Honoring the soldiers from World War II specially those who survived and fought for the pain, when Japanese army forced them to walked in a 128 km (80 mi) without any food or water to Balanga.
On the 70th anniversary of Bataan Death March in the Philippines, survivors shared their stories and their experienced witnessing other prisoners being tortured until they died. Many were beaten, bayonetted and mistreated. The first major atrocity occurred when between 350 and 400 Filipino officers and NCOs were summarily executed after they had surrendered.
Thousands of American and Filipino troops in the Bataan Death March had died. Prisoners were made to bury their comrades alive at the side of the roads. Many New Mexican were among those who suffered. In September 1945 Masaharu Homma was arrested by Allied troops, and indicted for war crimes. He was charged with 43 different counts of crimes against humanity. And he permitted his troops to commit “brutal atrocities and other high crimes.
Homma was sentenced to death on February 26, 1946 by firing squad and was executed on April 3, 1946 outside Manila. Also in Japan, Generals Hideki Tōjō (later Prime Minister), Kenji Doihara, Seishirō Itagaki, Heitarō Kimura, Iwane Matsui and Akira Mutō, and Baron Kōki Hirota were found guilty and responsible for the brutal maltreatment of American and Filipino POW’s, and were executed by hanging at Sugamo Prison in Ikebukuro on December 23, 1948. Several others were sentenced to imprisonment of between 7 and 22 years.
“When I was in the Bataan I didn’t think I’d live to see 21. Here, I’m 91 and all this attention is beginning to spoil me,” Sgt. David said one of the survivors…
