Introduction to the Battle of Bataan

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Then they bombed Clark Air Field on Luzon Island in the Philippines and the Battle of Bataan began. For twenty-one-year-old Lt. Jim Davis this was his first glimpse of war. With other pilots of the U.S. Air Corps's 20th and 21st Pursuit Squadrons, Jim took to the air. Most of the American planes were destroyed that day. The survivors, Jim among them, moved to the southern end of the Bataan peninsula and continued the fight.

Heroism and Hardship

During the four months leading to the fall of Bataan, Jim witnessed the heroism of the men and women who fought to defend Bataan. Though Jim is fictional, the events and most of the other people in the story are not. Rations were cut, medicine was scarce and disease rampant. Through it all the indomitable spirit of the American and Filipino defenders endured.