Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home VFW held a fund-raising dinner Saturday night to help pay for a memorial marker along the route of the Baatan Death March.
After the invasion of the Philippines in 1941, approximately 70,000 American and Filipino troops were captured by the Japanese and forced on a 65-kilometer death march from the Baatan Peninsula to Camp O’Donnel. About 11,000 did not complete the march and were brutally beaten and killed.
The road is remembered by the Philippine American Memorial Endowment, which is marking the highway with kilometer markers. A plaque on the side indicates marker 26 is sponsored by the Sweet Home VFW.
The marker costs $500.
To help meet that goal, Juan Ulep prepared the dinner.
Ulep, living 35 kilometers away, witnessed a portion of the death march.
The Japanese didn’t have the logistics to move all of the prisoners, Ulep said. When prisoners could walk no further, they were beaten and driven through with a bayonet.
“I was sick because the Japanese didn’t treat the prisoners humanely,” Ulep said. He was almost 14 at the time.
To memorialize the men who walked that road, markers were made of two-inch pipe with the picture of a fallen soldier on a small piece of tin.
“That was a long time ago, and that piece of tin and pipe rusted,” Ulep said. Ulep and his wife, Donna, learned about a replacement project while visiting and attending a meeting.
“I think it’s worth of supporting it,” Ulep said. “So when I came back here, I sort of said something during our meeting here. At the next meeting, we decided this is a worthy cause” and began planning the dinner.
It didn’t stop with dinner, Ulep said. People have been donating money, including $100 from the Sons of AmVets, a veteran in Lebanon and Mary Ogden in Sweet Home.
“It gives respect appropriate for the American and Filipino troops that died there,” Ulep said. “It’s a courtesy to remember that they have not died in vain. We believe there should be a memorial to their sacrifices.”
“I think it’s so that we don’t forget,” Mrs. Ulep said.
Mr. Ulep was in the Philippines service from 1945 to 1947 as a cook. He served in the U.S. army from 1962 to 1983, working in logistics, transportation, infantry and as quartermaster. He also was a parachutist.
Mr. Ulep’s father served as a Philippines guerrilla during World War II. He would leave two or three days at a time during the war, and Mr. Ulep never knew about it until the end of the war, when he found out his father was a major.
The Japanese would search for guerrillas in the villages.
“I saw the Japanese quarantine an area in our village,” he said. “They messed you up. They whipped you.”
The Japanese used different methods of torture to get people to admit they were guerrillas, Mr. Ulep said.
Persons interested in donating for the marker can call the VFW at 367-4435.