Tuesday, June 02, 2009
During the Bataan Death March, U.S. soldiers carry their fallen conrades in litters (photo: National Archives)
In the early days of World War II, thousands of American soldiers captured in the Philippines were force-marched 65 miles by the Japanese army, enduring starvation, exhaustion and brutal treatment that included beheadings and stabbings. Those who survived the Bataan Death March have met each year since the end of the war to commemorate the event, but this year’s convention included something different: an apology from Japan.
Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Ichiro Fujisaki, flew from Washington to San Antonio last Saturday to deliver his country’s first in-person apology before the 64th reunion of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. Many of the 73 surviving veterans in attendance welcomed the apology, but not all. Some survivors criticized the address, feeling the speech lacked sincerity.
Others in attendance blamed cultural differences for how the speech came across with some unhappy veterans. “This is about as candid an apology as anybody’s going to get,” Paul Ropp, a retired Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel, told the San Antonio Express-News.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Bataan Survivors Hear Apology (by Guillermo Contreras, San Antonio Express-News)
Video: An Apology to Vets (Japanese Ambassador to the United States)
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