Abstract: The Mindanao Death March

The World War II in the Philippines is a story of cruelty. American and Filipino prisoners of war (POW) were shocked at how uncivilized Japanese soldiers treated not only the allied POW but more so, the civilian population. A grand total of 142,076 reported American and Filipino men, women and children, military and civilian, died during the atrocities. Hundreds of thousands were made to suffer ordeals shocking to the conscience of civilized societies. There were wholesale murder, torture, rape, and all kinds of indignities and barbarities. Death marches were ordered in many parts of the country to herd POWs to concentration camps. These death marches highlighted all the indescribable sufferings of the POWs. Only two death marches were recognized in the Japanese war crime trials in Tokyo as evidence of inhuman treatment to POWs, one is the Bataan Death March and the other is the Iligan Death March or sometimes known as the Mindanao Death March. However, little is known about the Iligan Death March.

The purpose of the paper is to bring into the fore the rather untold story of a Death March in Mindanao. The Iligan Death March narrates the long exhausting walk from Camp Keithly in Dansalan, Lanao Province to Iligan with the purpose of bringing the POWs to Camp Casisang in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. It is fortunate that at least two POWs of the said ordeal survived to vividly narrate the story. They were Victor L. Mapes and Herbert Zincke. From their narratives, we can put flesh to the sketchy accounts on the Iligan Death March.    

The Filipino and American forces were ordered to surrender to the Japanese on May 6, 1942. Those who surrendered in the Lake Lanao area, some 300 Filipinos and about 40 or so Americans, were concentrated in Camp Keithly, Lanao Province on May 27, 1942. On 4 July 1942, the prisoners were made to march from Camp Keithly to Iligan, Lanao, a distance of about thirty-six kilometers, for the purpose of joining them with the rest of POWs from Mindanao at Camp Casisang, Malaybalay, Bukidnon. Transport trucks, although available, were denied the POWs. They were ordered to traverse a distance of about thirty-six kilometers of rocky dirt road under the blazing tropical sun. 

At 8:00 A.M., July 4, 1942, the POWs lined up for the march at Dansalan. The Americans were arranged by four abreast and were strung together, in columns, by a heavy wire through their belts. The Filipinos, though left unwired, were barefooted. A truckload of Japanese soldiers with a mounted machine gun followed the prisoners, ready to shoot anybody who will try to escape.

As the day progressed, the midday sun became unbearable. Without food and water, one by one the soldiers fell down due to exhaustion. Those who fell were left behind, however, they were first shot at the forehead to prevent them from joining the guerrillas in case they eventually recover.

A wounded soldier, Childress, struggled to keep up with the march. Major Luther Heidger, the military physician in the group, requested the Japanese for Childress to be taken on board the truck. The Japanese guard acceded. Later, a gunshot was heard from the truck ending Childress' suffering. The prospect of ruthless death drove the other weakened soldiers almost to a point of insanity.

The Filipino POWs were no less luckier. They started at a lively pace, but by the time they reached Iligan, at 6:00 P.M., they were in worse shape. Their bare feet had worn raw on the rough rocky road.

The paper will include a list of those who participated in the Iligan Death March and, whenever possible, trace whether or not the said POWs eventually survived the gruesome war.