The Causes of the Bataan Death March Revisited

Source: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

By Jim Nelson

Source: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

The fall of the Philippines was the largest defeat of an American armed force in the history of the United States, and the Bataan Death March was the most brutal series of war crimes ever committed against surrendering American or Philippine soldiers.  The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), the Pacific War’s equivalent of the Nuremburg trials formally established the general extent and kind of atrocities committed by Japanese troops but did not fully determine all of the causes that contributed to the Death March. To some degree the IMTFE’s inability to find and understand all of the causal factors led to a situation in which some of the less culpable were executed and some of the most culpable escaped justice. 

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Source: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/