Bataan Death March: What was the Bataan Death March and why was it important?

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan moved quickly to annex much of Southeast Asia. General Douglas MacArthur of the United States deployed his soldiers from Manila to the Bataan Peninsula as Japanese troops approached the Philippines.

At the Battle of Bataan, the Japanese destroyed the US and Filipino armies after three months of hard battle. General Edward King, Jr. surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942.

The Japanese commander knew he had to do something with the large army he had captured. He planned to move them to Camp O’Donnell, about eighty miles away. That is when the march began.

The Bataan Death March was a 66-mile (106-kilometre) march in the Philippines that 76,000 prisoners of war were forced to endure by the Japanese forces in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II.

The captives were beaten, shot, bludgeoned, and, in many cases, beheaded during the main march, which lasted 5 to 10 days depending on where a prisoner joined it; a huge number of those who made it to the camp eventually perished of malnutrition and disease.

The Bataan death march proved to be a military turning point for the Allies. It intensified anti-Japanese feelings in the United States. It made the invasion of Guadalcanal possible.