[thechat] Bataan

[Janet Green]

>>>That task force was formed when Army Intel reported that the Japanese were going to
execute all of their remaining captives...<<<

According to Sides's book, this had already started happening in other camps in particularly horrific ways. There was a segment of men, too, I think from Bataan, who did not go on the Death March (or maybe they WERE at the POW camp and were later taken out, I can't recall the details here) but who instead were put on some sort of Japanese  ship, and the ship was attacked by the Allies. I think the larger story in my mind is just the whole fate of the men in the Phillipines - Allied leadership essentially abandonded them and cut them off, leaving unit leadership to decide whether to try to escape or surrender to the Japanese. "War stories" have not typically been much on my reading list, but my husband was reading this book at home and I picked it up - and could not put it down.