Bataan Death March

Pacific Asia Museum volunteers are trying to locate about 35 survivors of the World War II Bataan Death March, to present them copies of a South Pasadena native's book of poems describing his imprisonment in the Philippines. Henry Lee's book, "Nothing but Praise," is a collection of poems he wrote as a prisoner of war. Lee, who graduated from Pomona College, was stationed in the Philippines and captured after the Japanese took Bataan.

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. For Dick Cooksley, the nightmares from that most trying and lethal time of his life still linger: slogging through island jungles in the dreaded Bataan Death March, watching as some of his fellow soldiers and friends were beheaded by their Japanese captors. But Cooksley, now 92 and living in Arizona, survived it all - three long years of enemy captivity in seven different camps. This week, nearly seven decades after his release, the retired Army captain received long overdue recognition of his suffering: the Bronze Star Medal.

Like all his buddies in the Philippines, Eddie Laursen was herded into a prison camp and treated to the sardonic wit of a Japanese officer. "You are now guests," the officer told the exhausted men, "of the emperor of Japan." It was April 1942. After being overwhelmed by Japanese troops, some 76,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced to trudge 65 miles in tropical heat with almost no water. Those who fell or protested were summarily shot or beheaded.

I'm sorry that Bill Dwyre had to camp out on Long Island for five days or more to report on a golf tournament. But shame on Bill and his editors for making reference to that as the Bataan Death March, a World War II Japanese atrocity that killed thousands of Filipino and American prisoners of war. Incidentally, would the media please refrain from calling athletes who never faced real danger or sacrifice for their country "courageous"? Larry Joe Alyea Santa Monica

An Army doctor captured by the Japanese in World War II secretly recorded a litany of maltreatment, disease and death on the infamous Bataan Death March in a diary he frequently hid in his pants or in mud. Three years ago, Dr. Calvin Jackson's wife found the nightmarish jottings, many of them barely legible, in a desk drawer. Together they painstakingly transcribed the diary, often using a magnifying glass, and turned it into a book.

RE "Know Thy Enemy," by Kenneth Turan, Dec. 20: Clint Eastwood carries "know thy enemy" too far. He must be too young to remember the Bataan Death March, Pearl Harbor and numerous prisoner atrocities by the Japanese. This movie, regardless of its intention, is an insult to our boys at Arlington National Cemetery. HAIG DULGARIAN Los Angeles

I'm sorry that Bill Dwyre had to camp out on Long Island for five days or more to report on a golf tournament. But shame on Bill and his editors for making reference to that as the Bataan Death March, a World War II Japanese atrocity that killed thousands of Filipino and American prisoners of war. Incidentally, would the media please refrain from calling athletes who never faced real danger or sacrifice for their country "courageous"? Larry Joe Alyea Santa Monica

I literally choked on my Cheerios as I read Honan's defense of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. I was stunned to learn that the Pacific war was not brought about by Japan alone, but that the U.S. was equally responsible. The Japanese are promoting the view these days that they went to war to save all of Asia from the Western menace. Of course, in order to correctly pursue this bit of revisionist history, we have to forget the rape of Nanking and the hundreds of thousands of other Asian civilians who were slaughtered by the Japanese military.

The "whitewash" that the Education Ministry of Japan gave to the brutalities and atrocities committed by Japan before and during World War II is an affront to every American serviceman who fought against this aggression. It is also a desecration to the memory of the Americans murdered on the Bataan Death March, to those Americans who were murdered and starved to death in Japanese prisons, and to those Americans who gave their lives in the Pacific. One thing these Japanese historians fail to remember is that were it not for Gen. Douglas MacArthur's stand against Russia, which wanted to carve out part of Japan for Russian domination, the people of Japan would be Russian slaves today.

Re "Manzanar Restoration a Step Toward Honesty," letters, Dec. 15: Of particular interest to me is the letter from Carolyn Brouwers, who uses the book "Farewell to Manzanar" as a teaching tool. She says that her students are surprised to learn of this bit of history. I suggest that their reading of "Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission" (Bataan Death March), by Hampton Sides, and "Flags of Our Fathers" (Battle of Iwo Jima), by James Bradley with Ron Powers, would also be enlightening and would somewhat balance their education.

Manuel S. Pablo crouched in foxholes to defend the Philippines against invading Japanese soldiers in World War II. He watched a Japanese guard stab one of his comrades to death with a bayonet during the Bataan Death March. Though Pablo risked his life for the U.S., which controlled the Philippines as a commonwealth at the time, his children can't win approval to live with him in America during his retirement.

RE "Know Thy Enemy," by Kenneth Turan, Dec. 20: Clint Eastwood carries "know thy enemy" too far. He must be too young to remember the Bataan Death March, Pearl Harbor and numerous prisoner atrocities by the Japanese. This movie, regardless of its intention, is an insult to our boys at Arlington National Cemetery. HAIG DULGARIAN Los Angeles

Your article on the survivors of the Bataan Death March (April 4) was very moving. It brought back memories of my childhood in the Philippines. As a little girl born and raised in Manila before and during World War II, I remember hearing the roar of cannon from Bataan and Corregidor, across Manila Bay, and seeing puffs of smoke drift across the water. We were frightened for the outnumbered American and Filipino soldiers who fought so valiantly, and [we] prayed for reinforcements that didn't arrive for another three years.

Like all his buddies in the Philippines, Eddie Laursen was herded into a prison camp and treated to the sardonic wit of a Japanese officer. "You are now guests," the officer told the exhausted men, "of the emperor of Japan." It was April 1942. After being overwhelmed by Japanese troops, some 76,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced to trudge 65 miles in tropical heat with almost no water. Those who fell or protested were summarily shot or beheaded.

Re "Manzanar Restoration a Step Toward Honesty," letters, Dec. 15: Of particular interest to me is the letter from Carolyn Brouwers, who uses the book "Farewell to Manzanar" as a teaching tool. She says that her students are surprised to learn of this bit of history. I suggest that their reading of "Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission" (Bataan Death March), by Hampton Sides, and "Flags of Our Fathers" (Battle of Iwo Jima), by James Bradley with Ron Powers, would also be enlightening and would somewhat balance their education.

Norman Y. Mineta (whose name now adorns the airport in his old district, San Jose) has been transformed from a Democratic member of Congress to secretary of transportation and the only Dem in George Bush's cabinet. After Sept. 11, that got to be a much bigger job than either Mineta or Bush probably imagined, but his old Capitol Hill colleagues are still sticking up for him. A letter circulated by Atherton Democrat Anna G. Eshoo and signed by 54 other members asks the White House to issue a "public denunciation" of an op-ed in publications called Jewish World Review and Front Page Magazine.

Manuel S. Pablo crouched in foxholes to defend the Philippines against invading Japanese soldiers in World War II. He watched a Japanese guard stab one of his comrades to death with a bayonet during the Bataan Death March. Though Pablo risked his life for the U.S., which controlled the Philippines as a commonwealth at the time, his children can't win approval to live with him in America during his retirement.

I can't help wondering why William F. Buckley Jr., in his defense of George Bush's tears before the Gulf War ("A Commander Pays Honor With Tears," Column Right, June 9) felt compelled to contrast these understandable tears at sending "Americans in some cases to their deaths" with President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. ". . . (Truman) had his usual ho-ho hearty dinner and went calmly to bed." Equating these two situations and implying that Truman was a heartless man who laughed all the way to bed can only be put down to Buckley's extreme partisanship.

Leon Beck has proven he can persevere. He did it when he escaped the Bataan Death March in 1942 and hid out in jungles as a guerrilla fighter for three years. And he's done it since 1953, fighting the government to try to recoup the money he says he's owed for rations and shelter during the war. "There's a principle involved in this," Beck said. "I fulfilled my contract with the Army; now they should fulfill their contract with me as an individual and an American soldier."

The article and photographs on the Filipino veterans from World War II ("The Promised Land," by Rick Rocamora, Nov. 6) strongly brought home the message that we in the Alliance of Filipino American Veterans Organizations have been trying to get across for 50 years. The crux of our struggle for justice is not just the redemption of the promise of citizenship, but the recognition of our service in the U.S. Armed Forces. On Feb. 18, 1946, the U.S. Congress passed a law nullifying the Filipino troops' service during the war. Thus, the men received no benefits--and no recognition.