Iconic Bataan Death March Photo caption revised
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padre31Luxury BoxOPhttp://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=68800
NEW YORK — For 68 years, John E. Love has been haunted by the memory of carrying fallen comrades to a mass grave hollowed out of a Filipino rice field. Now, at last, a bit of history is being rewritten because of those memories.
After six months of research, The Associated Press is correcting the caption on one of the most famous photos in its library, 65 years after the image first moved on the newswire. The image shows defeated Allied soldiers after their surrender to Japanese forces on the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula in April 1942.
Over the years, the photo has become perhaps the most widely published image of what came to be known as the Bataan Death March.
But for many of those years, Love, a native of Albuquerque, N.M., who fought to defend Bataan as a 19-year-old Army corporal, saw captions paired with the photo that he believed did a disservice to the truth.
I always recalled a US soldier sorta down in a hole with real wide eyes as he was clearly terrified as the image of the Death March.
gafinfanSupporterThanks so much for posting padre. We glorify those who win battles, as rightly we should, all the while stigmatizing those captured as those who didn't die so as to be brought home on their shield. Its high time those men and women (yes American Women) get some positive love for their service and the horror they endured!
This is the only thing I’ve learned: There’s only us. There’s no them. Despots and authoritarians need to make a “them” to have a straw man whom you are against. If you need to make an enemy of “them,” you’ve lost the spirit of us. - Ken Burns of PBS