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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.02.08 09:01l 52 Lines 2507 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Feb 16
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To : TODAY@ALLUS
February 16, 1945
Bataan recaptured
On this day, the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines is occupied
by American troops, almost three years after the devastating and
infamous Bataan Death March.
On April 3, 1942, the Japanese infantry staged a major offensive
against Allied troops in Bataan, the peninsula guarding Manila
Bay of the Philippine Islands. The invasion of the Japanese 14th
Army, led by Gen. Masaharu Homma, had already forced Gen. Douglas
MacArthur's troops from Manila, the Philippine capital, into
Bataan. By March, after MacArthur had left for Australia on
President Roosevelt's orders and was replaced by Maj. Gen. Edward
P. King Jr., the American Luzon Force and its Filipino allies
were half-starved and suffering from malnutrition, malaria,
beriberi, dysentery, and hookworm.
Homma, helped by reinforcements and an increase in artillery and
aircraft activity, took advantage of the U.S. and Filipinos'
weakened condition to launch another major offensive, which
resulted in Admiral King's surrender on April 9. The largest
contingent of U.S. soldiers ever to surrender was taken captive
by the Japanese. The prisoners, both Filipino and American, were
at once led 55 miles from Mariveles, on the southern end of the
Bataan Peninsula, to San Fernando. The torturous journey became
known as the "Bataan Death March." At least 600 Americans and
5,000 Filipinos died because of the extreme brutality of their
captors, who starved, beat, kicked, and bayoneted those too weak
to walk. Survivors were taken by rail from San Fernando to
prisoner of war camps, where another 16,000 Filipinos and at
least 1,000 Americans died from disease, mistreatment, and
starvation.
America avenged its defeat in the Philippines generally, and
Bataan specifically, with the invasion of Leyte Island in October
1944. General MacArthur, who in 1942 had famously promised to
return to the Philippines, made good on his word. With the help
of the U.S. Navy, which succeeded in destroying the Japanese
fleet and left Japanese garrisons on the Philippine Islands
without reinforcements, the Army defeated adamantine Japanese
resistance. In January 1945, MacArthur was given control of all
American land forces in the Pacific. On January 9, 1945, U.S.
forces sealed off the Bataan Peninsula in the north; on February
16, the 8th Army occupied the southern tip of Bataan, as
MacArthur drew closer to Manila and the complete recapture of the
Philippines.
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