Battle of Bataan

Battle of Bataan
Part of the Philippines campaign in World War II

Japanese tank column advancing in the Bataan Peninsula of Luzon
DateJanuary 7 – April 9, 1942
(3 months and 2 days)
Location
Bataan Peninsula near Manila Bay in Luzon Island, Philippines
Result

Japanese victory

Belligerents

 United States

 Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders

United States Douglas MacArthur
United States Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV
United States George M. Parker
United States Edward P. King
United States Albert M. Jones
United States William Brougher
United States Clifford Bluemel
United States Clyde A. Selleck
United States Clinton Pierce
United States Luther R. Stevens
Commonwealth of the Philippines Vicente Lim
Commonwealth of the Philippines Mateo Capinpin
Commonwealth of the Philippines Fidel Segundo

Commonwealth of the Philippines Guillermo B. Francisco
Empire of Japan Masaharu Homma
Empire of Japan Susumu Morioka
Empire of Japan Kineo Kitajima
Empire of Japan Kameichiro Nagano
Empire of Japan Yuichi Tsuchibashi
Empire of Japan Takeshi Hamasaki
Strength
120,000 U.S. and Filipino troops 75,000 Japanese troops
Casualties and losses
106,000
10,000 killed,
20,000 wounded,
76,000 captured[1]
8,406[2]22,250[3]
3,107 killed,
230 missing,
5,069 wounded

The Battle of Bataan (Tagalog: Labanan sa Bataan; January 7 – April 9, 1942) was fought by the United States and the Philippine Commonwealth against Imperial Japan during World War II. The battle represented the most intense phase of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II. In January 1942, forces of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy invaded Luzon along with several islands in the Philippine Archipelago after the bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.

The commander in chief of the U.S. and Filipino forces in the islands, General Douglas MacArthur, consolidated all of his Luzon-based units on the Bataan Peninsula to fight against the Japanese army. By this time, the Japanese controlled nearly all of Southeast Asia. The Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor were the only remaining Allied strongholds in the region.

Despite their lack of supplies, American and Filipino forces managed to fight the Japanese for three months, engaging them initially in a fighting retreat southward. As the combined American and Filipino forces made a last stand, the delay cost the Japanese valuable time and prevented immediate victory across the Pacific. The American surrender at Bataan to the Japanese, with 76,000 soldiers surrendering in the Philippines altogether,[1] was the largest in American and Filipino military histories and was the largest United States surrender since the American Civil War's Battle of Harpers Ferry.[4] Soon afterwards, U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced into the roughly 65 miles (105 km) Bataan Death March.[5]

  1. ^ a b "The Philippines (Bataan) (1942)". The War. WETA. 2005. Archived from the original on 2020-11-30. Retrieved 2017-08-24. The 76,000 prisoners of war of the battle for Bataan – some 64,000 Filipino soldiers and 12,000 U.S. soldiers – then were forced to endure what came to be known as the Bataan Death March as they were moved into captivity.
    Elizabeth M. Norman; Michael Norman (March 6, 2017). "Bataan Death March". Encyclopædia Britannica. Bataan Death March, march in the Philippines of some 66 miles (106 km) that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 U.S.) were forced by the Japanese military to endure in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II.
    Roy C. Mabasa (April 9, 2017). "U.S. salutes Filipino vets". Manila Bulletin. Archived from the original on February 24, 2019. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
    Eric Morris (2000). Corregidor: The American Alamo of World War II. Cooper Square Press. p. 405. ISBN 978-1-4616-6092-7.
    Oliver L. North (2012). War Stories II: Heroism in the Pacific. Regnery Publishing. p. 326. ISBN 978-1-59698-305-2.
  2. ^ Senshi Sōsho (戦史叢書) (in Japanese). Vol. 2. Asagumo Shimbunsha. 1966.
  3. ^ Irvin Alexander (2005). Surviving Bataan and Beyond: Colonel Irvin Alexander's Odyssey as a Japanese Prisoner of War. Stackpole Books. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-8117-3248-2.
    Yuma Totani (2015). Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945–1952. Cambridge University Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-107-08762-0.
  4. ^ Robertson, p. 606.
  5. ^ William L. O'Neill, A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II, p. 115 ISBN 0-02-923678-9

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