Bataan Death March In World War II History

The Bataan Death March was a major event in WWII history. This all begin on December 7 1941, when Japan bombed a U.S naval base at Pearl Harbor. This is also when Japan began invading the Philippines. In a month Japan had seized the capital of the Philippines. Japanese also took captive American and Filipino soldiers. These soldiers were forced to fall back to Bataan Peninsula. For the on coming months the U.S.-Filipino army didn’t have navel nor air support. By the time April 9th came around the army were beaten by starvation and disease. This left U.S. General Edward King Jr. to submit his 75,000 troops. American troops were forced to walk 65 miles to prison camps were they would be held. The troops had endured heat and harsh treatment as
After too many marchers were too weak to walk they were taken by rail to prison camps. In prison camps thousands more died from mistreat and wrong behavior. Lt. General Masahura was the man in charge over the prison camps and took the troops captive. This gave Japan and the general power to show the rest of the world what they were capable of. Under the general command guards randomly beat and killed troops within a blink of an eye. The guards also had power to do whatever they want to a troop at any time they felt like it. Troops were not allowed to have anything with them such as a souvenir because guards would think a troop would try harming them with it. This would result in an automatic shooting of that troop. Troops had to do whatever guards told them to or be killed it was simple as that. If you did something they didn’t advise you would be shot on sit. One time several troops left the group and tried to get some water, while turned around getting water Japanese sat up a machine gun and killed them on site. When troops were able to get water it was not drinkable. The water were full of maggots and there was clean water nearby that troops were not allowed to