Remembering Bataan
In the spring of 1982, NBC aired a documentary, "Bataan: the Forgotten Hell", to observe the 40th anniversary of the march and recall the brutalities inflicted on the captives. Japan had refused to sign the 1929 Geneva Convention Relating to the Treatment of POWs. Nearly half of the men died of dehydration and heat exhaustion.
With the end of the war, Sndyer and 105 other prisoners were liberated on August 15, 1945. Years after his captivity, Snyder attended a military reunion in the Philippines. Donald Knox, in the book Death March: The Survivors of Bataan (New York: Harcourt Brace Inc., 1981), recalls Snyder having asked his Filipino guide why a particular group of children was holding the “V” for victory sign to the visiting American veterans. “What do those little kids know about that sign?”, Snyder asked. The guide replied, “They may not know how to read and write, but they know about Bataan.”
Snyder was chaplain for the Gulf Coast chapter of American Ex-Prisoners of War, a veterans service organization founded in Arlington, Texas, in the wake of Bataan.
Read more about this topic: Wilburn Snyder
Famous quotes containing the word remembering:
“I don’t avoid pain by not remembering something; I try to remember.... Memory is empowering, and it’s what gives you your sense of continuity in the world.”
—Melinda Worth Popham (b. 1944)