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.
MacArthur planed to hold his ground on the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island in the Philippines until the Navy could bring reinforcements and supplies from the United States. Once the reinforcements arrived, he would attack north from Bataan, defeat the Japanese Army, and push onward to the Japanese islands and victory. But with the Navy decimated by attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, there were no ships capable of delivering reinforcements to Bataan.
