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    Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath
    Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath
    Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath
    Audiobook17 hours

    Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath

    Written by Elizabeth M. Norman and Michael Norman

    Narrated by Michael Prichard

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America's first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history.

    The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make dramatically clear in this powerfully original book. From then until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, and torture-far from the machinations of General Douglas MacArthur.

    The Normans bring to the story remarkable feats of reportage and literary empathy. Their protagonist, Ben Steele, is a figure out of Hemingway: a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world. Juxtaposed against Steele's story and the sobering tale of the Death March and its aftermath is the story of a number of Japanese soldiers.

    The result is an altogether new and original World War II book: it exposes the myths of military heroism as shallow and inadequate; and it makes clear, with great literary and human power, that war causes suffering for people on all sides.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 9, 2009
    ISBN9781400181674
    Author

    Elizabeth M. Norman

    Elizabeth M. Norman, the author of two books about war, teaches at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.

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    Reviews for Tears in the Darkness

    4.5/5

    91 ratings14 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I got the book because I was competing in the Bataan Memorial Death March in White Sands New Mexico. I was look for some me insight into what the men on the ma ch faced. Being from Billings Montana Ben Steele and I traveled many of the same place s all the way to Albuquerque, which made it even more personal. I would encourage people of all ages to read this book and others on the topic so we try be more thankful of the men and women who formed our communities
    • 3/5
      The grim tale of the Bataan Death March is recorded with historical accuracy and even-handedness. Though the cruelty of the Japanese soldiers to their American and Filipino prisoners of war was extreme, the cruelty of the Japanese commanders to the standard foot soldiers is recorded as well. One is left with the sense that no one in war is truly innocent. The institution of warfare makes monsters of us all.
    • 4/5
      The book details the fight for the Philippines and its aftermath. War is hell is once again born out.
    • 5/5
      WOW. Just finished reading a few minutes ago and I can't stop crying. An eye opening book that really gives you an idea on what the pacific POWs endured.
    • 4/5
      Dad was living in Maywood, Illinois when he was drafted in 1943; Maywood was home to the 192nd General Headquarters Tank Battalion of the Illinois National Guard, which was federalized in 1940 and sent off to the Philippines just in time for things to get really unpleasant there. Maywood had (and still has) a Bataan Day in commemoration; I went a couple of times when my family still lived in the area. Dad didn’t know anybody in the 192nd personally, but knew some names and was “friends of friends” so there was something a little personal when he landed on Leyte in 1944.
      I don’t know whether I want to give Dad Tears in the Darkness to read or not; the war’s over. The story centers around Ben Steele, a young Montana cowboy who, on his Mom’s suggestion, decided to join the Army Air Corps, and like the boys from Maywood got to the Philippines just in time to have an interesting experience.
      This isn’t really a military history; coauthors Michael and Elizabeth Norman are not military historians. There are accounts of battles, but they’re generally described “as seen by” individual American (and a few Filipino and Japanese) soldiers and, of course, the actually fighting was pretty brief. Things get going when the fighting is over, and Steele and his buddies are marched up the Bataan Peninsula to prison camps. The authors are not Japanese apologists, but they make a few mitigating points; the Japanese were expecting about 25000 POWs and got about 75000, and although individual Japanese soldiers seem to have been just as humane as anybody else (or, at least the ones the authors found willing to talk were), Japanese officers – especially middle-ranking officers – were not and encouraged and sometimes actively ordered brutality. Steele made it to Camp O’Donnell and then volunteered to work on a road-building project, figuring anything would be better than a concentration camp. It wasn’t; there were no tools, no mosquito nets, and no protection from the weather. (One of the little instances of Japanese humanity does crop up; the Japanese were almost as bad off as the Americans – for example, then had nothing for dysentery themselves and were treating it with powdered charcoal, resulting in a lot of Japanese guards that were black from the waist down. Nevertheless, a few would come over to the Americans every day and, after checking to be sure no one was watching, dropped a small package wrapped in a banana leaf. It contained a little rice and two quinine tablets, and presumably kept some of the Americans alive).
      By the time Steele got to his next stop (Bilibid Prison; the Japanese essentially gave up on the road building; Steele was one of 50 survivors from the original 325 men on the work detail) he was (a note from the medical record survives; the doctor who wrote the note didn’t) suffering from malaria, starvation, dysentery, jaundice, pneumonia, incipient gangrene from an infected puncture wound on his left instep, and beriberi. Steele received extreme unction twice (he wasn’t Catholic but wasn’t in any state to complain) but gradually came around. Like many other accounts of people in Auschwitz and Kolyma and other death camps, Steele found something to live for – he was always interested in art and began making drawings – of his ranching experience, of the prison, of his guards. An American engineer gave him a little instruction on perspective and Steele pulled through.
      In time to be packed on a prison ship and sent to a Japan. “Packed” is literal; the men didn’t have enough space to lie down until some of them started dying (including the medical officer who had treated Steele and the priest who had given him extreme unction). And, of course, they were bombed and strafed by American aircraft. About 1/3 the men who initially boarded ship survived to work in a coal mine in Japan, where one day in August 1945 they heard a deep rumble and saw a curious mushroom shaped cloud building to the south. A few days later Japan surrendered.
      Their troubles weren’t over, of course; some POWs were killed or injured by American supply drops and by gorging themselves on the food. Nurses in hospital ships taking them back to the States reported ex-POWs couldn’t get enough food; they would take it back from the mess halls and hide it in their clothes and bunks (people working with escapees from the XSSR reported a similar phenomenon – they would stockpile food in their apartments to the point that there was no place to walk around the cans and cartons). Steele spent some time in a Spokane hospital and headed for home – he was recognized by a home town friend on the train and treated to so many drinks that he didn’t recognize his family when he finally got off.
      The penultimate chapter deals with General Homma. There’s still debate over whether Yamashita and Homma should have been executed as war criminals. The authors are very sympathetic to Homma, and I think I am too; he wasn’t present during the Death March (although a few survivors claimed to have seen him) and was relieved in disgrace immediately afterward (because the conquest of the Philippines had taken too long). There is a rather intriguing footnote about a certain Colonel Masanobu Tsuji, who reportedly did order a lot of the brutality on the Death March and after. A request by the Normans for information about Tsuji resulted in a response from the CIA stating that “…we are neither confirming or denying that such documents exist. It has been determined that such information – that is, whether or not any responsive documents exist – would be classified for reasons of national security”. Homma’s wife, Fujiko – everybody who saw her described her as “beautiful and elegant” – pleaded personally with MacArthur. MacArthur bent far enough to order Homma shot instead of hanged.
      The final chapter covers Steele’s post war life – he went to art school, married, divorced, and married again, and became an art teacher. During a 1999 radio interview about the Death March, he suffered a ruptured aortal aneurysm – and once again managed to survive despite the odds.
      Perhaps just a little melodramatic – but so what; it actually happened. Well written and very moving. Some of Steele’s art can be seen be seen on his web site.
    • 5/5
      Excellent, but very sad.
    • 5/5
      Excellent history.
    • 4/5
      Depressing. Review to follow and it is going to be a long one after the authors' myopic views on the war trials conducted on the Japanese officers and generals responsible for the Bataan death march.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. It describes Japanese atrocities during the Phillipine campaign of WWII, including aftermath of the war crimes trial and the lives of some survivors from both sides. It added another dimension to my understanding.
    • 3/5
      It was an interesting book about the Bataan Death March that was very readable. It was very graphic about the horrors. However, it was biased and the amount of bias increased towards the end.
    • 5/5
      A powerful tale of dehumanization and dignity. Not a military history but a very human story told primarily through the experience of a Native American unfortunate enough to be trapped in this hellhole. Not an easy read, but an important one as it gives us understanding of the process of individual and systemic dehumanization.
    • 4/5
      A great historical portrayal of the reality of the war. I have lost significant respect for Gen MacArthur who blundered several opportunities only to abandon him men, and then only to come back and sponsor a mockery of a tribunal against his nemisis. I have known several Japanese people throughout my life and its difficult to ever imagine that they had come to this during those times. If lessons can be learned from history, only through direct confrontation and overwhelming force without hestitation can you overcome evil and radicalism.
    • 5/5
      “The Story of the Bataan Death March” is more than just that. It tells of the situations leading up to the march on Luzon in the Philippines and a bit after the end of the war. It is also the story of Ben Steele, a cowboy who endured the march. This is not just a cold history, but is up close and personal, giving names and faces to the stories. It is hard to believe that after so many centuries, humans can still be so incredibly cruel to one another. The story is about courage and cowardice, kindnesses and selfishness, and throughout, incredible suffering. The book is very well written and researched. Occasionally, the prose was a bit flowery for my taste, but that is minor. Some of Ben Steele's drawings are included, and add greatly. There is a map of the Bataan peninsula, but the map is incomplete and does not include all the places discussed. A think that more maps, one of all of Luzon and one of the larger area at a minimum, would have been helpful. This is a great read, very touching and informative.
    • 5/5
      A gripping, well written book which graphically and horrifically portrays the the Bataan Death March and subsequent atrocities by Japanese captors in the Philippines during WW2. A particularly good component is the juxtaposition of one prisoner's life as a counterpoint to the general story. Not easy to read because of the content but well worth the effort.