Death March

 

   In the waiting room at Clark Air Force base in the center of Luzon Island in the Philippines, there's a huge mural of General McArthur striding ashore ahead of his troops. Written below were the words "I have returned." Two years earlier McArthur had said "I shall return," after he had been forced out of the Philippines by the invading Japanese army.

   McArthur had to leave most of his army behind; ten thousand American soldiers and 66,000 Filipino allies. Things were not at all pleasant for these men as they waited in POW CAMPS for McArthur's return. Thousands of them died while waiting.

   I got to see the mural in 1971, a mere 26 years after the event depicted. I was on my way to a small naval base on the west coast of Luzon. After our overnight flight from California, we had to wait a couple of hours in the terminal for the bus to our final destination. 

   I wandered around the waiting room and found a plaque saying the main POW camp was not far from the airbase. Most of the American and Filipino army had retreated to the Bataan peninsula on the west side of Manila Bay. Our bus crossed over part of the route the prisoners had marched along on their way to the POW camp. I began seeing metal signs every kilometer commemorating the march.

   It was only a 66 mile hike, 5-10 days depending on where a prisoner joined the march, but the brutality of the Japanese captors led to the deaths of 500 Americans and up to 18,000 Filipinos. Things weren't much better in the camp where another 26,000 Filipino and 1,500 Americans died of disease and starvation.

   Today is the day in 1942 that the last American troops surrendered to the Japanese in the Philippines. Learning that reminded me of the Death March and when I looked for the metal signs on Google what I mostly found were white concrete markers. I came across an article about an American who had made it his mission to maintain the markers.

  This American's father had been on the Death March and on his deathbed, told his son that he had been engaged to a Filipino woman and that they had had a daughter. He made his son promise he would go to the Philippines and look for his other family.

   The son traveled to the Philippines and discovered that the woman had been killed by the Japanese and the daughter had grown up and married, but that she was now dead. The American was able to connect with his nieces and nephews. 

   When he retraced the Death March route he discovered most of the metal signs had been taken by souvenir hunters or destroyed by traffic. He settled in the Philippines, married a local woman and they made it their mission to erect and maintain the concrete markers. His father's ghost should be able to rest quietly.

Original metal marker.