.

 

SURRENDER ON BATAAN

 

The story of the last two days of the defense of Bataan is one of progressive disintegration and final collapse. Lines were formed and abandoned before they could be fully occupied. Communications broke down and higher headquarters often did not know the situation on the front lines. Orders were issued and revoked because they were impossible of execution. Stragglers poured to the rear in increasingly large numbers until they clogged all roads and disrupted all movement forward. Units disappeared into the jungle never to be heard from again. In two days an army evaporated into thin air.

When the action of the 6th was over the Americans and Filipinos found themselves in a desperate situation. The carefully prepared counterattack launched that morning had failed dismally and the enemy had quickly seized the initiative to score decisive gains.

In an Army Day broadcast General Wainwright spoke bravely of those who were "privileged to be charged with the defense of this distant bastion." But his official dispatches show a clear appreciation of the catastrophic events of the past twenty-four hours. To Washington he reported that the enemy had driven a wedge into the right center of his front, that the air and artillery bombardment begun on the 3d had continued without letup, and that fresh enemy troops had been thrown into the battle and were gaming ground slowly.

All units on the line were so decimated as to make their designations meaningless. The 31st Infantry (US) had but 160 men; the 26th Cavalry, 300; the 57th Infantry, 500. Altogether Bluemel had 1,360 men in the three regiments and one battalion under his command. Irwin's force of two regiments numbered but 1,200 men. All the troops were half starved and exhausted. "We were all so tired," wrote one officer, "that the only way to stay awake was to remain standing. As soon as a man sat or laid down he would go to sleep."

At 2330, when his position was already hopeless, General King received fresh orders from Corregidor directing him to launch an offensive with I Corps northward toward Olongapo, the Japanese base at the head of Subic Bay. In issuing these orders Wainwright was merely carrying out his own orders from General MacArthur, who, on 4 April, had instructed him to "prepare and execute an attack upon the enemy along the following general lines," when the situation became desperate.

Even before he issued the orders for an attack, Wainwright already knew it was impossible of execution. Earlier that day he had notified the War Department that the withdrawal of both corps had become necessary because of the weakness of the troops who had subsisted for so long on one-half to one-third rations. Even the best of his regiments, he said, "were capable of only a short advance before they were completely exhausted." In his message to MacArthur he had given clear warning that the end was near. The tactical situation, he explained, was fast deteriorating and the men were so weakened by hunger and disease that they had "no power of resistance" left. "It is with deep regret," he had written, "that I am forced to report that the troops on Bataan are fast folding up."

Except for a single issue of half rations, the food stocks on Bataan had been exhausted. Already the depot commanders were standing by for orders to destroy their equipment and the Chemical Warfare Service was dumping its chemicals into Manila Bay. At Mariveles the Navy had begun demolitions an hour before and the flames were already lighting up the sky.

When, late in the evening of 8 April, General Wainwright ordered a counterattack by I Corps in the direction of Olongapo, General King had already reached the conclusion that he had no alternative but to surrender. By that time all chance of halting the Japanese advance, much less launching a successful counterattack, was gone. The last of his reserves as well as those of the two corps had been committed.

The deterioration of the line in the II Corps sector gave the enemy free passage to the south where the hospitals with their 12,000 defenseless patients, already within reach of Japanese light artillery, were located. Philippine Army troops were in complete rout and units were melting away "lock, stock, and barrel." Headquarters had lost contact with the front-line troops and could no longer control the action except through runners or the armored vehicles of the SPM battalion. The roads were jammed with soldiers who had abandoned arms and equipment in their frantic haste to escape from the advancing Japanese infantry and armored columns and the strafing planes overhead. "Thousands poured out of the jungle," wrote one observer, "like small spring freshets pouring into creeks which in turn poured into a river."

Even if General King had been able at the last moment to muster enough arms and men to oppose the Japanese advance it is extremely doubtful that he could have averted or even delayed the final disaster, The men on Bataan were already defeated and had been for almost a week. Disease and starvation rather than military conditions had created the situation in which General King now found himself. The men who threw away their arms and equipment and jammed the roads and trails leading south were beaten men. Three months of malnutrition, malaria, and intestinal infections had left them weak and disease-ridden, totally incapable of the sustained physical effort necessary for a successful defense.

If the situation appeared critical to those on Corregidor and in Australia, how much blacker was the future to General King on whom rested the responsibility for the fate of the 78,000 men on Bataan. As early as the afternoon of 7 April, when the last of the Luzon Force and I Corps reserves had been committed without appreciably delaying the enemy, he had realized that his position was critical. It was then that he sent his chief of staff, General Funk, to Corregidor to inform Wainwright that the fall of Bataan was imminent and that he might have to surrender. Though Wainwright shared King's feelings about the plight of the men on Bataan, his answer to Funk was of necessity based upon his own orders. On his desk was a message from MacArthur which prohibited surrender under any conditions.

The only alternative remaining to King if he followed Wainwright's orders was to accept the wholesale slaughter of his men without achieving any military advantage. Under the circumstances, it was almost inevitable that he would disobey his orders.

Wainwright evidently appreciated King's position, and even expected him to surrender. Some years later, after his return from prison camp, he wrote: "I had my orders from MacArthur not to surrender on Bataan, and therefore I could not authorize King to do it." But General King, he added, "was on the ground and confronted by a situation in which he had either to surrender or have his people killed piecemeal. This would most certainly have happened to him within two or three days."

At just what point in the last hectic days of the battle of Bataan General King made his decision is not clear. He may already have decided to surrender on the 7th when he sent Funk to Corregidor, for even at that time it was evident that defeat was inevitable. The next day, sometime during the afternoon, King instructed his senior commanders to make preparations for the destruction of all weapons and equipment, except motor vehicles and gasoline, but to wait for further orders before starting the actual destruction. At the same time he told General Wainwright that if he expected to move any troops from Bataan to Corregidor, he would have to do it that night "as it would be too late thereafter." When Colonels Constant Irwin and Carpenter came to Bataan to discuss the withdrawal of the 45th Infantry (PS) with the Luzon Force staff they "gained the impression" after a conversation with King that he felt the decision to surrender "might be forced upon" him.

 

 

 

 �2005 Corregidor Historic Society - all rights reserved