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Inside the Bataan Death March: Defeat, Travail and Memory
For two weeks during the spring of 1942, the Bataan Death March--one of the most widely condemned atrocities of World War II--unfolded. The prevailing interpretation of this event is simple: American prisoners of war suffered cruel treatment at the hands of their Japanese captors while Filipinos, sympathetic to the Americans, looked on. Most survivors of the march wrote about their experiences decades after the war and a number of factors distorted their accounts. The crucial aspect of memory is central to this study--how it is constructed, by whom and for what purpose. This book questions the prevailing interpretation, reconsiders the actions of all three groups in their cultural contexts and suggests a far greater complexity. Among the conclusions is that violence on the march was largely the result of a clash of cultures--undisciplined, individualistic Americans encountered Japanese who valued order and form, while Filipinos were active, even ambitious, participants in the drama.
- GenresMilitary Fiction
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 25, 2015
I received a copy of this book gratis with a request to write a review.
Kevin Murphy has written a very thoughtful book that does exactly what history should do: Challenge the way we think about history. To be clear at the outset, "Inside the Bataan Death March" is revisionist in its approach. Murphy defines the mythos of the March as three key elements. First, that the Americans and Filipinos captured in the Bataan defeat were victims. Second, that the Japanese were brutal. And, third, that the Filipino civilians who watched the march were sympathetic to the captured.
Murphy's argument is engaging and complex. He seeks to set the scene both in terms of the training of the Japanese soldier and what led to the brutality so often seen from the Japanese army, but also the conditions that led to the poor conditions of the surrendered Americans and Filipinos. As regards the latter he is unsparing in his criticism of MacArthur in his Philippines defense and all but states that MacArthur carried out a post-war vendetta against Homma, the Japanese general who led the Japanese conquest of the Philippines and defeated MacArthur.
The narrative of the Death March is communicated in a large number of survivor accounts published after the war. Murphy explores these accounts and the motivation behind them observing that the survivors of the Death March were the forgotten veterans of the war. Far from sharing in the glory of the "good war", they were the defeated.
None of this is meant to excuse or apologize for any of the horrors of the March. After three months of combat the defeated army was marched 63 miles on limited food and water. Many were sick or wounded and all had been on short rations well before surrender. Discipline within the Japanese army was brutal and that was the standard applied to the captured. In short, the world of the captured could be defined in Hobbsian terms: nasty, brutish and short.
Despite the strengths of this work, there are some limitations. Peppered throughout the book are Murphy's recollections of walking the same route as well as a number of his experiences as a teacher of English in Japan. These seem to sit uneasily into the narrative. The points they seem often to attempt to make would have been better made by reference to a primary or secondary source.
Revisionist history encourages the reader to consider an alternate interpretation of events. It sits uneasily with us because it challenges the perceived wisdom, but leads us to think about the past. "Inside the Bataan Death March" is just such a history: often uncomfortable, but demanding our thought and attention.
Kevin Murphy has written a very thoughtful book that does exactly what history should do: Challenge the way we think about history. To be clear at the outset, "Inside the Bataan Death March" is revisionist in its approach. Murphy defines the mythos of the March as three key elements. First, that the Americans and Filipinos captured in the Bataan defeat were victims. Second, that the Japanese were brutal. And, third, that the Filipino civilians who watched the march were sympathetic to the captured.
Murphy's argument is engaging and complex. He seeks to set the scene both in terms of the training of the Japanese soldier and what led to the brutality so often seen from the Japanese army, but also the conditions that led to the poor conditions of the surrendered Americans and Filipinos. As regards the latter he is unsparing in his criticism of MacArthur in his Philippines defense and all but states that MacArthur carried out a post-war vendetta against Homma, the Japanese general who led the Japanese conquest of the Philippines and defeated MacArthur.
The narrative of the Death March is communicated in a large number of survivor accounts published after the war. Murphy explores these accounts and the motivation behind them observing that the survivors of the Death March were the forgotten veterans of the war. Far from sharing in the glory of the "good war", they were the defeated.
None of this is meant to excuse or apologize for any of the horrors of the March. After three months of combat the defeated army was marched 63 miles on limited food and water. Many were sick or wounded and all had been on short rations well before surrender. Discipline within the Japanese army was brutal and that was the standard applied to the captured. In short, the world of the captured could be defined in Hobbsian terms: nasty, brutish and short.
Despite the strengths of this work, there are some limitations. Peppered throughout the book are Murphy's recollections of walking the same route as well as a number of his experiences as a teacher of English in Japan. These seem to sit uneasily into the narrative. The points they seem often to attempt to make would have been better made by reference to a primary or secondary source.
Revisionist history encourages the reader to consider an alternate interpretation of events. It sits uneasily with us because it challenges the perceived wisdom, but leads us to think about the past. "Inside the Bataan Death March" is just such a history: often uncomfortable, but demanding our thought and attention.
Displaying 1 of 1 review