Battle of Bataan
The Battle of Bataan (Tagalog: Labanan sa Bataan; January 7 – April 9, 1942) was fought by the United States and the Philippine Commonwealth against Japan during World War II. The battle represented the most intense phase of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II. In January 1942, forces of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy invaded Luzon along with several islands in the Philippine Archipelago after the bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
For the battle that occurred in 1945, see Battle of Bataan (1945).
The commander in chief of the U.S. and Filipino forces in the islands, General Douglas MacArthur, consolidated all of his Luzon-based units on the Bataan Peninsula to fight against the Japanese army. By this time, the Japanese controlled nearly all of Southeast Asia. The Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor were the only remaining Allied strongholds in the region.
Despite their lack of supplies, American and Filipino forces managed to fight the Japanese for three months, engaging them initially in a fighting retreat southward. As the combined American and Filipino forces made a last stand, the delay cost the Japanese valuable time and prevented immediate victory across the Pacific. The American surrender at Bataan to the Japanese, with 76,000 soldiers surrendering in the Philippines altogether,[1] was the largest in American and Filipino military histories and was the largest United States surrender since the American Civil War's Battle of Harpers Ferry.[4] Soon afterwards, U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced into the Bataan Death March.[5]
Background[edit]
In 1936, Douglas MacArthur was appointed Field Marshal of the Philippine army, given the task of developing an effective defensive force before independence in 1946. Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army General George C. Marshall intended to make the Philippines reasonably defensible, "...we felt that we could block the Japanese advance and block their entry into war by their fear of what would happen if they couldn't take the Philippines..." MacArthur anticipated having until April 1942 to train and equip a combat ready force.
On 26 July 1941 MacArthur was recalled to active duty within the US army and given the rank of lieutenant general. In August, MacArthur called into service one regiment for each of his ten reserve divisions, and inducted them into the US armed forces. On 27 November, he received notice, "Japanese future action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot, repeat cannot, be avoided the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act." On 18 December, ten days after the start of hostilities, MacArthur inducted the remaining reservists. The Philippine Army consisted of 120,000 men, of which 76,750 were on Luzon. On 24 December, as Masaharu Homma's Japanese Fourteenth Area Army advanced and General Jonathan Wainwright's North Luzon Force retreated, MacArthur ordered his Far East Air Force headquarters south towards Bataan. This prompted Lewis H. Brereton to abandon Clark Field, Nichols Field, Fort William McKinley, and Nielson Field for the Pilar, Bataan, Cabcaben and Mariveles gravel strips. By the end of the year, Bataan contained 15,000 Americans, 65,000 Filipinos, and 26,000 refugees. Adequate munitions had been stored or shipped in by the end of the year, but food supplies amounted to only about a two-month supply, far short of the needed 6 months in the prewar plans.[6]
In one last coordinated action by the Far East Air Force, U.S. planes damaged two Japanese transports and a destroyer, and sank one minesweeper. These air attacks and naval actions, however, did not significantly delay the Japanese assault.[7]
War Plan Orange[edit]
When MacArthur returned to active duty, the latest revision plans for the defense of the Philippine Islands had been completed in April 1941 and was called WPO-3, based on the joint Army-Navy War Plan Orange of 1938, which involved hostilities between the United States and Japan.[8] Under WPO-3, the Philippine garrison was to hold the entrance to Manila Bay and deny its use to Japanese naval forces, and ground forces were to prevent enemy landings. If the enemy prevailed, they were to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula, which was recognized as the key to the control of Manila Bay. It was to be defended to the "last extremity".[8] In addition to the regular U.S. Army troops, the defenders could rely on the Philippine Army, which had been organized and trained by General MacArthur.[8]
However, in April 1941 the Navy estimated that it would require at least two years for the Pacific Fleet to fight its way across the Pacific. Army planners in early 1941 believed supplies would be exhausted within six months and the garrison would fall.[8] MacArthur assumed command of the Allied army in July 1941 and rejected WPO-3 as defeatist, preferring a more aggressive course of action.[9] He recommended—among other things—a coastal defense strategy that would include the entire archipelago. His recommendations were followed in the plan that was eventually approved.[8] With approval from Washington, War Plan Rainbow 5 was implemented such that the entire archipelago would be defended, with the necessary supplies dispersed behind the beachheads for defending forces to use while defending against the landings. With the return to War Plan Orange 3, the necessary supplies to support the defenders for the anticipated six-month-long defensive position were not available in the necessary quantities for the defenders who would withdraw to Bataan.[10]
A U.S. Army member posts the flag of the "Battling Bastards of Bataan" at the opening ceremony of the Bataan Memorial Death March.
9 April, the day Bataan fell into Japanese hands, was declared a national holiday in the Philippines.[25] Previously called Bataan Day, the day is now known as Day of Valor or Araw ng Kagitingan, commemorating both the Fall of Bataan and the Fall of Corregidor. The Dambana ng Kagitingan (Shrine of Valor) is a war memorial erected on top of Mount Samat. The memorial grounds feature a colonnade that houses an altar, esplanade, and a museum. On the peak of the mountain is the memorial cross standing about 311 ft (95 m) high.
USS Bataan (LHD-5), commissioned on 20 September 1997, the United States Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ship commemorates "those who served and sacrificed in the Philippines in the name of freedom in the Pacific". USS Bataan (CVL-29), commissioned on 17 November 1943, the United States Navy Independence-class aircraft carrier commemorated "those who served and sacrificed in the Philippines in the name of freedom in the Pacific" until her decommissioning on 9 April 1954.
The Bataan Death March Memorial Monument, erected in April 2001, is the only monument funded by the U.S. federal government dedicated to the victims of the Bataan Death March during World War II. The memorial was designed and sculpted by Las Cruces artist Kelley Hester and is located in Veterans Park along Roadrunner Parkway in New Mexico.[26]
Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Bridge is a bascule bridge on State Street in Chicago, Illinois, where it crosses the Chicago River. It was built in 1949 and rededicated on 9 April 1998, commemorating the Day of Valor as well as the centennial of the declaration of Philippine independence from Spain in 1898.[27]
In film, television and song[edit]
Among the many films and television programs that feature the story of Bataan are Bataan (1943) starring Robert Taylor; the John Ford classic They Were Expendable (1945), starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, and Donna Reed; Back to Bataan (1945) starring Wayne and Anthony Quinn; and two movies about the nurses of Bataan: So Proudly We Hail! (1943) and Cry 'Havoc' (1943).
Dozens of documentaries have also featured stories from the Battle of Bataan including A Legacy of Heroes: The Story of Bataan and Corregidor (2003), Ghosts of Bataan (2005) and an episode of The History Channel series Shootout, entitled "Raid on the Bataan Death Camp" (2006). Though largely focusing on the Cabanatuan Raid in 1945, this last program also featured stories from the 1942 battle; notably the stand of the 57th Infantry Regiment (PS) at Mabatang.
The Battle of Bataan is referenced among important battles of American history in the song The House I Live In, sang by Frank Sinatra in the film of the same name and later taken up by Paul Robeson and various other singers: "The little bridge at Concord, where Freedom’s fight began, / Our Gettysburg and Midway, and the story of Bataan".