Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Newsround: Bataan Death March

CINCINNATI -- Broadcaster Marty Brennaman apologized on the air for comparing to the Cincinnati Reds' upcoming road trip to the Bataan Death March.

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Thousands of captured U.S. and Filipino soldiers were forced to walk 70 miles to a concentration camp during World War II, many dying along the way. A radio listener in New Mexico heard Brennaman's remark about Bataan and sent the Reds an e-mail objecting to the comparison.
A family photograph gave one Sandpoint man the will to survive the Bataan Death March. Herb Johnson was 24 when he joined the Army Air Corps in 1939.

He was stationed in the Philippines in October 1941 when the Japanese bombed Clark Field, including the soldiers' quarters.

The photograph of Johnson's family taken by Sandpoint photographer Ross Hall was salvaged from the debris, according to a note written by Johnson that his son Gary recently rediscovered
One of New Mexico's last survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March has died.

Clifford "Smokey" Martinez of Las Cruces died Thursday at Memorial Medical Center. He was 88.

1 comment:

Mary Witzl said...

I am glad that the listener who heard this actually complained about it. Comparing a road trip to the Bataan Death March helps to trivialize it until it remains nothing more than a phrase in the public imagination; a vague idea of an unpleasant experience rather than the atrocity it was.