The Obituary Of A Bataan Death March Survivor

From the Las Cruces Sun-News obituary of Weldon C. Hamilton:

Hamilton joined the U.S. Army Air Corps on Oct. 5, 1940 and was sent to the Philippines in November 1941. He fought the battle of Bataan, a battle that the Japanese planned to win in three weeks, but took four months instead because of the resilience of U.S. and Filipino forces. Only when food and ammunition ran out, and Bataan was overrun by the Japanese military, were U.S. military personnel surrendered, on April 9, 1942.

On the Death March, more than 10,000 men died, including approximately 1,800 members of the New Mexico National Guard. "It was miserable," said Hamilton, in a 2002 interview with the Sun-News. "I was so tired I felt like I couldn't take another step. But then I would hear someone being shot. It was like the Angel of Death was right behind me."

But Hamilton willed himself to keep going. He did that for each of the 1,256 days he was a prisoner of war. "I was determined to survive," he said. "I didn't make it through that march to die in a prison camp."

He was imprisoned in the Philippines for more than two years, first at Camp O'Donnell, where more than 25,000 men died in less than two months. Arriving at Camp O'Donnell after completing the gruesome Death March, Hamilton often told a chilling story of the prisoners' first encounter with the camp commander.

"He came out in a nice white uniform, with his saber dragging on the ground," Hamilton said. "I'll never forget what he said: 'If you think you are lucky to have escaped with your lives, I tell you the lucky ones are already dead. We are enemies. We will always be enemies. My only interest is in how many of you are dead each morning.'"

He was later sent to Camp Cabanatuan, where 3,000 Americans died. Hamilton then was taken to Japan aboard one of the notorious "Hell Ships."

At the end of the war he was enslaved at a coal mine 30 miles from Nagasaki, where he saw the cloud from the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.