VIATimes readers in the Chicago area, especially the western suburbs, will recognize the name of Maywood , a residential area on Chicago ’s West Side . Folks in Maywood will likely see the connection between their neighborhood and the Bataan Peninsula across Manila Bay from the capital of the Republic of the Philippines
That connection is a tragic-heroic story of the Battle of Bataan that ended on April 9, 1942 with the surrender of approximately 70,000 USAFFE (United States Armed Forces Far East) soldiers to the Japanese. Of the surrendered troops, approximately 58,000 were Filipinos and 12,000 Americans. One of the American units was Company “B” of the 192nd Tank Battalion. Company B included 89 young men from Maywood
This past September 9, 2012, marked the 70th “Maywood Bataan Day,” five months to the day after the 70th anniversary of the USAFEE surrender on Bataan . The community has marked each anniversary, keeping alive the memory of the sacrifices made by the 89 young men and their families. The Maywood Bataan Day Organization sponsors the annual memorial and maintains an excellent web site (mbdo.org).
The MBDO website’s history section relates the details of the courageous four-month battle against the Japanese, underscoring the hardships shared by the American and Filipino troops. It highlights the role of the 192nd Tank Battalion as the rear guard holding back the Japanese advance as USAFFE forces evacuated Manila and took their defensive positions on the near-by Bataan Peninsula
The website history has a copy of the front page of the Chicago Daily Tribune with the headline that the Japanese “Hold Maywood Troops.” The history then poignantly describes how the families, mainly the moms, worked diligently and persistently to get word of—and to—their sons. They called themselves the ABC (American Bataan Clan). These women worked with the Red Cross to get a few lines from their POW sons. They succeeded. At least some had survived.
Hope grew as the Americans began to turn the tide of war in the Pacific. On the original Maywood Bataan Day, in September, 1942, the community, joined by many Chicagoans, held a parade with soldiers and marching bands and dignitaries. An estimated 100,000 people watched and cheered. The moms also kept after their elected officials to see what they could through government and military channels.
The history website describes in some detail the Bataan Death March, the cruel forced march marked by atrocities committed against the POWs by the Japanese soldiers. Historians now calculate that between 600 and 650 Americans and five to ten thousand Filipinos died during those seven days. Filipinos refer to these days as “The Long March.” The MBDO website estimates that ultimately between six and seven thousand of the 12,000 Americans died during the march or later in the camps.
Something the website history does not mention is that news of the Death March was censored at the time by the U.S, which had decided on a “Europe-First” policy in World War II. The government feared that if word of the Japanese atrocities got out the American peoples’ outcry could complicate that policy. Not until late in 1943 did the details of the Death March become widely known through escaped American prisoners.
The Maywood ABC would not have known about the Death March until 1943, but I suspect that their tireless efforts for their sons paid off. Maywood ’s losses were tragic, but 43 men of the original 89 members of Company B returned from the war, a high survival rate for those who fought on Bataan and then suffered in the camps.
Next month we remember our veterans on November 11. Normally this month’s column would have focused on Northeastern Wisconsin veterans, but a good friend who recently read my chapter on “Bataan” in Sundays in Manila told me the story of how, as a teenager, she watched from in front of her house in Maywood
Bob Boyer welcomes your comments at robert.boyer@snc.edu.
No comments:
Post a Comment