When Men Have to Die

by Paul E. Zigo, Marie D. Somers, John McLaughlin

Overview

Within days of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines began.

Four months later, with food and ammunition supplies running out, the American army surrendered to the Japanese. Forced to march over 50 miles up the Bataan peninsula, tens of thousands of soldiers, both American and Filipino, were subjected to unremitting brutality by their captors.

Harry J. Whittinghill was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. He had enlisted in April 1941 and arrived in the Philippines in November of that year. Following the grueling march and his harrowing transport on a Japanese "hell ship," he spent over three years as a prisoner of war in a forced labor camp.

Whittinghill, who died in 1987, detailed the horrors he lived through while often commenting on the odds of his own survival. His memoir, discovered during a chance conversation with his grandsons, describes how luck and will power kept him alive. Essays on the Bataan Death March and General MacArthur provide additional historical context for the memoir.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781540668462
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.17(d)

About the Author

John J. McLaughlin, founder of the New Jersey World War II Book Club, was an army officer and holds a doctorate in history from Drew University. He is also a graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law and the author of General Albert C. Wedemeyer: America's Unsung Strategist in World War II.

Co-author Paul E. Zigo is a thirty-year army veteran who is a history professor and military historian. He is the founder and director of the World War II Era Studies Institute as well as the author of The Longest Walk and Witnessing History: The Eisenhower Photographs.

Marie D. Somers is the Director of Communications and webmaster for the New Jersey World War II Book Club. She has a master's degree in English from Seton Hall University, where she worked as Director of Communication for Information Technology.