Remembering the legacy of Bataan
Event draws crowd of 200 people in Santa Fe
Atilano “Al” David still recalls the horrific absurdity of it all as Japanese soldiers swarmed over the peninsula of Bataan 75 years ago.
“Imagine cavalry troops fighting tanks,” he said. “It was the most improbable thing you ever saw.”
Now 96, the Filipino survivor of the Battle of Bataan was one of five Bataan veterans who attended the New Mexico National Guard’s commemoration ceremony of the 75th anniversary of the fall of Bataan on Sunday. The event, held outside the Bataan Memorial Building on Don Gaspar Avenue, drew about 200 people, about half of whom were military personnel in uniform.
“It’s significant because we are deep in that period of time when we are losing the living legacy of Bataan’s history and the soldiers who fought … for freedom,” said Capt. Gabriel Peterman, who runs the New Mexico National Guard Museum, which includes an exhibition covering the Bataan campaign.
But even as time and age take their toll on the survivors, he said, their story will not be forgotten.
“What they did was so unique in
the annals of war that I think we’ll be talking about Bataan for a long time.”
The Battle of Bataan — the first major military campaign of the Asian theater in World War II following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor — took a huge personal toll on New Mexico. Of the 1,800-plus New Mexican soldiers who fought in the battle, only half returned home alive. And many of them, survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March and Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, came back physically, mentally and emotionally scarred.
From Dec. 8, 1941, to April 9, 1942, those 1,800 New Mexico soldiers fought alongside Filipinos to fight off Japanese invaders on the Bataan peninsula. On April 9, Bataan’s military commanders surrendered, though the soldiers wanted to fight on, despite a lack of weapons, food and medicine.
Most of the American and Filipino defenders were killed, captured or forced to march 65 miles through the jungle. Japanese soldiers used their bayonets and bullets along the way to kill the weak, wounded and defiant ones on what became known as the Bataan Death March.
Those who survived the march ended up with American soldiers captured on the nearby island of Corregidor in prisoner-of-war camps where violence, malnutrition and disease took their toll.
It is estimated that just a dozen survivors of the Bataan campaign are still living today in the nation.
Rosenaldo Lovato was one of the five who attended Sunday’s commemoration. The Gallup resident, now 98, said there is little he can say that will add to what has been said already about Bataan’s legacy.
“It’s just important that we remember,” he said.
William Overmier, 98, of Albuquerque, was also present on Sunday. He was one of many Bataan defenders who escaped to Corregidor to continue the fight before that bastion also surrendered.
He recalled leaving Bataan on one of the last of the small patrol boats, with about 15 other soldiers, thinking that a chance to reach temporary safety and continue the battle was possible if he made it to Corregidor.
Then, he said, the soldiers on that boat watched in terror as a Japanese dive bomber made its way toward them. A machine-gunner on a nearby Naval ship brought down the attacking dive bomber, saving Overmeir and the rest of the passengers.
Still, after Corregidor surrendered, he ended up in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Yokohama, where he survived, he said, because he did not want to die.
Mahlon Love, the Senior Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, told the assembly that people often forget the sacrifices made by the family members of these veterans.
“They kept up the spirit of the men going overseas to do the work of the Lord and our country,” he said. “These families went through their own hell.”
Sunday’s event, which lasted about an hour, included a recreation of the raising of the White Flag over Bataan, a bugle rendition of “Taps” and a theatrical presentation in which three National Guardsmen enacted the roles of real-life soldiers on the Bataan peninsula, writing letters to their family members that expressed both hope and fear.
The other two Bataan survivors on hand Sunday were Valdemar DeHerrera of Alamogordo and Trinidad Martinez of San Antonio, Texas.