A double dose of hell: The Bataan Death March and what came next

[NorthernHawkeye]

https://www.cnn.com/travel/bataan-death-march-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html

 

[h-hawk]

Kind of a tangent but one I think many will find interesting. I had read that the father of The Smothers Brothers had died on one of the Maru's carrying American POWs from the Philippines back to Japan. But according to this, he survived the Bataan death march (may have gotten a break), an attack on the Maru he was on, and Japanese prison camps only to die later being transported in Korea.

https://pows.jiaponline.org/2024/01/?m=0

 

[franklinman]

One of my friends step father survived the Bataan death march. He came back home weighing 88 pounds and quickly became a life long , mean alcoholic. NEVER saw him without a long sleeve shirt..and he never spoke on the subject.

 

[Aardvark86]

Years ago I was working on a project in Ft. Worth, and the company would always send a car to pick me up at the airport. The car was driven by an older gentleman who had served in WWII. Basically, he had a football scholarship to usc around 1940, and was washing out academically, so the coach suggested he enlist in the marines for a year, get some discipline, and come back afterwards. So he enlists in 41, finishes basic, and gets put on a ship to the phillipines. By the time they landed, things had gone to hell, and when they disembarked, they were given the choice of either going with the surrender group, or the group that was going to try to fight south on a guerilla. The surrender group became Bataan. He chose south, ended up in Australia where some general took a shine to him, and spent the latter part of the war doing marine recon for the island hopping campaign.

Funnily enough, after the war, this grizzled marine vet had a nice career selling women's shoes. As funny as that is, it's not a bad job if you have the Dallas Nieman Marcus account.