Place:Bataan, Central Luzon, Philippines

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Bataan is a province situated in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. Its capital is the City of Balanga. Occupying the entire Bataan Peninsula on Luzon, Bataan is bordered by the provinces of Zambales and Pampanga to the north. The peninsula faces the South China Sea to the west and Subic Bay to the north-west, and encloses Manila Bay to the east.

The Battle of Bataan is famous in history as one of the last stands of American and Filipino soldiers before they were overwhelmed by the Japanese forces in World War II. The Bataan Death March was named after the province, where the infamous march started.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Classical Period

The first inhabitants of the Bataan peninsula are the Ayta Magbeken people, who are one of the first Negrito ancestors of present-day Filipinos. Later on, Tagalog communities from southern Luzon migrated to parts of Bataan and the Ayta Magbeken migrated towards the mountain areas of Bataan by the end of the 16th century.

Colonial Period

In 1647, Dutch naval forces landed in country in an attempt to seize the islands from Spain. The Dutch massacred the people of Abucay in Bataan.

Historian Cornelio Bascara documents that the province of Bataan was established on January 11, 1757 by Governor-General Pedro Manuel Arandia out of territories belonging to Pampanga and the corregimiento of Mariveles which, at the time, included Maragondon, Cavite across the Manila Bay.^[1]

World War II

Bataan featured prominently during World War II. Prior to the 1941 Japanese invasion, the US Army stored nearly of gasoline there.

Shortly after the Japanese Army invaded the country in December 1941, the combined US and Filipino forces were being gradually overrun and General Douglas MacArthur moved his troops to the Bataan Peninsula in an attempt to hold out until a relief force could be sent from the US. Japanese forces started a siege of the peninsula on January 7, 1942, and launched an all-out assault on April 3, a few months after the Battle of the Points.

The majority of the American and Filipino forces surrendered on April 9 and were forced to march more than a from Bataan to Capas, Tarlac, which became known as the Bataan Death March.

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