Bataan Death March

Tears in the Darkness is an altogether new look at World War II that exposes the myths of war and shows the extent of suffering and loss on both sides. For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America's first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history. The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make dramatically clear in this powerfully original book. From then until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, and torture—far from the machinations of General Douglas MacArthur. The Normans bring to the story remarkable feats of reportage and literary empathy. Their protagonist, Ben Steele, is a figure out of Hemingway: a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world. Juxtaposed against Steele's story and the sobering tale of the Death March and its aftermath is the story of a number of Japanese soldiers.

The hopeless yet determined resistance of American and Filipino forces against the Japanese invasion has made Bataan and Corregidor symbols of pride, but Bataan has a notorious darker side. After the U.S.-Filipino remnants surrendered to a far stronger force, they unwittingly placed themselves at the mercy of a foe who considered itself unimpaired by the Geneva Convention. The already ill and hungry survivors, including many wounded, were forced to march at gunpoint many miles to a harsh and oppressive POW c& many were murdered or died on the way in a nightmare of wanton cruelty that has made the term "Death March" synonymous with the Bataan peninsula. Among the prisoners was army pilot William E. Dyess. With a few others, Dyess escaped from his POW camp and was among the very first to bring reports of the horrors back to a shocked United States. His story galvanized the nation and remains one of the most powerful personal narratives of American fighting men. Stanley L. Falk provides a scene-setting introduction for this Bison Books edition. William E. Dyess was born in Albany, Texas. As a young army air forces pilot he was shipped to Manila in the spring of 1941. Shortly after his escape and return to the United States, Colonel Dyess was killed while testing a new airplane. He did not survive long enough to learn that he had been awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor.

From a brave American veteran comes an eyewitness account of a gruesome chapter in World War II history. Captured when America surrendered the PhilippinesBataan Peninsula, James Bollich experienced first-hand the march that cost more than 8,000 American and Filipino lives. Now, he shares the unforgettable experience of his three and a half years of Japanese imprisonment.This journal relates his personal experience, first focusing on the sixty-five-mile march that deprived prisoners of food, water, and rest. Prisoners received harsh punishments for any infraction, one of the most brutal of these being the policy of beheading them for taking a sip of water. Rather than force him to give up, these things made Bollich fight for life even more. Witnessing his comrades falling beside him and watching his own body waste away to ninety pounds, he never yielded his will to survive. After completing the march, he remained a prisoner of war, first at an old Philippine army base, then in another camp at Mukden, Manchuria. He relates his imprisonment in detail, from starvation and torture to digging their own comrades graves in the hot sun, without hats or water. Through it all, he remained courageous and hopeful that he would one day make it back home. His story reminds both past and present generations of the horror and brutality of the Pacific war, all the while providing an inspiring testament to the will ofthe human spirit.

For two weeks during the spring of 1942, the Bataan Death March--one of the most widely condemned atrocities of World War II--unfolded. The prevailing interpretation of this event is simple: American prisoners of war suffered cruel treatment at the hands of their Japanese captors while Filipinos, sympathetic to the Americans, looked on. Most survivors of the march wrote about their experiences decades after the war and a number of factors distorted their accounts. The crucial aspect of memory is central to this study--how it is constructed, by whom and for what purpose. This book questions the prevailing interpretation, reconsiders the actions of all three groups in their cultural contexts and suggests a far greater complexity. Among the conclusions is that violence on the march was largely the result of a clash of cultures--undisciplined, individualistic Americans encountered Japanese who valued order and form, while Filipinos were active, even ambitious, participants in the drama.

For two weeks during the spring of 1942, the Bataan Death March—one of the most widely condemned atrocities of World War II—unfolded. The prevailing interpretation of this event is simple: American prisoners of war suffered cruel treatment at the hands of their Japanese captors while Filipinos, sympathetic to the Americans, looked on. Most survivors of the march wrote about their experiences decades after the war and a number of factors distorted their accounts. The crucial aspect of memory is central to this study—how it is constructed, by whom and for what purpose. This book questions the prevailing interpretation, reconsiders the actions of all three groups in their cultural contexts and suggests a far greater complexity. Among the conclusions is that violence on the march was largely the result of a clash of cultures—undisciplined, individualistic Americans encountered Japanese who valued order and form, while Filipinos were active, even ambitious, participants in the drama.

Captured by the Japanese after the fall of Bataan, Lester I. Tenney was one of the very few who would survive the legendary Death March and three and a half years in Japanese prison camps. With an understanding of human nature, a sense of humor, sharp thinking, and fierce determination, Tenney endured the rest of the war as a slave laborer in Japanese prison camps. My Hitch in Hell is an inspiring survivor’s epic about the triumph of human will despite unimaginable suffering. This edition features a new introduction and epilogue by the author. Purchase the audio edition.

[Illustrated with over 30 photos of the author, his unit, escape, his kit etc.] As General MacArthur sailed away from the Philippines vowing to return, he left behind him many American soldiers that had been swept up by the victorious Japanese tide of invasion. One such man was Lt.-Colonel William Edwin ‘Ed’ Dyess, he and his unit of the 21st Pursuit squadron flew their obsolete P-40 Warhawks against the superior Japanese fighters until no more planes remained. Undaunted he fought on as an infantryman before his eventual capture by the Japanese his deeds of selfless bravery were legendary, including giving his own plane to a fellow aviator so he could fly to safety. Dyess and his brave men deserved a better fate than that which awaited them at the hands of their Japanese captors on the infamous Bataan Death March. Driven north from Bataan, the American and Philippino prisoners were beaten, starved and prodded at the tip of the bayonet toward prison camps that had been callously unprovided with the basic means of existence. In the only successful mass prison escape, Dyess along with his men broke out of their prison camp and made contact with resistance groups. After a time waging further Guerilla operations, Dyess and two other American servicemen were evacuated by submarine to Australia. As Dyess recuperated the American Government knowing the effect that the truth of the atrocities committed by the Japanese would galvanize public opinion allowed the release of his story via the Chicago Tribune. The story created a huge storm of outrage directed at the Japanese and of respect and admiration for Dyess and his fellow soldiers who had endured so much on their behalf. Dyess returned to active service as soon as was possible but tragically died in an airplane accident in 1943, a hero to his men and country. A tragically vivid and gruelling account of one of the most heroic escape stories yet told.

Includes The Prisoners Of War In Japanese Hands During World War Two pack with 130 photos, plans and photos. In Give Us This Day a young Oklahoman, a survivor of Bataan, reveals the terrible truth about a little-known aspect of the Pacific war as he experienced it from the beginning in the Philippines. He was a captive of the Japanese for more than three years; he knew one after another all the torments of confinement in conditions of primitive barbarism. True though his story is, it almost defies belief. With touching simplicity he recounts the stark and shocking details of one of the most shameful features of that war — the treatment of American soldiers who fell into the hands of the Japanese. At first Stewart hated his captors, but in the end hatred gave place to a dawning comprehension that the Japanese were as different from us as the men of Genghis Khan. “It is one of the most harrowing and debilitating chronicles that I have read. . . . He describes the ordeal brilliantly; he harbors no resentments apparently, and he has emerged from an inferno of bestiality with utter serenity.” — Maxwell Geismar, Saturday Review “An impressive and moving book.” — David Dempsey, New York Times “His is no ordinary prisoner-of-war story; better written than most, it contains no tales of swashbuckling defiance. . . . The force of this book is its testimony to the indomitable strength of the human spirit.” — Manchester Guardian “The plain narrative of this story would by itself have been fascinating, but this book is far more than a story, it is a work of art.” — André Siegfried, Academie Francaise “Sidney Stewart’s composed narrative is one of the most noble documents ever penned by a prisoner of war. The companions he writes about remained men to the end, until at last only one man remained; he survived to write this unforgettable, this magnificent story.” — George Slocombe, New York Herald Tribune [Paris]