Still Goin' Strong:
Four survivors of the Bataan Death March (200th Field Artillery
Regiment) provided invaluable leads to the Marauders for their November
expedition. From left to right: Marauder Roger Leonard, followed by
survivors: Virgil Aimes, Leo Padilla, William Overmier, Ernest Montoya,
and Marauder founder Ken Moore (far right)
Objective:
Recon mission: search for leads pertaining to thousands
WWII MIA gravesites
scattered throughout the 160 kilometer Death March.
Leads and Contacts:
Enthusiastic Support of Philippine
Ambassador Yan, whom Claassens
will meet with in early November 2006.
Ken
Moore has met with Death March survivors from the 200th Field
Artillery Regiment in New Mexico and has the names of about
20 MIA's from their unit at this time.
Marauder team will interview locals who witnessed the event in order to
identify possible burial sites.
Photo of the iniquitous Bataan
Death March: April, 1942
* Claassens will be
accompanied amongst others, by fellow Marauders
Joseph Mendoza and Vangie Claassens
who will act as guides and translators.
Background:
The Bataan Death March
is the name given to the forcible transfer of prisoners of war, with
wide-ranging abuse and high fatalities, by Japanese forces in the
Philippines in 1942, after the three-month Battle of Bataan.
Approximately 10,000 of the 75,000 POWs died.
Few Americans know that
on the same day Pearl Harbor was bombed, Manila was also bombed
beginning World War II in the Philippines.
70,000 Filipino and US
soldiers, commanded by Major General Jonathan Wainwright, fought one of
history's most
Wives suffered too. Ken's
interviews with the wives of survivors was best summed up by
Marauder Roger Leonard's remark: "The
wives of the Death March survivors are the ones who fought the
longest and bravest. Many of these men would not
have survived more than a year after returning home had it not
been for their devoted wives."
gallant retreating
actions, backpedaling into the Bataan Peninsula, diverting the Japanese
invasion force, and allowing the American forces in Manila under General
MacArthur to consolidate and escape.
For three months, the
"Battling Bastards" of Bataan fought on doggedly without support,
logistics, food, or reinforcements. They finally surrendered to the
Japanese on April 9, 1942. The emaciated captives far outnumbered their
Japanese captors.
Starving captives were
forced to make a 24/7 week-long sixty-mile march in tropical heat to
primitive POW camps in Tarlac province. The prisoners were beaten
randomly and usually denied food and water. Those who fell behind were
tortured, shot, beheaded or bayonetted. Packed into boxcars to travel
from San Fernando to Capas, the number of prisoners was further
diminished by malaria, heat, dehydration and dysentery.
It is believed by Moores’
Marauders that most of the graves of the 10,000 Allied dead have never
been found – or even sought. We plan to be among the first to
systematically comb the Bataan peninsula with this goal in mind. We
wish to thank Joseph Mendoza, Chief of Counter-Intelligence for the
Philippine Army, for his passionate cooperation in enlisting Bataan
locals and Filipino Veterans to aid in this search mission.
About Moore's Marauders...
Moore's
Marauders is a non-profit organization that receives no government funding. We
rely solely on your contributions to help us locate the 35,000WWII MIAs the
U.S. government maintains are still recoverable.
For as
little as 30 cents a day, you can help us bring home the thousands who made the
ultimate sacrifice so that we could live in freedom.
Donate today.
Moore's
Marauders is a non-profit organization that receives no government funding. We
rely solely on your contributions to help us locate the 35,000
