to make it to the next rest stop, the next town, even the next palm tree, that day seemed hopelessly distant. At midnight, after an exhausting, circuitous march, Grashio’s group was herded back into a rice paddy not far from Cabcaben Field. He col apsed onto the ground and fel asleep. If he was lucky, another day—and more survival lessons—would greet him in the morning.
• • •
Contrary to popular belief, the evacuation of Filipino and American prisoners of war from the Bataan Peninsula was not an atrocity of deliberate design. Based on poor intel igence, plagued with breakdowns in leadership and discipline, and launched in a chaotic environment made combustible by a broiling tropic sun, cultural clashes, and ethnic enmity, the operation was, quite simply, a catastrophic masakozi —the Japanese equivalent of an American snafu.
As a military plan, the Bataan Death March was conceived in 14th Army operations tents in March at the order of Gen. Masaharu Homma. On paper, the plan to evacuate the prisoners from Bataan to a prison camp in central Luzon appeared humane and logistical y sound. The majority of the prisoners would march up the East Road, but vehicles would convey sick and wounded incapable of making the roughly sixty-five-mile journey on foot. Food was to be distributed and medical aid stations would be set up along the route. At the town of San Fernando, the prisoners would board railcars for a twenty-four mile train ride to Capas, in Tarlac. Homma even requested that his men treat the POWs with a “friendly spirit,”
in loose accordance with the Geneva Convention articles that Japan never official y agreed to observe.
(Japanese delegates to the Geneva conference had signed the document standardizing the treatment of prisoners of war in 1929, but Tokyo never ratified the pact.) The directive was no surprise, considering that at the outbreak of hostilities, the emperor himself had decreed that enemy POWs were to be handled
“with utmost kindness and benevolence.”
Homma’s intentions were most likely sincere. The tal , powerful y built fifty-four-year-old officer was considered one of the most principled strategists in the Imperial Army. His foreign postings included duty as an observer with the British Expeditionary Force during World War I and later as a military attaché in London. The pro-Western officer had suppressed a pamphlet accusing America of exploiting the Philippines while head of the army’s propaganda corps in the 1930s.
Even as the ultranationalists swept to power, Homma never embraced their beliefs, reportedly even criticizing Japanese atrocities in China. Cal ed the “Poet General” because of his habit of composing verse to ease the tension of battle, Homma was a “bril iant, passionate, unpredictable, and slightly unstable” fantasist given to flights of whimsy, who, according to British historian Arthur Swinson, was straitjacketed by “the iron discipline of the Japanese army.” Homma’s weaknesses included egotism and acute affections for drink and women, but his tendency to become immersed in strategy and delegate details to subordinates was perhaps his greatest flaw.
That flaw, combined with one fatal miscalculation, a change in Homma’s chronology of conquest and subsequent breakdowns in communications and discipline, would doom the evacuation operation to complete, calamitous failure. Homma’s command had underestimated the number of prisoners it would become responsible for by nearly half. Though Tokyo’s Domei news agency announced the capture of 60,000 Fil-American troops, the actual number was closer to 70,000; Homma’s staff had expected and made provisions for only 40,000 prisoners. Compounding the problem, the 14th Army had these additional prisoners on its hands three weeks earlier than anticipated—Homma had not expected Bataan to fal until late April. Instead of modifying the plan, Homma characteristical y became engrossed with the details of the
• • •
Contrary to popular belief, the evacuation of Filipino and American prisoners of war from the Bataan Peninsula was not an atrocity of deliberate design. Based on poor intel igence, plagued with breakdowns in leadership and discipline, and launched in a chaotic environment made combustible by a broiling tropic sun, cultural clashes, and ethnic enmity, the operation was, quite simply, a catastrophic masakozi —the Japanese equivalent of an American snafu.
As a military plan, the Bataan Death March was conceived in 14th Army operations tents in March at the order of Gen. Masaharu Homma. On paper, the plan to evacuate the prisoners from Bataan to a prison camp in central Luzon appeared humane and logistical y sound. The majority of the prisoners would march up the East Road, but vehicles would convey sick and wounded incapable of making the roughly sixty-five-mile journey on foot. Food was to be distributed and medical aid stations would be set up along the route. At the town of San Fernando, the prisoners would board railcars for a twenty-four mile train ride to Capas, in Tarlac. Homma even requested that his men treat the POWs with a “friendly spirit,”
in loose accordance with the Geneva Convention articles that Japan never official y agreed to observe.
(Japanese delegates to the Geneva conference had signed the document standardizing the treatment of prisoners of war in 1929, but Tokyo never ratified the pact.) The directive was no surprise, considering that at the outbreak of hostilities, the emperor himself had decreed that enemy POWs were to be handled
“with utmost kindness and benevolence.”
Homma’s intentions were most likely sincere. The tal , powerful y built fifty-four-year-old officer was considered one of the most principled strategists in the Imperial Army. His foreign postings included duty as an observer with the British Expeditionary Force during World War I and later as a military attaché in London. The pro-Western officer had suppressed a pamphlet accusing America of exploiting the Philippines while head of the army’s propaganda corps in the 1930s.
Even as the ultranationalists swept to power, Homma never embraced their beliefs, reportedly even criticizing Japanese atrocities in China. Cal ed the “Poet General” because of his habit of composing verse to ease the tension of battle, Homma was a “bril iant, passionate, unpredictable, and slightly unstable” fantasist given to flights of whimsy, who, according to British historian Arthur Swinson, was straitjacketed by “the iron discipline of the Japanese army.” Homma’s weaknesses included egotism and acute affections for drink and women, but his tendency to become immersed in strategy and delegate details to subordinates was perhaps his greatest flaw.
That flaw, combined with one fatal miscalculation, a change in Homma’s chronology of conquest and subsequent breakdowns in communications and discipline, would doom the evacuation operation to complete, calamitous failure. Homma’s command had underestimated the number of prisoners it would become responsible for by nearly half. Though Tokyo’s Domei news agency announced the capture of 60,000 Fil-American troops, the actual number was closer to 70,000; Homma’s staff had expected and made provisions for only 40,000 prisoners. Compounding the problem, the 14th Army had these additional prisoners on its hands three weeks earlier than anticipated—Homma had not expected Bataan to fal until late April. Instead of modifying the plan, Homma characteristical y became engrossed with the details of the
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