History: Section 3, Surrender, Bataan Death March, and O'Donnell Internment at Capas, Tarlac, 1942-1944 -

History Section 3: Bataan Death March and O'Donnell Internment at Capas, Tarlac

Staggered Surrender and POW Disposition

It is rare that the confluence of the numerous negative factors following Wainwright’s final surrender would work in so many ways to imperil the USAFFE POWs. One may consider an array of these factors as simultaneously aligning.

-The Japanese troops who had survived through to the USAFFE surrender, had a score to settle with the Philippine defenders. The Imperial Japanese Army high command had anticipated a relatively short campaign, along with light casualties. This was of course not the case as the defenders were much larger in numbers than their intelligence had assessed (they believed the Islands(concentrated in Luzon) were held by 40,000 troops, not 120,000 including reserve units). General Homma was disciplined by Japanese high command for taking 4 months, not 3 weeks as originally anticipated, to conquer the Bataan and Corregidor defenses, and was subsequently reassigned to bureaucratic military duty in Japan. Revenge was hot among the veteran Japanese troops who suffered heavy losses.

-The siege of Bataan substantially weakened the defending survivors due to disease and malnutrition, such that they were physically exhausted and emaciated, many barely able to walk.

-The Japanese never formally signed the Geneva convention, governing the humane treatment of POWs.

-The sheer number of POWs surrendered surprised and overwhelmed the Japanese command. There was barely a logistical plan for the smaller anticipated number of POWs. The Japanese high command did not want large numbers of combat troops absorbed into POW guard duty while their imperialist offensive ambitions demanded their presence.

-The Japanese Army(IJA) training was particularly brutal, some would say sadistic. Daily hazings and beatings were administered to the recruits for the most minor infractions. The Japanese Army culture was unforgiving towards its own troops, one can imagine how they might handle POWs.

-Perhaps the worst aspect of the POW catastrophe was cultural. Not only did Japanese domestic propaganda assure the Nippon Empire that they were a superior race of people, but the soldier’s moral code of bushido was written into the conscience of all. Meaning that it is dishonorable to surrender and it is the combatant’s duty to fight on to the bitter end of one’s life regardless of any circumstance. The POWs, American and Filipino, were uniformly perceived by the Japanese as sub-human life forms who deserved little or no decency from their captors for not fighting to the death. Of course, huge numbers of USAFFE forces did fight till their deaths.

The surrender came in stages, on Bataan, General King surrendered in the face of what was looking to be a genocidal defense of his I Corps which from all perspectives appeared unwinnable. The new momentum of fresh Japanese troops in winning battles in rapid succession, as well as the USAFFE notion of never surrendering, now suddenly perceived as an alternative, pulled most of the Bataan USAFFE commanders into the new reality and followed suit. The last holdout was Wainwright’s force on Corregidor. After the fall of Bataan, weeks passed until Wainwright coordinated the unconditional terms of surrender to General Homma’s satisfaction. This included the surrender of all USAFFE troops in the Philippines including the large numbers in southern Mindanao. Although General Sharp’s Mindanao troops were in a better fighting defensive position than those on Luzon, the implications of the dialogue between Wainwright and Homma implied blackmail…that Wainwright’s non-cooperation to surrender Mindanao would result in an overwhelming offensive and slaughter of the entire defensive garrison at Corregidor. And so it was, Wainwright ultimately signed the terms of unconditional surrender of the entire Philippine defensive forces to the Japanese on May 6th, 1942.

The first group of captives(the largest) were the Bataan defenders. Their sheer numbers(and deteriorated physical condition), coupled with their captors perspective of the POWs being inferior people, set the stage for what would be historically recognized as the Bataan Death March and Capas internment. Those captured on Corregidor and other southern islands, including Mindanao, were taken to Philippine prison facilities(Bilibid, Cabanatuan) or taken by “hellships” back to Japan to be used as slaves, most supporting the mining needs of the Japanese war machine.

The Bataan Death March

And so the American and Filipino POWs captured on Bataan were dealt the unfortunate card, in large part due to their sheer numbers(in excess of 50,000 men, the Japanese anticipated approximately 25,000), to embark on a forced march of 66 miles from the Bataan peninsula to San Fernando with a final railcar destination of an old Army training base named Camp O’Donnell in the town of Capas, of the Tarlac province. No distinction was made of officers and enlisted men, save for their burials. One Colonel Vance, was roundly beaten while under interrogation, made to sleep on the ground and for days was deprived meaningful sustenance for life. The POWs were first stripped of all personal possessions. Any resistance to this process was met swiftly with a rifle butt to the head, if they were lucky. Rings that met resistance of being given up were said to be removed with the prisoner’s entire finger. 8,700 Americans were then segregated from the 42,000 Filipinos. All POWs on Bataan suffered from varied types of aforementioned diseases and near total exhaustion, not exactly fit to embark upon a 66 mile forced march.

The physical abuse of the POWs was compounded by the absence of logistical planning. Food, water, medicine(particularly quinine to treat malaria) were dealt with largely by what was available along the march, or what short residual, hidden supplies sold between them as contraband. Water supplies were uniformly tainted, found alongside roadside ditches and polluted streams. Food, when available, was largely limited to a sort of rice porridge contaminated with insects and maggots. Those desperate enough to break ranks and make for a roadside water source were greeted by a rifle butt to the head, or a bayonet to wherever was the guard’s choosing. As Japanese trucks would pass the columns, the troops made a sport of hitting the sidemost man in the column with rifle butts or large bamboo canes. As the POWs passed through the Filipino civilian barrios, many acts of mercy were made to both American and Filipino prisoners. They would offer handfuls of rice, sugar wafers, water…but if a guard spotted this, both the giver and receiver were mercilessly beaten. The general rule was that those who fell behind, fell down and were unable to get up, or broke from the ranks were, if lucky, mercilessly beaten. But usually shot or bayoneted. There were instances of particularly sadistic soldiers who felt they needed bayonet practice and would arbitrarily grab a POW from the line, remove him from sight, and conducted live bayonet practice. It may have been considered merciful that the Japanese conducted a small portion of the forced march at night where faster progress to San Fernando would have been possible, but it was simply expedient of their mission to do so. Almost as if to wither the huge numbers of POWs, they continued not only to keep up the daytime march during the Philippine hot, dry season but conducted “sun treatment” rest stops(see above image). The direct sun upon unshaded Philippine terraces accelerated dehydration and what was left of the prisoners’ immune system. Any attempts to crawl into the shade were met with the bayonet. Instances of suicide began, POWs jumped off of bridges, and subsequently shot. The intermediate destination of Lubao had one running water spigot, for 4000 men.

The tormented march lasted 2 weeks and was terminated at the railway head at San Fernando. Finally the POWs could count on some type of break from their marching misery. By this time, those who had shoes had their sides split out and the condition of the men’s feet was uniformly an unbearable soreness, covered with blisters or exposed flesh either infected, or about to be. Here they were loaded onto freight cars normally used to haul livestock, typically 15 horses per car. Into these cars were loaded 100 men each, packed so tight it was impossible to sit. Once the doors were closed, the unventilated stifling heat took yet its further toll. Many men died standing on their way to their semi-final destination, Camp O’Donnell.

O'Donnell POW Internment at Capas, Tarlac

On April 14th, the first wave of the remaining diseased and exhausted Filipino and American USAFFE POWs arrived at the partially constructed Army training base called Camp O’Donnell, located around 30 miles north of the former Clark Air Base. The huge number of POWs, in stages, took 2 weeks to fully complete their captivity at O’Donnell. The perceived relief from the forced march however, was short lived. All American arrivals were subjected to a 2 hour rant by the internment camp’s commander, Captain Tsuneyoshi, who informed the prisoners they were subhumans for surrendering and all should have instead committed suicide. In fact, Camp O’Donnell seemed to fulfill the wishes of the IJA to winnow down the captive numbers of POWs purposefully by means of depravity and disease. The conditions at O’Donnell were described by one survivor as making the “black hole of Calcutta seem a Sunday school picnic”. Others likened the conditions at O’Donnell to the infamous Civil War encampment of Andersonville, Georgia. The body count accrued to the Bataan Death March was only the first chapter in the plight of the USAFFE POWs. The weakened and diseased state of the POWs brought into Capas O’Donnell expedited the next, even larger, wave of untreated fatalities. Virtually every element of human life necessary to survival was eliminated within the prison: food rations were kept to a bare minimum and so all starved, many to death; ruthless sadistic beatings of prisoners by the guards(one witness recalls his group being forced to watch a live bayonet practice upon one of the captives); rampant disease in part caused by the weakened immune systems of all the POWs(malaria, dysentery, beri beri, pelagra, …). Sanitary conditions at O’Donnell were non-existent. Unsheltered from the elements, shadeless, with the exception of 2 balloon hangars and ramshackle Nipa huts, over 30,000 men used the prison perimeter as a latrine. O’Donnell offered 2 water sources for all the prisoners. For the Filipinos, a polluted drainage stream used for everything from bathing, washing clothes, toiletry, and drinking contributed to the daily death toll to as high as 350 per day. The Americans had one well spigot where a line of as many as 2000 men would line up, sometimes for days, to fill a 1 quart canteen. Indeed, many men died waiting in line for water. Burial details were a constant activity throughout the day, 40 American bodies a day on average, the bodies all dumped in mass graves. There existed a population of prisoners who were well enough to work on road crews. Their hydration, for working all day in direct tropical sun, was the usual roadside drainage ditches. These lucky men were often rewarded by local compassionate Filipinos illicitly sneaking handfuls of rice, sugar cane, water cups, or sugar cakes to the POWs. Those caught by Japanese guards were were either brutally beaten or executed. The contraband was often shared with the sickly men back at the base. But the O’Donnell charnel house(a death camp) exacted its price, an estimated 1,500 Americans and 20,000 Filipinos died mostly during the first 2 months of internment. The institutionalized cruelty of the IJN speaks to a sadism reserved specifically for non-Japanese. Warehouses at O’Donnell were filled to capacity with rice, canned meat, milk, and cheese. Red Cross efforts to supply POWs with essential supplies were turned back. The IJA cannot blame any other factors other than themselves for the 3rd circle of hell they imposed upon defenseless prisoners.

The POW hospital, “Zero Ward”, was considered the last stop to the remaining survivors. Men avoided it at all costs, men were simply brought there once they were too weak to crawl out of their own fecal dysentery induced mess. There were essentially no medical supplies. The stench arising from the infected, dying, dead and dysentery was said to be overpowering. The hospital was in fact a transient morgue. The doctors all eventually became sick with similar maladies. Simple cheap medical supplies such as quinine and sulfa were scoffed at when requested. The lack of protein nutrients accelerated rampant malaria among the prisoners. Perhaps the biggest enemy of the POWs was despondency, losing the will to live. Many men just stopped eating and drinking what little there was, the suffering overwhelming the will of surviving this new “life”.

The transfer of the remaining prisoners from O’Donnell began during the summer of 1942, although not completed until the following year. These transferees were either sent to other POW camps, such as Cabanatuan, or shipped out on “hellships” to Japan or Formosa(Taiwan) to work as slaves, typically in coal mines. One such man is pictured here in his POW slave uniform, Ben Steele, who wrote of his biographical survival of the Bataan Death March, Camp O’Donnell, and hellship transport to Japan to work in the mines, in the excellent book “Tears in the Darkness”. Ben found a means of coping with these horrors by sketching scenes from his odyssey, a visual record of what the eye and the mind cannot come to terms.

I worked several years ago with a man who survived what Ben Steele had survived and had an opportunity to speak with him from time to time. He has since passed on, so I will keep his name anonymous out of reverence for the deceased, and simply refer to him as “M”. I asked M about how he and his fellow troops felt about the disappearance of MacArthur once the Japanese invasion began. His sentiment was consistent with what most of the Americans troops felt, that their leader, who had been endlessly encouraging a robust defense of the Philippines, left just as the going got tough which imposed a betrayal mindset amongst the Americans, despite the fact he had been ordered to re-situate his new Asiatic command in Australia(it is noted that the Filipinos were more understanding of his departure). M was one of the first to volunteer for road crew duty just to get out of the hell of O’Donnell. It did not take long for him to forgo road crew duty when he learned they were still obliged to hydrate themselves via the parasitically contaminated roadside ditch water, poor food rations and guard beatings. M was transported in the summer of 1942 by a hellship to Kokura, Japan. A “hellship” is a cargo ship with cargo holds made to hold bulk goods(grains, ore pellets, livestock, …) in which the POWs were crammed into such that there was only room to stand. These vessels were unmarked regarding POW transport, and there are accounts of hundreds of American POWs drowning from allied shipping attacks. After a week of transit to Japan, the floors of the holds were rife with vomit, feces, urine and dead bodies. M was then taken to the Kokura coal mines to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Someone where I worked asked M why he never wore a necktie. He would not answer, but one day he confided in one of the veterans that the prisoners in Kokura were led around in neck manacles, and the feeling of neck pressure from the tie would trigger nightmarish memories. It is a miracle to me that men like Ben Steele and M were able to re-integrate themselves back into civilian life. In modern American society, it is a travesty to hear every other person complain of PTSD for issues as negligible as having their feelings hurt, in view of what the experiences of existential PTSD experienced by Ben and M, and many other miracle survivors.

It seems that our modern culture, citing such evil transgressions such as micro-aggressions, x-phobia, and x-ism, has failed to appreciate the lessons of history and we take the sacrifices made by this tale, and many others like it, as an abstraction from another period of history. And throw gratitude into the wind. Furthermore, I am sickened by post-war apologists for the IJA asserting that the Death March and O’Donnell were themselves victims of managing overwhelming POW numbers with limited resources, and after all, America has done its share of bad things. For example, a website entitled “Medium” published an article proclaiming the Death March was “nothing but propaganda”. For example, their claim that a majority of those who died on the march were a result of disease, malnutrition, and exhaustion…which is true. But I guess the “sun treatments”, denial of drinkable water, purposely contaminated micro portions of lugao for food, and denial of essential medicines(quinine, sulfa,…) were overlooked contributors to the enormous casualty rate. And although smaller in numbers than the aforementioned problem, the IJA took a sadistic delight in live bayonet practice, smashing skulls of POWs while passing in vehicles, shooting laggards, decapitating those who fell out of line, etc., etc. It was a rather large minority who suffered this fate, as I have spoken first hand with survivors, and examined written archival documentation from both sides describing these routine atrocities. This same article goes on to cite the difficulty in which the Japanese guards suffered, as they were required to carry 20Kg rucksacks full of food and ammo…so the author implies the Japanese captors were themselves victims. This statement is at best specious, the full expeditionary battle packs were not necessary for any of the guards, witness the collection of pictures, chosen at random, in the above surrender section. I can further assure you that none of the guards were drinking out of drainage ditches, and were not eating fouled lugao. There is nothing in the history of the US warfare and POW treatment comparable to the institutionalized sadism sanctioned (either directly or by oversight neglect) that compares to what the IJA willingly sponsored, even the Nazi‘s treated American POWs more humanely.

Personal Perspective

There was no excuse for not feeding POWs when your food stocks are full. There can be no excuse for refusing the Red Cross to deliver supplies of food and medicine to the POWs. And to end the celebration of their occupation of the Philippines, the next section will discuss the Battle of Manila, where some 14,000 pages of documented atrocities were committed against over 100,000 Filipino civilians, including mass rape, torture, burial of the alive, and murder. This was the hell party conducted by the last 25,000 Japanese defenders of Manila, ordered by a rogue Japanese commander, to fanatically defend Manila to the last man. The product of men who understood they were going to die. I wonder how these atrocities, on the scale of The Rape of Nanking, square with the death by honor bushido code.