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To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Bataan Death March Survivor

Date: April 12, 2001

"Original Bataan Death March survivor recounts 70-mile journey
By Matt Avery Independent Florida Alligator U. Florida


(U-WIRE) GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Weldon Hamilton was a 20-year-old Air Force cook from Kansas when the Japanese took the Philippines in 1942.

Today, he's a resident of Las Cruces, N.M., working on a book about his time as a prisoner of war. He says what he remembers most about the original Bataan Death March was being told by a commanding officer that "This day is the most important day of your life, because you are either going to save or lose your life today."

The Japanese attacked the Philippines the same time they bombed Pearl Harbor -- but they fought four months to subdue the American and native forces on the southeast Asian island nation. The prisoners of war were forced to walk from their stations on the Bataan peninsula to a prison camp at San Fernando -- as many as 75 miles away for some of the soldiers.

Hamilton was one of those original marchers. He remembers all too well what motivated him to stay on his feet during the eight days and 70 miles he walked through the malaria-infested jungle -- a march he calls "brutal at all times."

"If you didn't keep up, they'd kill you," Hamilton says. "And you could hear them shooting -- [people] were dying right behind you."

Hamilton says he remembers Japanese soldiers driving in trucks down the long columns of prisoners, striking at heads with their rifle butts -- from which he learned never to march near the edge of the formation. He said the prisoners rarely had food or water -- he says he was fed a single bowl of rice on the trail.

According to military records, 10,000 to 16,000 American soldiers and 60,000 Filipinos were involved in the Bataan Death March. It is difficult to be specific -- most of the records from that time were destroyed in the fighting -- but the military estimates as many as 21,000 died either during the march or in Japanese prison camps afterward.

There is a far-away look in Hamilton's eyes when he recounts that march. It's surprising he can recall such events without pain, but he says he is proud to have survived the experience.

"They tried to kill me for 3-and-a-half years," Hamilton says. "I beat them.

"Because I lived, I feel excited that I survived all these horrible things. ... I'm not saying at all that I'm a hero -- I was just there."

(C) 2001 Independent Florida Alligator via U-WIRE"