Degree grantor/typeUniversity of South California
Note (General)Authorized facsimile, made from the microfilm master copy of the original dissertation or master thesis published by UMI.
UMI number: 1476183.
Note (Content)The Philippines—Of the approximately 46,000 Filipino soldiers who survived the Bataan Death March in April 1942, 1,000 were still alive at the beginning of 2010. Spread throughout the Philippines, these men were in their late 80s or early 90s, and many of them were not interested in remembering the pain and abuse they endured at the hands of the Japanese army so many years ago. Old age and a growing cultural distance from the events of World War II have made the death march little more than historical trivia in this island nation of 98 million people. A historian, a nonprofit director and the son of a death march survivor explain why this trend worries them, and why, without history books to tell the personal stories of death march survivors, their saga will be all but forgotten. In this context of diminishing interest in the history of World War II, 91-year-old Col. Rafael Estrada shares his story of forced marching in intense heat, without water, through the fields of his own family’s sugar cane plantation.