The men start their story by explaining that they were, in fact, expendable, just as any piece of equipment used during the war is expendable. They tried to explain by giving a theoretical situation. “Suppose you’re a sergeant machine-gunner, and your army is retreating and the enemy advancing. The captain takes you to a machine gun covering the road. ‘You’re to stay here and cover this position’ he tells you. ‘For how long?’ you ask. ‘Never mind,’ he tells you, ‘just hold it.’ Then you know you’re expendable. In a war, anything can be

The officers were equally untrained. Tough, experienced American Regular Army privates would be giving orders to Filipino generals. Those two thousand Americans and the twelve hundred Scouts were the only real fighting men on Bataan (White 101). Then there was the item of equipment; they had no spare parts. They had few tanks left, and these had their treads falling off (White 101). But on Bataan, even when they knew in their hearts it was hopeless, they’d say “Damn it, we’re not backing up – we’re going to hold them here!” (White 102) They kept on fighting even down to the last ditch, when they were so tired they staggered, and when they finally surrendered, it was with their arms in their hands.

The next morning Bulkeley received a call to report to the Admiral in Manilla. Kelly and Bulkeley headed for Manilla and reported to Commander Slocum. When they got there they were told that Slocum was planning a rain off Lingayen. They told the Commander that they were raring to go, and they then proceeded to load files and records onto the boats because they were going to be moving headquarters. The mission didn’t get underway for several days, and while they were waiting, Kelly developed an infection in his arm. He was told to go the hospital. When he arrived at the hospital in Corregidor, he found that it had been abandoned, and the patients had been moved to beds in the tunnel of the Rock which was protected from aircrafts.

Meanwhile Bulkeley was reporting to the Admiral daily and was formulating a plan – which he would talk over with Kelly because he was second in command – about what they would do when they ran out of gas. Their first plan was, when they got down to their minimum, to get out to Australia. The navy patrol bombers had planted caches of gasoline among the islands like steppingstones, and the Admiral gave them their location. But this plan fell threw because the first steppingstone was Singapore, and Singapore fell to the Japanese. Then Bulkeley thought of another plan: when the gas was down to just what they could carry on their decks, they would take their boats to China to continue the war (White 63).

The first influx of patients came from the interisland steamer Corregidor. Bulkeley said that he had his boats out there about a half hour after the ship sunk. The survivors were numerous and they just sailed straight ahead and ended up with sore shoulders from pulling them up the sea ladder until finally they couldn’t lift them. Bulkeley’s boat managed to save 196 men.

The Japs were at that time closing in on Hong Kong. They would make their dash, shoot a few remaining Jap ships when they were least expecting an attack, and then head north to the region of Swatow. It was said that the Japs held Swatow thinly. So at an agreed time, and at an agreed rendezvous on the coast, Chungking would send a raiding party down to fight its way to the beach and meet them. There they would burn their boats. Their trucks would take them to the nearest airfield, they would fly to Chungking, and from there an American plane would take them back to the states (White 64).

Some topics in this essay:
Mariveles Bataan, Comparison/What Learned, Batangas Japs, Chungking American, Australia White, Cox Shumacher, Washington Macarthur, Americans American, Bataan Japs, Cox Jr, bulkeley’s boat, told bulkeley, white 101, kelly peggy, o’ clock, pearl harbor, rice paddy, air force, date set march, managed rendezvous location, set march, hasn’t it” white, march 15, macarthur told bulkeley, nice hasn’t it”,