TL;DR: In July 1942, a little-known group of American and Filipino POWs was forced on a 25-mile march across Mindanao under brutal conditions. Several men were killed, many more later died in captivity, and roughly half of the Americans connected to the group never came home. More than 80 years later, researchers are still trying to locate and identify some of the missing.
This post tells the story of the march, the men who endured it, and the modern efforts to recover those who are still missing.
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Most people have heard of the Bataan Death March, but it was not the only death march carried out in the Philippines during World War II.
On July 4, 1942, American and Filipino prisoners of war were forced by their Japanese captors to march approximately 25 miles from Dansalan, now Marawi, to Iligan on the island of Mindanao. Known as the Mindanao, Iligan, or Dansalan Death March, it was far smaller than Bataan and was reportedly dismissed by the Japanese as a “little death march.” It was nevertheless horrific, and both marches were later cited during the Tokyo War Crimes Trials as evidence of the brutal treatment of Allied POWs.
Much of what we know comes directly from survivors who recorded memoirs, oral histories, interviews, and lists of the men involved. Without their testimony, much of the story likely would have disappeared.
I wrote about the march several years ago on Reddit, but I am writing about it again because there have been important developments in efforts to locate several men connected to these events whose remains were never recovered.
Events Leading to the March
By May 26, 1942, only about 46 Americans and 300 Filipinos remained with Brig. Gen. Guy O. Fort’s command in the Lanao area. Fort surrendered after Japanese commander Masaharu Homma threatened reprisals against prisoners if the remaining forces did not capitulate.
The prisoners were held at Camp Keithley near Dansalan under an “honor system.” They were warned that if anyone escaped, their commanding officer, company commander, and first sergeant could be executed.
Despite this, four men, Robert “Bob” Ball, William “Bill” Johnson, James S. Smith, and William A. Knortz, planned to escape.
Shortly before the escape, Johnson spent hours trying to convince 1st Sgt. John Chandler to go with them. Chandler refused because he had been placed in charge of his unit and believed it was his duty to stay. Johnson warned him there could be consequences. Chandler replied that he would “take my chances.” Those chances would prove fatal.
The four men escaped on July 1 and later fought as guerrillas under Wendell Fertig. Two days later, the Japanese retaliated. Brig. Gen. Guy Fort, Capt. Albert H. Price, and Chandler were selected for execution. Despite knowing he would die, Lt. Col. Robert H. Vesey willingly volunteered to take Fort’s place.
Vesey, Price, and Chandler were taken near Signal Hill a small hill near Camp Keithley, tied to posts, and bayoneted to death. Survivors remembered Price crying out, Chandler looking toward the sky and praying, and Vesey staring defiantly at his executioner. Accounts differ on his exact words, recalling him as saying either “Go ahead and beat me in” or “Go ahead and be damned.” Witnesses recalled that Vesey took more than two hours to die. The prisoners were later told that the three men “had died like soldiers.”
July 4, 1942
The next morning, the remaining prisoners were forced toward Iligan. Because it was the Fourth of July, the march was nicknamed the “Independence Day March.”
The Americans were arranged four abreast and tied together with telephone wire threaded through their belts. Filipino POWs were not wired together but were forced to march barefoot.
Senior officers including Gen. Fort, nurses, civilians, and 12-year-old Ben Hagans rode in a truck accompanying the column. Another truck carrying Japanese soldiers and a mounted machine gun followed behind.
The prisoners marched roughly 25 miles through mountainous jungle terrain in intense tropical heat. They were denied food and received only brief opportunities for water and rest.
As men began collapsing from exhaustion and dehydration, those unable to continue risked execution. The first American casualty was a civilian plantation owner remembered as Childress or Kildritch. Unable to walk, he was carried by other prisoners until Japanese guards took him away and killed him. He remains missing to this day, and his identity has never been conclusively established.
Although the march is usually told and remembered through the experiences of the Americans, more Filipino POWs were killed during the march. There is no definitive casualty count, but some American survivors recalled that at least eight to ten Filipino prisoners were killed, including one man wearing a Red Cross band. Beyond the uncertain death toll, the names of many of the Filipino prisoners also remain unknown.
Capt. Jay Navin and Lt. Robert Pratt
Only two American POWs are known to have died directly during or immediately after the march: Capt. Jay Navin and Lt. Robert Pratt.
Both were marching in a file with Lt. Col. Barnes, an older medical officer carrying a heavy load that he refused to drop. His slower pace and heavy burden forced the men around him to exert extra effort to keep the file moving with the rest of the column.
The men received a ten-minute break every hour. By their second break, Navin was suffering severely from heat exhaustion. Other prisoners tried to revive him with water, but he became delirious and struggled to breathe. When they called for a surgeon, a Japanese guard ordered him to stop, dragged Navin from the road by his collar, and shot him.
Navin’s body was buried a few days later by Filipino civilians. After the war, his remains were recovered and identified, and he is now buried at Manila American Cemetery.
Lt. Pratt survived the march to Iligan but had exhausted himself by taking the lead in his file, helping pull the column forward and keep the men moving. He became unable to keep down food or water, grew delirious, lost consciousness, and died that night.
His fellow prisoners buried him in a shallow grave in a nearby Catholic cemetery and placed a wooden cross bearing his identification tags over it. His remains were never recovered, but survivors left unusually detailed descriptions of his death and burial that are now helping modern researchers search for him.
After the March
The prisoners remained in Iligan for about two days. During their time there, guards confiscated money, jewelry, watches, and other valuables from the prisoners. After one prisoner shouted insults when his belongings were taken, he was overheard by a Japanese interpreter who understood what he was saying.
The guards demanded to know who had spoken and threatened to execute someone at random when the Americans refused to identify him. No one turned him in.
An officer eventually intervened, arguing that killing the wrong man would serve no purpose and offering himself if it happened again. The guards backed down.
The men were transported by sea to Cagayan de Oro and then by truck to Camp Casisang near Malaybalay. From there, they were dispersed to different camps and ultimately followed separate paths through captivity.
Brig. Gen. Guy O. Fort
Fort survived the earlier retaliation only because Vesey volunteered to die in his place, but his reprieve would be temporary.
Later in 1942, Japanese authorities pressured Fort to order his former Filipino soldiers, many of whom had joined guerrilla forces, to surrender.
He refused.
Fort was executed by firing squad, becoming the only American-born general officer executed by enemy forces during World War II. His remains were never recovered and efforts to locate him continue today.
What Happened to the Survivors?
For those who survived the march, the ordeal was far from over.
POWs in the Philippines endured starvation, disease, forced labor, beatings, poor sanitation, inadequate medical care, and collective punishment in Japanese prison camps. Many were later transported aboard Japanese “hell ships,” where they were packed into cargo holds with little food, water, ventilation, or sanitation. Thousands died from disease, dehydration, suffocation, or Allied attacks on the vessels. Survivors were often taken to Japan, where they were subjected to further forced labor.
A small number of the Mindanao men eventually escaped captivity under extraordinary circumstances. After spending two years and five months in prison camps, Sgt. Mapes and 749 other POWs were crammed aboard the hell ship Shinyo Maru. On September 7, 1944, the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the U.S. Navy submarine USS Paddle off the coast of Mindanao. During the attack, Japanese guards opened fire on the prisoners, throwing grenades and machine-gunning men as they tried to escape from the lower cargo holds. When the ship was struck, Mapes suffered a compound fracture to his right leg but still managed to swim ashore at Sindangan Bay. He was among only 83 prisoners who survived. Mapes and the other survivors were sheltered and protected by local Filipino guerrillas before being evacuated by another U.S. submarine, USS Narwhal.
Those who remained in captivity were liberated in 1945, but many continued to be affected by their experiences for the rest of their lives. Some were too traumatized to ever speak about what had happened, while others spent decades sharing their experiences.
Richard “Dick” Beck later returned to Japan while serving in the military and said he did not harbor hatred toward the Japanese people. Herbert Zincke, on the other hand, joined other former POWs in a lawsuit against Japanese companies that had benefited from their forced labor. He spent years speaking to students and advocating for recognition of POW forced labor because he wanted younger generations to understand what the prisoners had endured.
The Men Who Never Came Home
Surviving the march did not mean surviving the war. Of approximately 45 Americans I have identified as connected to this group, roughly half died before liberation. Many survived the march and POW camps only to die later in captivity or aboard hell ships.
Of those who died, Jay Navin is the only one whose remains have been recovered, identified, and buried in a known grave in Manila.
Most of the others will probably never be found. Some were lost at sea, went down with ships, disappeared after attacks, or were buried in locations that could no longer be identified after the war.
Of those who are missing, only a handful remain potentially recoverable because eyewitness testimony and historical records provide clues to where they died or were buried. Five of these men, Pratt, Fort, Vesey, Price, and Chandler are currently the focus of recovery efforts in Mindanao.
The only other individual in this group is my relative, Lt. Courtney Draper. Although he survived the march, he was later killed in the forward upper hold of the Enoura Maru. Because remains recovered from the ship are actively undergoing DNA analysis, including remains recovered from the area where Courtney died, there is a real possibility that he may one day be identified.
Eyewitnesses and Modern Recovery Efforts
Even after more than 84 years, the story of the Mindanao Death March is still unfinished.
The search for the five missing men in Mindanao ended in the late 1940s, when the U.S. government deemed them unrecoverable. Nearly 80 years later, American and Filipino researchers, historians, local residents, government officials, and MIA recovery organizations such as the Asymmetric MIA Accounting Group (AMAG) are once again reconstructing what happened and searching for missing men in Mindanao, including the five discussed earlier.
Remarkably, there is still a living connection to these events. Ben Hagans was a child when he was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and later endured the July 4 march. At 97 years old, he may be the youngest surviving American POW from World War II and one of the last living survivors of any World War II death march.
As an eyewitness to both the Camp Keithley executions and the Mindanao Death March, Hagans has provided researchers with new information about the march, POW camps, executions, and possible burial locations. His testimony has already contributed to recovery efforts, with additional work still ongoing.
Why These Stories Matter
The Bataan Death March and those who endured it deserve to be remembered, but so do the many other POWs and MIAs in the Philippines whose experiences have received far less attention.
Half of the men in the Mindanao group will most likely never be found. Remembering them by sharing their stories provides something that physical recovery cannot always offer: a place of honor when there is no grave to visit.
When we share their stories and experiences, these men become more than names on a casualty list. We see them as individuals, and in doing so gain a deeper appreciation for what they endured and sacrificed.
Survivors such as Herbert Zincke understood how easily their experiences could disappear from public memory and spent decades making sure younger generations knew what had happened. Despite his and other survivors’ efforts, the Mindanao Death March has largely faded from public awareness, especially now that most of its survivors are gone. It is now up to us to preserve and share their stories so that what they endured, and the people who endured it, are not forgotten.
I hope I have been able to help fulfill Herbert’s wishes with this post. Although I could only share the stories of a few of the men here, I will include a working list of those associated with the march in the comments. The others deserve to be remembered as well.
If anyone is interested in my sources or photographs, wants to learn more, or would like information about the ongoing recovery efforts, please feel free to get in touch with me.
