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World War II Remembered: The Fall of Bataan
By Jennifer King and Timothy Rollins
April 15, 2002

Dateline: 9 April 1942
The Fall of Bataan
Pacific Theater of Operations

During late March and early April 1942, the Japanese forces were solidifying their gains in the Pacific. The Japanese had occupied Rangoon, chief seaport and capital of Burma, in early March. They had also occupied the Andaman Islands, which lay approximately 250 miles from Rangoon and which would have provided the Allies with an excellent potential base for launching a counteroffensive in Burma, the Malay Peninsula or Sumatra. With the conquest of the Andamans, the southern flank of the westernmost Japanese advance was now protected.

Also, in late March, the forces which had survived the Battle of the Java Sea reconnoitered at Colombo and Trincomalee, the two main British naval and air bases in the Indian Ocean. The recombined British and Dutch fleet now consisted of five battleships, three aircraft carriers, eight cruisers, fifteen destroyers and five submarines; under the command of Admiral Sir James Somerville. Somerville, receiving word that the Japanese would launch an attack on Ceylon on 1 April, made several unsuccessful attempts to locate the Japanese fleet before finally spotting them on 4 April. The Japanese forces, using Vice Admiral C. Nagumo's Striking Force, nevertheless still hit Columbo on Easter Sunday, 8 April 1942, and inflicted heavy damage on both shore installations and RAF interceptor planes. The Japanese also sunk two heavy cruisers, with the loss of 425 officers and crew.

The next day, the Japanese attacked Trincomalee, again inflicting heavy losses on intercepting fighter aircraft. The Japanese also sunk H.M. carrier Hermes and her escort destroyer, Vampire, with the loss of 315 officers and crew. Admiral Somerville was forced to make a prudent retreat to the British bases in East Africa.

Thus, Admiral Nagumo, by early April of 1942, had established an impressive record in the Pacific. He had operated over 120 degrees of longitude, had attacked a wide variety of the enemies' resources and had sunk - in one week - 135,689 tons of merchant shipping around India. Nagumo had accomplished all this without losing one ship of his Striking Force. He was greeted as a conquering hero upon his return to Tokyo Bay. The Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere now seemed impregnable, the Japanese forces mighty and invincible.

Around the same time, the Japanese forces in the Philippines, under the command of Lt. General Masaharu Homma, were making a final push to break through the beleaguered American lines. The tattered American and Filipino troops, beset with malaria and a wide variety of tropical diseases, were now subsisting on rations of less than 1,000 calories per day. The Army had been reduced to slaughtering the horses and mules of the Filipino Army's 26th Cavalry - the animals, augmented by iguana and the occasional monkey, provided the only meat available. Water was likewise scarce, and polluted, adding dysentery to the list of ailments plaguing the troops. On 3 April 1942, General Homma, having been reinforced by General Yamashita's veterans of the Malay and Singapore campaigns, made the final break through the fragmented American lines.

General Jonathan M. Wainwright, taking command of Corregidor, had left Major General Edward P. King in command on Bataan. King, the grandson of a Confederate officer, had a long and distinguished Army career, including a Distinguished Service Medal earned during the First War. He was now faced with an unenviable task. General King knew, firsthand, of the deplorable physical condition of the troops. He was also aware of the appalling condition of their equipment. Their ammunition was old and corroded - the Filipino troops were still equipped with WWI British Enfield rifles - and the AA shells and the 155mm shells often had bad fuses. The troops were outfitted in canvas helmets and shoes which were completely inadequate for the rugged jungle terrain and surprisingly cool nights. Against orders from McArthur and Wainwright, King made the decision to surrender. It would be the largest surrender of American troops since Appomattox some 77 years previous - ironically, on the exact same day.

On 9 April 1942, General King met in a farmhouse near Lamao, with Colonel Motoo Nakayama, General Homma's senior operations officer. King, whose entourage had been beset by attacking Japanese planes on the way over, was also at a disadvantage due to General Homma's view that he was simply an emissary of General Wainwright's. Nevertheless, General King obtained an agreement for the cessation of hostilities. King also attempted to gain assurance that his men would receive fair treatment in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Nakayama's response was, "The Imperial Japanese Army are not barbarians."

The events of the next two weeks would prove otherwise. ***