Bataan Perspectives: Who's Bataan Death March
Remembering and Forgetting the Bataan Death March in Textbooks
Miguel Llora

Summary

History textbooks are a primary vehicle for the transmission of dominant national narratives. Textbooks, however, contain an unstable set of social meanings that continuously change through political discourses. History textbooks are not the only shaper of a national narrative; war memorials that commemorate past heroic efforts are also mobilized in the production of a nationalist narrative. Memorials are important because of their appearance of permanence. The primary site of contestation for both the American and Filipino veterans is the old Camp O'Donnell site that is occupied by both the Camp O'Donnell Memorial and the Capas National Shrine. Both memorials at Camp O'Donnell are significant because they teach the public what is worth remembering about the Bataan Death March, yet they emphasize different perspectives. Finally, filmic representations matter because they enter our psyche unlike any other media. The portrayals of American staying power in films reminds viewers of righteousness, benevolence, and bravery. The marked absence of the Bataan Death March in Japanese and Filipino cinema is representative of a sense of victimhood and betrayal respectively.


Perspective: United States of America

The contents of American history textbooks are therefore driven not by pedagogical goals and/or needs but rather by the political agendas of State Boards of Education, and informed by the ideological framework of the political constituency that voted for them. Howard Zinn and James Loewen argue that, driven by political and/or nationalist agendas, high school history textbooks either omit relevant information and/or transmit false ones (Loewen 1-7, Zinn 683, and Masalski 260). According to former High School teacher Kathleen Masalski, critics like Loewen go too far when they argue that history teachers don’t know much history, and that high school teachers uncritically utilize provided texts (Masalski 260). In K-12 public schools in the United States, a local school board decides which textbooks to use from a selection of books that have been vetted by the individual state’s Department of Education. Masalski used her textbooks because, “they offered me, as they do other teachers, a convenient means of organizing a course. They promised me the security of knowing I was “covering the waterfront” (as Loewen put it), that my students would not be disadvantaged on state or nationwide tests” (Masalski 260). Therefore, entries in U.S. textbooks selected below reflect the sentiments, knowledge basis, and epistemology of the times in which they were articulated.


Historians become controversial when they do not perpetuate myth, when they do not transmit the received and conventional wisdom, when they challenge the comforting presence of a stabilized past. Members of a society, and its politicians in particular, prefer that historians be quietly irenic rather than polemical, conservators rather than innovators.

(Michael Kammen, President of the Organization of American Historians
and a member of the Smithsonian Council
during the Enola Gay controversy cited in Linenthal and Engelhardt 60)

The fight over the Enola Gay exhibition was “over the reassertion by most Americans that they’re sick and tired of being told by some cultural elite that they ought to be ashamed of their country.”

Newt Gingrich (in Linenthal and Engelhardt 187)

1946

In 1946, evidenced by the textbook entry below, immediately following the war, students were given no information concerning the hostilities and the anguish suffered by the combatants in the Philippines in general and at Bataanin particular.

The ensuing months were indeed a stiff measure of the staying power of the American nation. Instead of collapsing, as some optimists had freely predicted, Japancontinued to win impressive victories. A full-fledged invasion force was launched at the Philippine Islands (Canfield et al. 870).


In 1943, Atlantic Pictures released the film Corregidor,and Loew’s released the movie Bataan.Both the textbook entries and the filmic representations note “staying power” but are uncritical of how the exchange between MacArthur and Roosevelt lead to the desperation to begin with. On the one hand, Corregidor is an attempt by filmmakers to depict the goings on at MacArthur’s headquarters. Despite the lack of supplies and manpower, according to this narrative, the struggle selflessly continued. The filmmakers are vague in Corregidoras to why there were no supplies. Sacrifice in the film nonetheless situates the soldiers as heroic.
On the other hand, Bataan is a purely fictive rendition of a troop of soldiers who delay the Japanese advance by blowing up a bridge. Although nervous and clumsy at first, the crew heroically joins together in time to get the job done.
In 1945, RKO Radio Pictures released Back to Bataan, marking an effort by Hollywood to assist in establishing the “Good War” narrative . The release of the three movies and the textbook entry are an attempt to reverse the “expendability” narrative that came out of the Dyess report in 1942. In Back to Bataan, by playing up the post Leyte Gulf landing rescue missions to save soldiers from the Prisoner of War (POW) camp, Hollywood becomes the artistic arm of a society that needs closure and atonement.
This narrative will be revisited many times beyond 1945 with the heroic depictions of the rescue at Cabanatuan,[a prison camp close to Camp O’Donnell. The portrayals of American resilience in films like Corregidor, Bataan, and Back to Bataanas well as textbook entries celebrate the “stiff measure of the staying power of the American nation” and reify notions of innocence, righteousness, benevolence, and bravery. In these immediate postwar narratives, Filipino involvement in Bataan and Corregidoris relegated to the sidelines. T. Fujitani argues, “In 1946 Congress refused to fulfill FDR’s promise to the 100,000 Filipino soldiers who had fought with U.S.troops that they would be allowed U.S.citizenship and veteran’s benefits” (241). Denial of Filipino participation haunted the U.S.throughout the decades beyond 1946. Filipino participation in textbooks, memorials, or any other venue, takes away from the full extent of American benevolence and sacrifice.

1957

The 1957 history textbook entry below, we see neither the inclusion of numbers nor the mention of mixed Filipino and American contingent. As of 1957, no rationale as to why MacArthur had to abandon Corregidorand that the combatants were starving and ill-supplied. Even though the text specifically points out the Bataan Death March, it presents little detail as to what transpired in the camps and what happened to the POWs on the way to Camp O’Donnell and after.

Guam and Wake Islandwere quickly conquered in spite of the heroic resistance of American troops there. The Japanese landed in the Philippines and captured Manila, the capital, in less than a month. The American commander, General Douglas MacArthur, retreated to Bataan Peninsula . There he set up headquarters in the fortress of Corregidor on Manila Bay . For more than three months American troops held out against Japanese attacks. Food ran short, and the number of sick and wounded grew. At last the men of Bataanhad to surrender and start a “death march” to Japanese prisons (Moon and Cline 49).

One other factor to consider in historically situating the 1957 textbook entry was the poor survival rate of Bataan veterans and the other American defenders of the Philippines. After the war, the survivors of the Philippine theater were dwarfed by the larger numbers of survivors from all the other campaigns of WWII. The juxtaposition of the Bataan veterans and Philippines (survivors with cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and low numbers) against  the veterans of the Normandy or Iwo Jima invasion, who were, not only greater in number, but much better adjusted to life after war highlights issues of defeat, abandonment. Both defeat and abandonment undermine the narrative of the “Good War.”


1974

1974 marks a fundamental shift in history textbook descriptions of the Bataan Death March with the inclusion of the inspiring quality of the sacrifice. In contrast to previous ones, this text, attempts to inform students that the combatants were heroic and a source of encouragement to the country.

The only source of inspiration in the gloomy winter of 1941/42 came from Bataan and Corregidorin the Philippine Islands. There, outnumbered American and Filipino defenders held off the Japanese for five months. The death tolls at Bataan and Corregidorwere staggering. A great number of the troops were Mexican Americans who had been stationed in the Philippinesbecause, like many Filipinos, they spoke Spanish. Although the troops were captured, their fighting spirit inspired Americans at home (Current, DeConde, and Dante 552).

The narrative begins with the American and Filipino troops being outnumbered. In reality, troop strength was virtually equal – the U.S.army was out-gunned and out-supplied but not out-manned. If indeed a sizeable contingent of 11,800 Mexican Americans in the 78,000-strong Philippine Army is true, as claimed by Takemae, Ricketts, and Swann (9), then this textbook adds complexity through the introduction of a new component – the narrative of Mexican Americans. Highlighting the “Mexican American” involvement nonetheless still situates the greater sacrifice by the U.S.once again at the front (this time involving the Mexican Americans) and results in the relegation of the Filipinos to the rear helping to solidify the primacy of American involvement and sacrifice.


1992

In 1992, the emphasis starts to change with the introduction of numbers. The glossary entry below introduced a consolidated figure that speaks to a mixed component of Filipino and American troops.

Forced march of 78,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war after defeat by Japanese on island of Bataan in April 1942; prisoners were forced to march 65 miles with little food or water; two-thirds of the Americans died during or shortly after the march (Wood 1047).

Contestation over the Smithsonian treatment of Enola Gay exhibit in early 1990s radically shifts the discourse with an emphasis on the reminder of suffering at the hands of the Japanese.


1995

The 1995 textbook entry below makes a radical shift again with inclusion of a different number not previously provided – 60,000 Americans and Filipinos as opposed to 78,000 in 1992. Although brief, this selection gives significantly more detail into what happened to both the Filipinos and Americans in and around the Bataan and Corregidor area.

Mistreatment of Prisoners: During the war, stories trickled out about the mistreatment of prisoners. Afterwards, Americans learned horrifying details about brutal events such as the Bataan Death March. After the Japanese captured the Philippines in 1942, they forced about 60,000 American and Filipino prisoners to march 100 miles (160 km) with little food or water. About 10,000 people died or were killed (Davidson and Stoff 760).

This 1995 entry above is similar to the 1942, textbook entry with reference to impressions formed in the U.S.through the Dyess Report that spoke to issues of brutality and massacre. Articulated during the height of Japanese economic dominance and just prior to the “Asian Meltdown” of 1996, this entry reads as though it was taken out of Captain William E. Dyess’s reportage in the Chicago Tribune in 1943. By drawing a parallel between 1943 and 1996, despite the novelty of the nature of the aggression – in 1943 it was a military engagement while in 1996 it is the threat of economic imperialism, the notion of Americaunder siege by the Japan is re-articulated.


The Good War

The Bataan Death March in textbooks, despite the shame of abandonment and loss and subsequent rescue re-articulates American righteousness and Japanese aggression. The narrative of the “Good War” paints the U.S.as an “innocent” nation fighting a “righteous” war (Linethal 61). First, textbooks entries made no reference to President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Stimson’s decision to redirect supplies and manpower to Europe, leaving the soldiers in Bataan and Corregidorill-equipped and starving. Second, entries that emphasize American suffering are problematic because the suffering is exaggerated and meant to be representative of the whole march when in fact it was not. Third, if any descriptions of suffering are given, they are portrayed as heroic and justified, presented a sign of “staying power” on the side of righteousness. Last, from entry to entry, the numbers change – with an emphasis of U.S. sacrifice and bravery (in reference to benevolence) often at the expense of accurately depicting Filipino participation in Bataan – all in an effort to maintain the notion that the Americans fought the “Good War” in textbooks and memorials.


Perspective: Japan

Evidenced by recent Japanese government "suggested" or "approved" alterations to the textbooks is the currently vogue practice by a string of Japanese governments to assuage Korean and Chinese concerns over what happened in World War II. However, the powerful common sense understanding is that the war was fought mainly between Japan and the U.S. The entry below alludes to an occupation of exploitation and ill treatment of other Asians but there is no mention of any particular event and conspicuous by its absence is any entry relating to the Bataan Death March.


Although I was opposed to the war, I did nothing to resist, so it can be said that my battle is one of resistance that came later.

(Ienaga Saburo)

Source: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0406952/bio
State of History Education in Japan Today: Fujioka Nobukatsu

The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform was established two years ago, by those of us who became deeply concerned by the very serious state of history education in Japan. Half-a-century has passed since the end of World War II, but this is the first time in over fifty years that we Japanese have begun to look at our own history with our own eyes, and make our own judgements. Our view of modern Japan's history, our perception of it, has been an amalgam of histories as understood and judged by the victors of the last war, namely the USA and the former USSR. This view was forced upon Japan after Japan's surrender, and was inevitable to some degree. The Japanese, on the one hand, submitted to the victors' view of history, while on the other hand chose not to think about it and rather pursue better living standards and a path to prosperity. Today, Japan has a well-developed economy and is in a position to make great contributions to world peace and prosperity, if she so chooses. However, I believe that our conventional historical self-perception is actually pulling us away from a sense of international responsibility and true integrity. I believe that if Japan is to share her wealth with other nations, then I would like to do it willingly, not grudgingly. Yet the past administrations of Japan seem to have a record of doing precisely this. The pattern seems to be, foreign government pressure, and giving in, and pressure, and giving in. That was how Japan cooperated in the Gulf War. Modern Japan seems to lack a strong self-image of what she is, what kind of country she wishes to become, what ideals she cherishes. These are all matters deeply related to the prevalent view of Japan's modern history, which I and my colleagues call the masochistic view.
Source: http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/education.html

Existing textbooks, the book assumes, bad-mouth Japan, promoting a history of "self-abuse" that, as Fujioka baldly states in the introduction, "originates in the interests of foreign nations." History education, Fujioka argues, must benefit the Japanese state and should make Japanese "proud" of their nation again"
(Gerow 74)

Primary School

In contrast to the U.S. system of distributed production, the kokutei seido (national textbook system) aligns textbook with a nationwide curriculum system. This centralized system has come under fire in recent history with the advent of the censorship cases brought forward by textbook author Ienaga Saburo. Despite concerns by neighboring countries such as the Philippines that ultra nationalists are hijacking the education process, in reality, the move to centralize the current system dates back to early Meiji. The historic Gakusei (Educational Ordinance) of August 1872 aligns the Japanese curriculum to notions of westernization, progress, and nationalism (Arata 103-104, Arata & Tokiomi 9-10, and Wray 25). 1903 marks a significant turning point Japan's educational history with the revision of the Elementary Education Law of 1900 (Wray 25). In 1945, Japan's Ministry of Education in conjunction with the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP) were ordered to revamp the national history textbook which included a moratorium on Kokutai no Hongi (The true meaning of the kokutai) (Nozaki and Inokuchi 98). The project was designed to re-write three texts: elementary, secondary, and normal schools (Nozaki and Inokuchi 99). In 1953, the Japanese Ministry of Education published a schoolbook by Ienaga, but suppressed what the reviewers said were "factual errors" and/or "opinions" vis-à-vis Japanese war crimes marking a conservative turn in education policy (Saburo 157, Nozaki and Inokuchi 102).

The Peoples of Asia during the War. The Japanese forces forced the people of the areas they occupied to work for the war and made off with the resources of those areas also. Such things heightened ill-feelings toward Japan in the areas concerned, and many of their peoples began to resist the Japanese forces. As the war dragged on and became fiercer, Japan began to suffer a shortage of labor, and large numbers of Koreans, and even Chinese, were brought forcibly to Japan, where they were put to work under terrible conditions in factories and mines. The Koreans in particular were subjected to intolerable treatment; they were forced, for example, to change their own names to Japanese-sounding ones (International "Primary" 95).


Junior High School

The Primary School text above evidences recent Japanese government "suggested" or "approved" alterations to the textbooks by a string of Japanese governments to assuage Korean and Chinese concerns over what happened in World War II. Moreover, the powerful common sense understanding between the U.S. and Japan is that the war was fought mainly between two superpowers. The entry below alludes to an occupation of exploitation and ill treatment of other Asians but there is no mention of any particular event and conspicuous by its absence is any entry relating to the Bataan Death March. This sense of forgetfulness is further evidenced by the entries below found in Japanese Junior High School and High School textbooks:

Southeast Asia becomes a battlefield. The Japanese army in a short period of time occupied Singapore, Burma (now Myanmar), Indonesia, and the Philippines. The people in the occupied territories were forced to cooperate with the Japanese army and had resources and food taken from them. They were controlled oppressively, and anyone who opposed occupation policies was severely punished (International "Junior High" 259).

High School

Japan proclaimed that by this war it would liberate Asia from aggression and extortion by the West, make each nation independent, and build a "Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere." In fact, however, its greatest aim was to obtain materials necessary for the prosecution of the war, and in the occupied territories it engaged in repression and pillaging under military rule and in line with its policy of "conversion to subjects of the emperor," - i.e. Nipponicization - which involved, for example, the compulsory use of the Japanese language. The same policy of Nipponicization and of mobilization for war work was carried out in Korea and Taiwan also. The rigors of Japanese rule provoked anti-Japanese movements in the occupied territories, and the Japanese army had its hands full maintaining law and order. In 1943, Japan held a Greater East Asia Conference in Tokyo for which it gathered delegates from the occupied areas and which issued a declaration calling for solidarity, but it was remote from the realities of occupation (International "High School vol.1" 403).

By re-examining the Japanese narratives, we find narratives are markedly different from the American narrative. Sociologist Vicente Rafael agues that, the Philippines through its elites did initially see the Japanese fighting for the freedom of their version of the "Little Brown Brothers" from Western aggression in Asia (105). As will be evidenced by the Filipino text book entries, much of the liberator narrative quickly disappeared. Moreover, the issue of omission is more pronounced in the entries above than it is in comparison to the oversights in America textbooks. Keeping the liberator narrative intact explains why the Japanese choose to forget the Death March. Conversely, constant reminders by the Japanese of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are an aide memoire of American aggression and a reification of Japanese victimhood.


Perspective: Philippines

Writing history in the Philippines is marked by historian's personal legacy and a sense celebrity. The dynasties began with Teodoro Agoncillo (Right) and culminated with the recent submissions by Sonia Zaide. Agoncillo's hold on the production of history books in the Philippines which lasted for decades. As evidenced by the selection below, collaborative work with several writers situated Agoncillo's hegemony until the combination of Gregorio Zaide (Left) and his daughter Sonia effected a changing of the guard. Agoncillo, in a 1984 interview was self reflective of the constructed nature of history, "History is rewritten by every generation. Every generation writes its own history using the same sources. The interpretations vary according to time" (Ocampo 41).


1958

The 1958 selection below that begins our survey by identifying all the generals who surrendered giving us details that include approximately 40,000 being led to Camp O'Donnell with only 10,000 surviving.

The formal and official surrender of Bataan to General Homma was made by General Edward R. King, the commander of the USAFFE troops there. With King also surrendered Major-General Albert Jones, Major-General Guillermo B. Francisco, Brigadier-General Mateo Capinpin, and about 40,000 other USAFFE officers and men. The prisoners were soon ordered to make the tragic "Death March" to Capas Internment Camp in Tarlac, where about three-fourths of them died of starvation, sickness, and other causes (Alip, Philippine History 417).

1960

In 1960, Agoncillo and Alfonso provide us with a very different picture then the one provided just two years earlier. On the one hand, we start to see an increase in the numbers. In this account, Agoncillo identifies 78,000 as opposed to Apil's 40,000. In this rendition, the metaphor includes imagery of an animal nature breathing new life into the discourse. Commissioned in June of 1960 as the University of the Philippines was moving to implement their plans for a more "liberal education" (Ocampo 78), this volume currently stands as the de facto standard history book for both high school and college use.

Under the circumstances, the Bataan defenders had not other alternative than to surrender. On April 9, General Edward P. King commander of the forces in Bataan, surrendered. Some 78,000 of General King's forces were included in the surrender negotiations. Around 2,000 escaped to Corregidor and to the surrounding provinces. Wainwright, as USAFFE commander-in-chief, was in Corregidor, King's surrender of Bataan, therefore, was an individual surrender, and not the surrender of the entire USAFFE force. Thus ended the Battle of Bataan which resounded throughout the world. The surrendered Filipino-American troops were forced at gunpoint to march form Bataan to San Fernando, Pampanga, under the hot tropical sun. Those who could not march because of physical weakness were shot down or bayoneted. So inhuman was the forced march that the event has been called the "Death March." In Capas, the prisoners were huddled together like animals, hungry and sick (Agoncillo and Alfonso 455).


1977

The 1977 selection above carries over the narrative filled with imagery that is less than human and description that lends itself to a less than purely factual account. While Agoncillo and Alfonso use the collective "prisoners," Gagelonia chooses to divide the prisoners into Filipinos and Americans. In the end, according to Gagelonia, both were "herded" and made to suffer "inhuman torture."

At the time of the surrender, General Wainwright was in Corregidor, not in Bataan. The surrender was therefore interpreted as the surrender only of the Filipino and American soldiers under General King. The surrendered troops were made to march under the blinding heat of the sun from Bataan to San Fernando, Pampanga. This long march, now historically referred to as the Death March, ended in Capas Tarlac. There the hungry, weak, and dying Filipinos and Americans were herded together and made to suffer inhuman tortures (Gagelonia 243).


1983

In this extensive 1983 Gregorio Zaide version above, the numbers and roles are written differently. In his version the numbers are important once again with close to 76,000 prisoners and a civilian population that was willing to risk their lives not just to feed the prisoners but to aide in their escape as well.

The Death March. More than 76,000 USAFFE forces, including 66,000 Filipinos, laid down their arms in Bataan, This mass surrender, according to John Toland, American Author, "was the greatest capitulation in U.S. military history." Aside from these war prisoners, there were 26,000 civilian refugees (men, women, and children) who were trapped behind the USAFFE lines in Bataan. The infamous death march began in Mariveles and Cabcaben on April 10, 1942. The prisoners, weakened by hunger, thirst, sickness, and fatigue, painfully trudged at the points of Japanese bayonets along the road to San Fernando, passing through Limay, Balanga, Orani, and Lubao. Many perished on the way due to the Japanese who gave no food, water, or medicine to the war prisoners, in violation of the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention and brutally killed those who could no longer walk. Many more would have died were it not for the fact that Filipino town folks, who witnessed the suffering of the vanquished defenders of Bataan, surreptitiously furnished food, water, and fruits to the starving marchers and, at the risk of their lives, pulled hundreds of prisoners when the enemy guards were not looking and aided them to escape.In San Fernando the weary and hungry marchers were herded like cattle into the boxcars and were transported by railway to Capas. Before reaching their destination, hundreds of prisoners died due to suffocation. From Capas' railroad station, the war prisoners again marched on foot to their prison camp at Camp O'Donnell. Only some 56,000 reached the camp alive on April 15, 1942.This prisoners' camp was a greater hell than the Battle of Bataan. According to the records of the War Crimes Commission, which tried the surviving Japanese military officers who were responsible for the atrocities committed in the Philippines, 22, 155 Filipinos and 2,000 Americans died in Camp O'Donnell (Zaide and Pritchard 1983).


1999

The narrative of the good colonial is reified or made real and the connection to the "Good War" is strengthened (some would argue that in this case the Filipino narrative is subsumed into the U.S. narrative) and the process of the subaltern is reinforced. As evidenced by the textbook quote below from Sonia Zaide, the Filipinos reverse the entries with Filipino casualties first but ensure that the American body count is included.

The Death March. One of the cruelest atrocities by the Japanese during the Second World War was the infamous Bataan Death March in April 1942. Some 62,000 Filipino soldiers and 11,000 American troops were forced to march from 7 to 11 days without food, water or medicine. They marched 120 kilometers from Mariveles, Bataan to Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac. Many were beaten or bayoneted by the Japanese. No wonder that 17,000 Fil-Am troops died in this death march - 16,000 Filipinos and 1,200 Americans (Zaide 155-6).

The death toll vis-a-vis Americans and Filipinos dead changes. In terms of the numbers previously dealt with, the Filipino casualties outnumber the Americans by only narrow margin. As per Zaide's account the numbers have expanded to a ratio of more 10 to 1. What then do the 'numbers' mean? As previously mentioned, the death toll was Americans at 2,330 (Toland 329) and 7,670 Filipinos dead. In terms of the numbers previously dealt with, the Filipino casualties outnumber the Americans by only 3 to 1. As per Zaide's 1999 account the numbers have expanded to a ratio of more 10 to 1. It becomes less important to figure out how many exactly but when and for what reason a certain death toll figure is remembered, commemorated, or memorialized.


There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.

Michel Foucault


[1] The Cabanatuan rescue was revisited with some historical grounding in Hampton Sides’ 2001 Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission, the resultant 2003 PBS documentary American Experience: Bataan Rescue: Death March and Rescue, and the 2005 John Dahl film The Great Raid.