The Battle of Bataan ended on April 9, 1942, when Army Major General Edward P. King surrendered to Japanese General Masaharu Homma. About 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos became prisoners of war.
What followed became known as the Bataan Death March — one of the worst atrocities in modern history.
Starvation and Surrender at Bataan
During the battle, American and Filipino soldiers of General Douglas MacArthur’s United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) held out for four months against the Imperial Japanese Army, while every other island and nation in the Pacific and Southeast Asia fell. By March 1942, Japan controlled everything within the Western Pacific besides the Philippines.
