The first time Jeff literally retraced his father's Death March footsteps was in 1995, on the same historic route from Mariveles, Bataan to San Fernando, Pampanga, and then to Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac. Some 14,000 Filipinos and 650 Americans died in the stretch from Mariveles to San Fernando.   And at Camp O'Donnell, some 25,000 more Filipinos and about 1,500 Americans perished by July 1942.

"The first time I reached O'Donnell, I suddenly shuddered as I imagined the agony of my father there. I cried uncontrollably for about 20 minutes," Jeff recalls.

As the Fall of Bataan is commemorated today as Araw ng Kagitingan, Jeff starts anew his pilgrimage to relive the heroism of an episode of war.   Joining him are 82-year-old war veteran Dr. John Scott and their friends Bud Stanley and Joe Tallen.   "I don't know why my Dad never regaled me with stories about his Death March experience, but I knew I had to find out more about it when my sister sent me a clipping of a photo of my father and other American and Filipino soldiers being rounded up by the Japanese in Mariveles," Jeff said. The clipping sent by his sister was from the July 1993 issue of Life Magazine.

58 years ago today
Eight hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial forces launched an aerial attack on the Philippines.   Led by Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma, the forces later landed in Northern and Southern Philippines even as the American military was also besieged by German threats in Europe.   US forces led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur had to withdraw to the Bataan peninsula. On Jan. 2, 1942, the defense of Bataan was ready.   By March, Maj. Gen. Edward King, commanding general of the Filipino-American forces in Bataan, was worried of an impending assault by Homma.   On Jan, 29, 1946, King filed a post-war report saying that at the time of the Japanese assault in April 1942, the combat efficiency of the USAFFE forces defending the peninsula had been reduced by 75 percent.

"This was due to malnutrition, avitaminosis, malaria, and intestinal infections and infestations.   Those men on a duty status were incapable of any long sustained physical effort.   Malnutrition had made troops particularly vulnerable to disease," he reported.   He noted that "by March 1942, individuals had used up their reserve and they were deteriorating rapidly in the physical sense and by April 1, the combat efficiency was rapidly approaching zero point."   As fatigue took its toll on the defenders, King said "there was no quiet area in Bataan due to incessant enemy bombing and shelling."

On April 9, King surrendered his forces in Bataan, paving the way for the Death March.   The Death March War veteran retired Maj. Richard Gordon, one of some 1,200 Death March survivors who are still living, corrected in a recent paper some historical inaccuracies on the Death March.   He pointed out that some 15,000 Filipino and American soldiers who were holed up by the Japanese in Corregidor did not join the march, whose participants had already reached O'Donnell on April 24 or long before Corregidor fell on May 6.   "Those captured in Bataan on or about April 9, 1942 were in the general area of the town of Mariveles, at the southern tip of the Bataan peninsula. Large fields outside this town were used as a staging area for the thousands of captives, Americans and Filipinos, gathered together," Gordon said.

"Mass confusion reigned... in a brief period of time, buddies were separated and in many cases never to see each other again.   Two friends from the same unit entered one of these fields and did not know of each other's survival for over 40 years," he added.   Thus began the series of marches that history has lumped as the Death March, that wound up at O'Donnell from April 12 to 24, 1942.

Gordon recalled that at one time during the march, "volunteers were sought to carry a stretcher containing a colonel wounded in both legs and unable to walk.   Four men offered to help.   After hours of carrying the man in a scorching hot sun with no stops and no water, they asked for relief from other marchers.   No one offered to pick up the stretcher.   Soon the original four bearers put down the man and went off on their own.   The colonel was last seen by the side of the road begging to be carried by anyone."

Neither food nor water was given to the marchers from Mariveles to San Fernando, where they were hauled in 1918 model railroad boxcars.   Used in France during World War I, the boxcars measured eight feet wide and 40 feet long.   Some 100 POW's were squeezed into one boxcar, affording no space for movement, so that some who died along the way remained in vertical position upon reaching Capas, Tarlac.   It was another five-mile trek from Capas town center to O'Donnell concentration camp.

Opting for life
There were others who opted to escape early enough even as Bataan's defenders in Mariveles tried to hold out against the Japanese soldiers.   Dr. Scott, who belonged to the same squadron as Jeff's father, said he realized that to surrender was to die.   While the Japanese forces broke through the defense lines of Bataan, some 450 Filipino and American soldiers were tied together in bunches and were either bayoneted or decapitated on mountain slopes south of Mt. Samat, he recalled.

Scott said he and many others who had escaped went into hiding for months in Bataan and later in Floridablanca, Pampanga.   "I especially remember Teofilo Siazon who gave me shelter in his farm in Orani (Bataan)," Scott said.   Despite having a large family of 10 children, Siazon provided Scott and other escapees with their needs.

Another Samaritan Scott vividly remembers was a fisherman named Alejandrino Alarcon, who nursed him while he was recovering from bullet wounds sustained during his escape from Mariveles.   Scott later surrendered to the Japanese in Floridablanca in 1943, harboring no ill feelings against the enemy.

"I'd rather have a positive outlook," the octogenarian said, noting that most of those who did not survive the last war in Bataan were those who "pitied themselves" and those who were overwhelmed with vengeance.

Scott said that when he was stricken ill with malaria while being a POW, he fell asleep in a cot of a Japanese soldier.   The following morning, he found himself still safely tucked in the cot, with the so-called enemy sleeping on the floor.

Remembering the march
Joe Tallen, who is the major financier for Jeff's march, is anticipating to meet the hundreds of Bataan folk who had welcomed them in 1995.   He recalls that many of the older folk there had stories to share about their experiences during the Death March.   "I think that retracing the Death March should be a memorial activity, something similar to the memorial that the native American Indians hold in the US annually," he said, as he extolled the heroism of both those who died and those who survived.   Jeff says that he will repeat the commemorative march at least every five years.   "I'll even do it with my two children yearly if resources allow," he added.   "If we leave nothing behind us, when we leave this earth, let us at least leave behind the truth that was Bataan," said Gordon who is among the survivors expected to attend today's ceremonies commemorating Bataan's fall at the Mt. Samat Memorial Shrine.