The Great Raid Notes
• In 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The U.S. fleet was crippled.
• Ten hours later, across the pacific they attacked the Philippines, clearing the way for an overwhelming invasion of the islands.
• U.S. forces, including 10,000 Americans and 60,000 Filipinos pulled back to the Bataan Peninsula. Without a navy to rescue them and with their backs to the sea they were trapped.
• President Roosevelt and his military high command decided to focus first on Europe, and on stopping Hitler. This strategy effectively sealed the fate of the Philippines and the men trapped on Bataan.
• Under orders and against his wishes General MacArthur escaped to Australia, vowing to return.
• After 4 months of fighting without supplies, starving American and Filipino troops surrender to the Japanese Imperial Army.
• It is the largest single defeat in the history of the American military.
• Unequipped to house or feed 70,000 prisoners of war, the Japanese took the weakened soldiers on a brutal 60-mile forced march.
• Men who fell out of line were bayoneted or shot.
• 15,000 perished on what would become known as the Bataan Death March.
• The surviving POW’S were herded into various camps at O’Donnell, Cabanatuan and Palawan.
• The Japanese guards, who viewed surrender as a disgrace, treated them viciously.
• Thousand died from disease, starvation and abuse.
• By 1944, however, the tide of battle had changed. With each new victory, American forces advanced on Japan. And with each new defeat the Japanese army became more desperate Fueled by years of propaganda they believed that the Americans would show no mercy. The government encouraged these fears, convincing its people that they must prepare to defend their country to the death.
• On August 1, 1944 the Tokyo war ministry released a memo dictating the Japanese army’s policy toward prisoners of war. It said “It is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one… to annihilate them all, and…