The Good War

The U.S. master narrative situates America as a nation of benevolence and humanitarianism, a nation “under god” that fought a “Good War” (Linenthal 61). To explore this phenomenon, this exhibition and its contents will examine a space of contention that begins at the tip of the Bataan Peninsula in Zambales and ends at Capas in Tarlac, an area in the southwest quadrant of the main island of Luzon in the Philippines, the area that delimits the Bataan Death March of 1942.

Left: Bataan; Right: Tarlac

Capas, Tarlac

Tarlac province hosts the Capas National Shrine at the the site of the former Camp O’Donnell internment camp. Currently, the Philippine Government built a memorial to commemorate those who fought and died at Bataan.

Left: Map of the Death March; Right: Map of the Bataan Peninsula

The contradictory story of defeat is reversed through the unique relationship the Philippines had with MacArthur. Through the utterance of “I shall return” a sense of hope was renewed and the narrative of the “Good War” allowed to resume. MacArthur, “was their compadre – and both he and they knew it.  Their liberation was to become his primary goal, his obsession, his atonement for having forsaken them” (Karnow 299). Bataan , in reality, is a story of defeat, abandonment, and atonement. However, in the American textbooks and war memorials, the abandonment is obfuscated and subsumed into a narrative of rescue instead. What informs history textbooks and war memorials?

Left, Right, and Center Above: MacArthur Statue in Corregidor;
Above Left and Right: The General Douglas Macarthur Landing Memorial

It is crucial to consider non-textbook histories because they inform textbooks and memorials. The U.S.understanding about the Japanese actions in Bataan were informed by the report of Captain William E. Dyess (Falk 164). The Dyess narrative moved Secretary of State Hull to warn the Japanese that reprisals awaited those who perpetuated such atrocities (Dyess 20).

Left and Right: Tributes to Captain William E. Dyess in Texas

Thus Dyess writes,

When I thought I could stand the penetrating heat no longer, I was determined to have a sip of the tepid water in my canteen. I had no more than unscrewed the top when the aluminum flask was snatched from my hands. The Jap who had crept up behind me poured the water into a horse nose bag, and then threw down the canteen. He walked on among the prisoners, taking away their water and pouring it into the bag. When he had enough he gave it to his horse…
A squat Jap officer grinned at him and picked up a can of salmon. Then smashed it against the colonel’s head, opening the American’s cheek from eye to jawbone. The officer staggered and turned back toward us, wiping the blood off…
We knew now the Japs would respect neither age nor rank. Their ferocity grew as we marched on into the afternoon. They no longer were content with mauling stragglers or pricking them with bayonet points. The thrusts were intended to kill (Dyess 76-77). [continued]

Left: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States.

Thus Dyess writes [continued],

In September 1943, The Chicago Tribune obtained permission from a concerned War Department to publish Dyess’s story (Dyess 11). Officials at the War Department were reluctant to tell the story on the premise that revelations of the goings on, details of the Death March, and modes of escape could jeopardize the lives of combatants still at Camp O’Donnell and other sites. The Tribune and associated newspapers broke the story five weeks after Col. Dyess crashed on mission. The Tribune subsequently sold the book rights to G. P. Putnam for eventual publication with the royalties to assist the Dyess family (Dyess 18-19). Moreover, the Dyess book stirred the nation more deeply than any event since Pearl Harbor (Charles Leavelle in Dyess 18-19). The Dyess report requires a more nuanced treatment, on the one hand, it provided a counter narrative to the “Good War”; on the other hand, the story mobilized Secretary of State Hull, Secretary of War Stimson, and President Roosevelt providing for the vilification of the Japanese.

Right: Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson

By taking the Dyess report of the Bataan Death March as representative, the U.S. Government and public may have been misinformed.   In fact, the Dyess story may not have been representative of the whole Death March (Falk 164).Falk suggests that some of the responsibility lies with the U.S. , since the Americans allowed both their own soldiers and the Filipino troops to physically deteriorate like they did.  Had supplies and reinforcements arrived, perhaps the soldiers would not have been in the dire physical condition they were in and more could have survived (Falk 165). Thus, the recollection of the Bataan Death March is further complicated by the possibility that it could have been prevented. What really happened in Bataan and Corregidor? Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese military continued on to the Philippine Islands.

Left and Right: Images of the Bataan Death March

The campaign in the Philippines was a strategic disaster for the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), a combined force of Filipino and American soldiers. The USAFFE combatants, led by General MacArthur and General Wainwright, engaged the Japanese for four months with limited provisions, dwindling ammunition, and no possibility of victory. With no available alternative, the American and Filipino forces were forced to surrender. The Japanese army, led by General Homma, began to round up prisoners and marched them to their final destination at Camp O’Donnell. T. Fujitani argues, “some 90 percent of the Allied forces that took their last stand against the Japanese on the Bataan peninsula were Filipinos and of the 7,000 to 10,000 men who died in the Bataan death march, only about 600 were not” (241). How these facts and details are remembered, forgotten, and mobilized in textbooks and memorials is a function of nationalist narrative reification.

Left: General Masaharu Homma