From Bataan to Safety

For American troops in the Philippines, December 8, 1941, began with shocking reports of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, followed by a Japanese air attack on Clark Field in southern Luzon. Deprived of reinforcements, American and Filipino troops surrendered Bataan to the Japanese on April 9, 1942. For the 400 American soldiers who avoided the Bataan Death March and hundreds of others who refused to surrender, escaping the Bataan Peninsula to Luzon was a life-or-death journey.
Among the local families who risked their lives to provide food and shelter to fleeing American soldiers were twin brothers and transplanted American sugar cane farmers Bill and Martin Fassoth. With Bill’s Filipina wife Catalina, they ministered to over 100 Americans between April 1942, and April 1943. The stories of the Fassoths, the soldiers they saved and their fates following the Fassoths’ surrender to raiding Japanese forces are an important and fascinating chapter of World War II history.

An artillery officer in the Vietnam War, Malcolm Decker has written previously on the 155th Provisional Guerrilla Battalion on Luzon. He lives in Lebanon, Missouri, where he operates an insurance agency.

Malcolm Decker
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 232
Bibliographic Info: 19 photos, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2008
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3396-4
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vii
Preface      1

1. War: December 8, 1941      3
2. Into Bataan      16
3. Little Food, Bad Ammunition      25
4. Escape      39
5. Fassoths’ Camps      69
6. Raids      98
7. Capture, Surrender, Survive      124
8. The Summer of ’43      146
9. Re-formation      156
10. Preparations      167
11. MacArthur Returns      182

Appendix      197
Chapter Notes      205
Bibliography      213
Index      215

“Mr. Decker has given us a captivating story and he rarely fails to keep his readers’ attention.”—WWII Forums.