On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor successfully ignited the "War in the Pacific" and completely dragged the United States into the quagmire of war. At the beginning of the Pacific War, due to the fierce momentum of the Japanese offensive, the United States was not fully prepared, and as a result, it was defeated and retreated. On January 2, 1942, Manila fell. On 9 January, the Japanese began an attack on the Bataan Peninsula. And because the strategic center of the United States is still dominated by Europe, the US military in the Pacific theater has not received enough "resource tilt", so it has fought very hard in the battle against the Japanese army.
Pacific War
On March 11, 1942, MacArthur, commander-in-chief of the U.S.-Philippines coalition forces, was ordered to leave the Philippines and fly to Australia to become commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific Theater. Jonathan Wainwright, who remained in Luzon, was promoted to lieutenant general and put in charge of commanding the U.S.-Philippine coalition. On April 3 of the same year, the Japanese launched another general offensive. On the 9th, the Japanese army broke through the last line of the U.S.-Philippine coalition, the Bataan Peninsula was lost, and the American army was forced to surrender (a total of 75,000 people). On May 6, 1942, The Island of Crégido was also captured by the Japanese. After sending one last telegram to Washington, General Wainwright led 15,000 U.S.-Philippine Allies to surrender. Victory or defeat is a common affair, and it is normal to be defeated and taken prisoner. But at this time, the US military probably did not expect that a terrible nightmare was about to come. Today we are going to talk about one of the famous "three atrocities in the Far East" of the Japanese army: the Bataan Death March.
The United States and the Philippines surrendered
After the Japanese occupation of the Bataan Peninsula, Lieutenant General Masaharu Honma ordered the transfer of prisoners of war gathered on the Bataan Peninsula to the Oudner concentration camp 110 kilometers away, and at the same time ordered the execution of prisoners of war who could not insist on walking to the camp. On April 9, 1942, the U.S.-Philippine prisoners of war, escorted by the Japanese army, began to march on foot from the O'Donal prisoner of war camp one hundred and twenty kilometers east of Marifries Airport, passing through Kabaikabán Airport, Bataan Airport, Baranga and other places along the way, after spending three days and nights and marching forty-eight kilometers, arrived in Orenne in the early morning of April 12, 1942, and then passed through bedmoga, Lubao, Orani, and arrived at San Fernando, the provincial capital of Bangbang Province. From San Fernando, we reached the town of Karpas in the province of Tarlac by stuffy tanker, from where we marched 11 kilometers on foot to the Odonar prisoner of war camp, the terminus of the march. A march of more than a hundred kilometers is not too difficult for a professional soldier, and it is not normal for a large number of people to die on the way. But when we understand what the Japanese army is doing, we will be "suddenly enlightened."
Masaharu Honma
During the transfer of prisoners of war, the Japanese troops in charge of escorting them brutally abused prisoners of war: all prisoners of war who fell behind, accidentally fell out of line, and refused to respond to questions were brutally tortured and killed by the Japanese army. During this period, the Japanese army not only did not provide food, but also forbade prisoners of war to obtain food on their own, and once the prisoners of war who obtained food and water on their own were discovered by the officers and soldiers in custody, they were basically dead.
It was under such harsh conditions that american prisoners of war quickly developed "problems." "Dehydrated, they began to have chapped lips and bleeding, sore throats, and dizziness. Severe starvation left most prisoners of war with weakness on all fours, slow movements, and even hallucinations. In fact, the march is not without water, and american soldiers who want to drink water must take advantage of the absence of the guards, and cannot get together and make too much noise.
The Japanese mistreated American prisoners of war
One day, a prisoner of war found an artesian well on the side of the road, and after careful observation to make sure there were no Japanese soldiers nearby, he dragged another prisoner of war to the well and drank it, and quickly filled his own kettle. Within minutes, a dozen more prisoners of war had gathered at the well. Curiously, a Japanese soldier saw their move, but did not stop them, but only snickered from the sidelines. After several people had drunk water in a row, the Japanese soldiers suddenly rushed over, raised their bayonets and stabbed them in the neck of a prisoner of war, and suddenly the blood spurted, fell to the ground, and died quickly.
Something similar happened more than once. As the prisoner of war dreamed of walking by a pond, a prisoner of war dared to find out if a Japanese officer could drink some water, and the officer nodded decisively in agreement. After getting consent. Immediately a dozen American soldiers ran to the pond to drink water. After a while, the officer suddenly began to have several Japanese soldiers check the clothes of the prisoners of war, and all those with water stains on their bodies were pulled out, stood in a row, and shot in public.
In addition to food and water restrictions, the Japanese army's treatment of sick and wounded prisoners of war was equally heinous.
American prisoners of war were killed
Due to the hot and humid climate, most prisoners of war were in poor health, and malaria was widespread in the ranks. A malaria-stricken PRISONER of war had a high fever, was delirious, and fell to the ground after he couldn't hold on, trying to get up, but it was too late. A Japanese soldier grabbed the butt of his rifle and slammed it on his head, and the prisoner of war fell down in response, still barely breathing in his mouth. The Japanese soldiers and horses found two prisoners of war and began to dig pits with shovels. After digging the pit deep enough, they asked them to carry the prisoner in and bury him alive. The two prisoners shook their heads and said they could not do so, and the Japanese soldiers did not hesitate to shoot and kill two, and then two more prisoners of war forced them with guns and buried the seriously ill prisoner alive.
Prisoners of war fell to the ground with malaria
Throughout the march, the Japanese soldiers were free to abuse, beat, and kill the prisoners of war without any responsibility. They beat these prisoners of war with the butts of their rifles, with their clubs and with bayonets, most of whom did not have an inch of intact skin on their bodies, and many of whom had lost their lives before they reached their destinations because of festering wounds and infections. The Japanese sometimes entertained these American soldiers, engaging in "shows" that the Americans could not understand at all: they made a prisoner of war kneel on the ground with his hands tied behind his back. A Japanese officer drew his own samurai sword and drew it in the air, brandishing it as if to show off his "martial arts." After a warm-up, he moved the prisoner of war to the "right position", then raised the katana high, and then quickly swung it down, only to see that the prisoner's head had rolled to the ground, and his body was still kneeling on the ground. The Japanese soldiers shouted "Hooray" while emitting chilling laughter.
The Japanese tortured prisoners of war
On the road from San Fernando to the town of Karpas in tarlac province, the prisoners of war were loaded into stuffy tankers that were not meant to "load people". The cars, which could accommodate about twenty or thirty people, were forced into the Japanese by the Japanese, and after the vehicles reached their destination, many of the prisoners of war in the vehicles were suffocated alive due to lack of oxygen.
It was these brutal acts of the Japanese army that left more than 15,000 corpses on this not too long march.
Brutality of the Japanese army
However, the end of the march is not the end of the nightmare. Upon arrival at the Odonar POW camp, the surviving PRISONERS found that 60,000 U.S.-Philippines prisoners of war would be forced into a "cage" that could hold only about 10,000 people. There was no clean water or food, and they almost starved by looking for the carcasses of animals, whether cats, dogs, or rats. The harsh living environment makes dysentery and malaria rampant. Thirty to fifty people lose their lives every day in the camps. A considerable number of surviving prisoners of war were transported to Japan as miners at mitsui's Omuta Coal Mine, where they lived all day in the sunless mines, lacking food and clothing, without any remuneration, but were required to perform labor that consumed enormous physical exertion. By the time these "miners" were rescued after the war, all of them were already skinny and skinny.
American prisoners of war as miners
When we look back at what the Japanese army did in the war, we will find that they always seem to be "outliers" among the soldiers. Their brutality and murderous nature have reached a point that ordinary people cannot understand. To explore the reasons, it is necessary to understand the inner world of the Japanese nation at that time.
Since ancient times, Japan has been popular in worshiping the strong and despising the weak, advocating the spirit of "Bushido" that focuses on the honor of soldiers, and believing that "being a prisoner is the greatest of the imperial soldiers."
shame". The "Battle Front Training" compiled and printed by the Army Province during the war stipulates this: "Only those who know shame can strengthen themselves." To live is not to accept the insults of captivity and captivity, and to die is not to leave a bad reputation for the scourge of sin." Japanese officers and men were required to "know shame" and "not be born as prisoners" during the war, and japanese officers and men were required to be willing to pay everything for the sake of their so-called "honor as imperial soldiers." The officers and men of the Japanese army one-sidedly understood the role of the spirit, believing that death was the victory of the spirit, that only by treating death as a return was a virtue, and that it was a shame to be defeated and alive, so they discriminated against all prisoners of war, believing that laying down their weapons as prisoners was a great shame, and that when prisoners caused all the honor of soldiers to be lost, especially prisoners as eliminated people on the battlefield should not have a chance to survive and should be punished, so they believed that prisoners should not be given preferential treatment.
Japanese Samurai
As a result of their long-term militarist education, the officers and men of the Japanese army generally have a strong, irrational, and immoral sense of submission, despise and despise other countries in the world, and believe that other ethnic groups in the world are inferior nations, and as long as they dare to resist the conquest of the "imperial army," they should be "punished." They believe that they cannot kill too much the soldiers and civilians of the occupied countries who dare to resist, and that only "killing" can deter the military and civilians of the occupied countries who dare to resist. The Japanese nation has traditionally had a subordinate mentality of obeying the ruling authority, and the officers and soldiers succumbed to their superiors in the army to tilt the psychological balance, and the solution to inner contradictions and conflicts was to get compensation and venting from the enslavement of the conquered, so it is not difficult to understand that after the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, they brutally persecuted the PRISONERs of war of the United States and the Philippines.
Japanese army
Former German President Weizsäcker once said, "Those who do not take their own history seriously will not be able to understand why their current position is the way it is, and those who deny the past will be in danger of repeating the mistakes of the past." Unfortunately, today, Japan, which created the "death march" of that year, still shirks its attitude toward launching a war of aggression and its accusations against its victims, which are undoubtedly contrary to the aspirations of the people of the world. Knowing mistakes can be corrected, and being brave after knowing shame. Only a nation that faces history squarely can have a bright future.
Weizsäcker
bibliography:
"Bataan Death March: How U.S. Troops Survived the Japanese Army in World War II" Global Times
Coming Home Alive: Bataan's Journey to Death, Lester Tannie
"Understanding and Thinking on the "Death March" of Bataan" Cheng Lei
"Bataan Death March" in the Eyes of Witnesses" Yang Xiaowen