Bataan Death March - The Good News
As a Filipino, I felt something negative as I heard the term "Death March" because all I can remember is suffering and death. My mind depicts the hungry, thirsty, sick and tired soldiers who were killed instantly as soon as they retired from walking.
But as like my favorite stories, this nightmare somehow ended up into a nice ending.
Last night, the Bataan Death March was featured on the History Channel. Only then I knew for the first time that the soldiers who fortunately reached the end of the death march has been rescued after three years.
The remaining 500 POW who lucky enough to survived was successfully rescued by 90 American soldiers and 80 Filipino soldiers all brave to attack the camp who have 300 Japanese soldiers in it, not to mention the other 1,000 more soldiers across the bridge not far away.
To summarize it up, the American soldiers are the ones who attacked the Japanese camp and save the prisoners. The Filipino guerrillas are assigned as an ambush squad on the two sides of the road for any Japanese that may support the shootout on the camp. The Filipino soldiers bombed the bridge to avoid harsh advancement of the other Japanese camps.
The surprise Japanese was overwhelmed with the fire power of the Americans. One Americans even told that the Japanese guard on the main gate was cut in half as his upper body fell when the first fires was shot on the front gate. This is one of the sweetest testimony that I heard after the long years of grudges on my heart.
I am not sure if I was stupid not knowing the end of the story before, and I do not blame my teachers for not teaching it.
What I really care is that the tragedy came to a happy ending. That the American and Filipino prisoners who survived the "Bataan Death March" were rescued safely.
This is really something that I really want to blog about.
What a peaceful relief !
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