Bataan Death March Survivors Honored
Front (L-R) Death March survivors David U. Tejada, age 89, George E. Cawley, age 93 and Ramon B. Regalado, age 95 with back (L-R) Walter Ruehlig, Trustee, Antioch Unified School District, and Cynthia Ruehlig, Trustee, Contra Costa County Board of Education.
IN HONOR OF HEROES
The three month battle on the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines was the last bastion of resistance in the Pacific during WWII against the Imperial Japanese Army.
Cloaked in darkness, General Douglas MacArthur, his family and several USAFFE officers escaped in four PT boats from Corrigidor, Bataan for Australia where the General promised to the Filipinos, “I Shall Return”.
On April 9, 1942, 76,000 Filipino and American soldiers surrendered and were forced to walk 80 miles to a prison camp in Capas, Tarlac. An estimated 10,000 prisoners of war died from lack of food and water and from torture in the hands of their captors in what is now known as the “Bataan Death March”.
The Filipino-American Association of Pittsburg celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Fall of Bataan honoring the heroes who fought so bravely for our freedom.
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Bataan Death March survivors
