Bataan, Death March
Publié le 22/02/2012
Extrait du document
After the Fall of Bataan during the Japanese conquest
of the Philippines, approximately 2,000
defenders of Bataan managed to withdraw to Corregidor;
the rest, about 78,000 U.S. Army and Filipino
troops, were left behind and became prisoners
of the Japanese. The Japanese code of military conduct, founded on ancient warrior (Bushido) traditions,
regarded surrender as dishonorable and
therefore sanctioned, even encouraged, the abuse
of prisoners in flagrant and unapologetic violation
of the Geneva Conventions. The treatment of
the Bataan prisoners was an especially horrific
demonstration of this warrior code.
Japanese lieutenant general Homma Masaharu
decided to transport the Bataan prisoners to a captured
American camp, Camp O'Donnell, which
became a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Accordingly,
on April 9, 1942, the prisoners, who were in a
state of semistarvation, having endured a long siege
on half rations, were started out from Mariveles, on
the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula, and were
marched 55 miles to San Fernando, where they were
put on trains to Capas, then marched an additional
8 miles to Camp O'Donnell.
The jungle climate was extremely hot and
humid and the terrain difficult. Prisoners who faltered,
collapsed, or otherwise fell behind were executed,
typically by bayonet. Prisoners were
frequently beaten, apparently at random. They
were often denied food and water for days. During
"rest periods," prisoners were typically forced to sit
in the full sun without helmets or water. Sleep periods
were a few hours long, the prisoners jammed
into enclosures that allowed virtually no movement.
Those who survived to reach the railhead at
Capas were loaded into stifling boxcars.
The entire progress to Camp O'Donnell took
more than a week to complete. Some 54,000 men
reached the camp, 7,000 to 10,000 having died on
the way, the rest having escaped into the jungle.
Some of these men survived to fight alongside Filipino
guerrillas.
Homma, overall commander of Japanese invasion
forces in the Philippines, formally surrendered
himself to U.S. forces in Tokyo on September 14,
1945, and was tried in December for war crimes.
Subsequently remanded to the authority of a U.S.
military commission in Manila, Philippines, he was
tried there during January–February 1946 and
convicted of having authorized the Bataan Death
March and its attendant atrocities. He was executed
on April 3, 1946.
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