese planned to transport them to the Oudner concentration camp 129 kilometers away, which took six days, and this march route was known as the "Bataan Death March", along with the Nanjing Massacre, the Burma-Thailand Railway Incident known as the Three Massacres in the Far East Theater of World War II. According to statistics, 15,000 prisoners of war fell on the road, and those who survived were also beaten and insulted by the Japanese army, and this march exposed the atrocities of the Japanese army to exterminate humanity and became an indelible shadow of the surviving soldiers.
The number of prisoners of war of 78,000 was very large, and in the war, resources were very limited, so the Japanese army did not intend to prepare them for food and drink, but did not deal with prisoners of war in accordance with the provisions of international conventions. The commander of the Japanese army, Masaharu Honma, ordered: "All prisoners who cannot go to the prisoner-of-war camp should be eliminated."
Under the scorching sun, the prisoner of war who had not eaten for a long time dragged his tired body to walk, and a physically weak prisoner of war could not hold on, fell on the bushes next to the road, and several Japanese soldiers next to him rushed up when they saw the situation, and did not expect to go up and help him up, but stabbed his already weak body seven or eight times. On this road, when the Japanese army saw someone stopping, they would solve it mercilessly, and on both sides of the road, the bodies of captives could be seen everywhere. The prisoners around them did not dare to stop when they saw the situation, they seemed to be accustomed to it, and they had to continue on the road before they could grieve, and they could only defecate in their pants, and if they stopped, what awaited them was the cold bayonet of the Japanese army.
On the way, the Japanese did not give food or water to drink. In fact, it is not that there is no water, and wells are often visible on the side of the road, but the Japanese army does not allow drinking, the purpose is to make the prisoners of war thirsty and die, reducing the number. Once I passed a pond with dead buffalo carcasses floating on top of green foam. Although the prisoners of war knew that there were many bacteria in the water, this was still "life-saving water" for them who had not eaten or drunk water for several days, and the prisoners of war were thirsty and asked the Japanese soldiers for instructions, and the Japanese soldiers laughed, seemed to laugh at them, and then agreed. The PRISONERs of War brushed aside a green foam on the surface and drank water that was parasitic and smelly with bacteria. A few minutes later, after the prisoners of war had returned, a Japanese officer came over, said something they didn't understand, and then, with a smile on his face, pointed out that there were traces of water on his body and had just drunk water, and asked them to stand in a row on the side of the road and shoot at them....
When passing by the sea, cliffs and other places, there will also be prisoners of war who want to escape, but they can run where they have not eaten for several days, thinking that it is a good ending, but they do not expect that it is a worse start. Those who escaped and were captured were tortured to death by the Japanese army in an even more brutal way. From time to time, Japanese commanders would gather them together, select a tall prisoner of war, surround them with Japanese soldiers and prisoners of war, behead him, and show off his decapitation techniques to the surrounding soldiers. Sometimes they also massacred prisoners of war en masse, concentrating 300 prisoners of war to train their bayonets. When the American soldiers on the side saw this scene, their bodies trembled and they prayed silently in their hearts, they could not imagine that killing people was actually a recreational activity of the Japanese army.
On the last leg of the march, they were finally able to get on the train, and unexpectedly, this was the beginning of another period of pain. At that time, it was a stuffy tank truck, the space in the carriage was very small, and usually it could put in about ten heads of livestock or about 30 people, but the Japanese army stuffed more than 100 people into the narrow carriage. He was not allowed to open the doors, there were 100 noses waiting to breathe in the already airtight space, the oxygen was very thin, and many prisoners of war in the middle of the carriage were suffocating alive, as long as the prisoners close to the door could feel a little breeze through the gap. After arriving at their destination, the weak breath of life of the prisoners of war could only slide slowly down against the door, while some could only stay in the carriage forever.
On this march, he died of hunger and thirst, was shot by the Japanese army, and stabbed to death as many as 15,000 prisoners of war. The people who arrived alive in the camp were not free from death, and inside the camp, the Japanese army still tortured them improperly, and just two months after arriving at the camp, another 26,000 people died. Those who survived were also tortured to death.
Later American soldiers would re-embark on this path and experience the journey to comfort the dead. Born in the era of peace, we should not forget the national shame and revitalize China!