Bataan Death March

A new book on the events in the Philippines at the start of WWII for the US has been published. The death march began on April 10, 1942 and involved an army of 76,000 mostly Filipinos who were made to walk 66 miles to a labor camp. Some 11,000 died along the way (how many died in the labor camps the article did not say). The commanding officer of the Bataan army was Major General Ned King who did survive the war. I had always thought that Lt. Gen Jonathan Wainwright was the commanding officer but he surrendered the forces on the island of Corregador one month after King did so. King surrendered on April 9, 1942 while Wainwrighs did so on May 6, 1942. JW also survived the war. (Check the dates here. Did Wainwright's force join the death march or was it a separate event? I guess not a major issue, but only Wainwright was awarded a congressional medal of honor at the end of the war). The authors of this book "...reserve their scorn for..." General Douglas MacArthur "...whom they accuse of not leading from the field and later abandoning his men there". (A learned colleague referred to him as "dugout Doug").

(Source: "Bataan Revisited" by Dwight Garner. A review of the book Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath by Micheal and Elizabeth Norman. In the Virginian Pilot on 9/6/09)