ADVISORY: Bataan Remembrance Day to be Commemorated in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces

Category: Non-Local News Releases Non-Local News Releases
Published: 03 April 2017 03 April 2017

The public is invited to attend ceremonies next week in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces to mark the observance of the 75th anniversary of the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines in the early stages of World War II--and the beginning of the Bataan Death March.

On April 9, the New Mexico National Guard will host its annual Bataan Remembrance Day Ceremony at 10 a.m. at the Eternal Flame Monument in front of the Bataan Memorial Building. For more information about this special ceremony, please contact Jessica Salazar at the New Mexico National Guard at Jessica.salazar11.nfg@mail.mil
or (505) 474-1210.

That afternoon in Las Cruces, New Mexico Department of Veterans Services Secretary Jack Fox will attend a 4pm ceremony hosted by the Remember Bataan Foundation of Las Cruces at Veterans Memorial Park, located at 1151 North Roadrunner Parkway. For more information, contact Col Gerry Schurtz (U.S.Army/retired) of the Remember Bataan Foundation of Las Cruces at (575) 644-3939.

On April 8, in deference to the National Guard's ceremony in Santa Fe, the Filipino-American Foundation of New Mexico will host its annual Bataan Remembrance Day Ceremony in Albuquerque at 1 p.m. at Bataan Memorial Park, located at 3439 Lomas Blvd. NE. (Lomas & Carlisle Blvds.) For more information, contact Maj. Richard Luena (USAF/retired) of the Filipino-American Foundation of New Mexico at (505) 839-4496.

April 9, 1942'The Fall of Bataan
On April 9, 1942, 75,000 American & Filipino soldiers surrendered to Japanese forces which invaded the Philippines in a surprise attack four months earlier.

The American and Filipino soldiers'including 1,800 members of the New Mexico National Guard, who had been in the Philippines for a training exercise-- were forced to march 60 torture-filled miles through the Bataan Peninsula to brutal Japanese prison camps.

Of the 1,800 New Mexicans, only half were alive by the time Japan surrendered in September of 1945. Many were tortured/killed/died of starvation, hunger, or disease during the march; many more perished in captivity. Only 11 of these former New Mexican prisoners are alive today.

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