Description
Bataan Death March: A Soldier's Story
by James Bollich
Paperback
224 Pages
October 2003
"I salute the author for writing his story; doing so must have caused him many a restless night and not a few tears. He has served all his fellow POWs well by writing this book. I recommend it to anyone."
-The Quan, American Defenders of Bataan & Corridor, Inc.
In Bataan Death March: A Soldier's Story, author James Bollich provides a chilling, eyewitness account of this gruesome chapter of World War II history. Captured when America surrendered the Philippines' Bataan peninsula, Bollich survived three and a half years' imprisonment by the Japanese. From the horrors of the Death March to the cruel deprivations of prison life, he maintained his will to survive even as his comrades fell beside him and his body wasted to fewer than one hundred pounds.
Author James Bollich left the University of Southwestern Louisiana to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps. After the war, he completed his bachelor's degree and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue geological research at the University of Queensland, Australia. Bollich worked as a subsurface petroleum geologist until his retirement in 1986. A recipient of the Daughters of the American Revolution Medal of Honor, he and his wife, Celia, live in Lafayette, Louisiana.
This journal recounts the 65-mile journey, during which prisoners had no food, water, or rest. The author survived the POW camps on the Philippine island of Luzon.