Bataan Rescue

American Experience

In the first months of World War II in the Pacific war, tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers fought a desperate battle to defend the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines from an overwhelming Japanese invasion.

Forced to surrender after 5 months of combat, the survivors were marched to ghastly prison camps in sweltering heat with little or no food or water. Thousands died along the way. After three years of brutal captivity, only 500 prisoners remained in the infamous Cabanatuan camp.

Fearing the Japanese would murder their captives before American forces could liberate the camp, the US Army sent a small, elite Ranger battalion to rescue the POWs.

Under the cover of darkness the 150 rangers infiltrated 30 miles behind enemy lines and with the help of courageous Filipino resistance fighters, mounted a dangerous assault. The raid to save the surviving POWs would turn out to be the most daring rescue mission of the Second World War.