Prior to reading a brief reference to the Bataan Death March in one of Iris Chang's books, probably The Rape of Nanking, I knew nothing of this most remarkable and ugly incident of the Second World War. Mr. And Ms. Norman have assembled a chilling account of this bloody and shameful odyssey, fixing it through the eyes of an American survivor who, prior to the war, would have had no way to prepare himself for the darkness he was about to experience. I only read the book and I wasn't prepared for what one group of humans can do to another when national pride is at stake.
In April of 1942, after a three month battle against Japanese imperial forces, 75,000 American and Philipino troops surrendered on the orders of their immediate commanding officer, Major General Ned King. A Southerner by birth and disposition, and under orders from Douglas Macarthur to fight on, King knew his men were exhausted, that a series of strategic blunders had made the situation hopeless, and that there was no escape from the Japanese. Continued hostilities would destroy his army, but if he surrendered, well, then that army would exist in some form or another, to fight another day.
The Japanese accepted the surrender of the army, stripped the soldiers of their belongings and without rest, without food, and without a shred of mercy, ordered them to march 100 kilometers to a Japanese internment camp. For men already starving, this might be a deathblow. And indeed, as the soldiers were whipped, prodded and beaten to march onward, 11,000 of the 72,000 POWs who began the march died before reaching their destination, with many thousands more succumbing during captivity. Tears In The Darkness is an account of that march and of the mistreatment that came after: the slavery, the transportation, the deprivation, and finally the freedom.
Though the march itself is harrowing enough, Mr. And Ms. Norman also cover the war crimes trial which sought to find justice for the dead. But the book's greatest success is in portrayal of the various forms of human courage. After being personally responsible for many of the strategic blunders which lead to the surrender, Douglas MacArthur was allowed to flee back to America with promises that he'd get the army in the Philippines out soon enough. But not only did that help never arrive, he ordered his men to die heroically while safely ensconced half a world away. Meanwhile, the soldiers in the trenches, trenches General MacArthur couldn't bring himself to do more than occasionally tour, endured untold hardships to make it home alive. And because their names are many and MacArthur's is but one, it is the cowardly general history remembers, not the brave souls who lived up, unbowed, from the unspeakable. I always knew history was unfair, but this unfair?
Often, in order to convince ones own armies of the rightness of the cause, a country's leadership will claim the enemy is subhuman, beneath the dignity and the glory of the rightful victors. These are lies, of course, but belief in a lie can still make one do unspeakable things. And it turns out, a human being is willing to do the most hellish things imaginable to you just so long as he doesn't think you human. Devastating... (4/5 Stars)
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