THE DAY OF VALOR

 

               Major General King of the United States Army was compelled to surrender his forces of nearly 76,000 Filipino, Chinese, and American men to the Japanese at dawn on April 9th, 1942. The Japanese, unprepared for the large number of detainees, opted to walk them 150 kilometers to a prison camp at San Fernando. On this march, about 20,000 POWs died from malnutrition, weariness, or at the hands of the Japanese. The journey was dubbed the 'Bataan Death March.'

               While the holiday commemorates a victory for the opposing forces, the heroic defense of Bataan by those soldiers was viewed as a pivotal event in the war because it gave the allies time to prepare for later battles that halted the Japanese advance in the Pacific, eventually leading to a change of fortunes and allied victory. On February 8th, 1945, American and Filipino forces reclaimed the Bataan peninsula.

 

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Valor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bataan