They didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor or lead the Bataan Death March. But to many, they all look the same.
April 9, 1942: The surrender at Bataan led to a brutal death march abroad, and rising hysteria at home.
In the Philippines, U.S. and Filipino forces had been fighting desperately to hold off the Japanese Imperial Army. But on April 9, 1942, outnumbered, sick, and starving, they surrendered.
The result was one of the most brutal war crimes of the 20th century.
Some 76,000 prisoners of war — 66,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans — were forced to march more than 60 miles through sweltering heat with almost no food, water, or medical care.
Those who collapsed were beaten. Those who resisted were shot or bayoneted. Many never made it out alive.
It became known as the Bataan Death March, and by the time it ended, as many as 10,000 prisoners were dead.
Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
American troops surrendering to Japanese soldiers on Bataan during World War II
Captured American soldiers before the beginning of the Bataan Death March
U.S. Air Force photo
A burial detail carries the remains of POWs who succumbed after the Death March
Courtesy of the 4th Marines Band
Newspaper stand displaying news that Bataan collapsed
A propaganda poster by the U.S. Army
Dr. Seuss was vocally anti-Japanese and Japanese Americans during the war
Courtesy of the National Museum of American History
One of many examples of the California Jap Hunting License
Tragedy In More Ways Than One
But this tragedy didn’t end in the Philippines.
As news of the march slowly reached the United States, it poured gasoline onto the anti-Japanese fury already spreading across the country.
That rage was directed not only at Japan—but at Japanese Americans, nearly two-thirds of whom were born and raised in the United States.
Many of them could not even speak Japanese.
Back home, 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry — two-thirds of them U.S. citizens — were already being forced from their homes under Executive Order 9066.
They weren’t soldiers. They weren’t accused of any crime.
They were given as little as six days’ notice, told to pack only what they could carry, tagged, and sent behind barbed wire into remote government camps.
There were no charges. No trials. No convictions.
But the horror of Bataan helped harden public support for incarceration, turning wartime fear into something far more permanent.
After the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the Seattle region, barber G.S. Hante points to his bigoted sign reading, “We Don’t Want Any Japs Back Here... EVER!”
Photo by Dorothea Lange
A man milling around, Tanforan Assembly Center, June 16, 1924
U.S. Army photo
U.S. Army National Guard and Filipino soldiers at the outset of the Bataan Death March, April 9, 1942
U.S. Air Force photo
American POWs with their hands tied. The effects of hunger, sickness, and fatigue are evident.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Incarcerees at the Santa Anita Assembly Center in Arcadia, California. None of them had anything to do with the Bataan Death March or Pearl Harbor.
Lest We Forget
We must remember the tragedy of Bataan. But we must also remember how war can distort a nation’s sense of justice.
The men who carried out the Bataan Death March wore the uniform of the Imperial Japanese Army.
The families forced from their homes on the West Coast were American civilians.
But to many, they still looked the same.
Even today, many still fail to see the difference.