History Edition: Asia History: Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath

"The Bataan Death March has been written about before, and well, by a number of historians . . . But then you pick up Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman’s calm, stirring and humane Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath, and you think: yes, we needed another . . . Tears in the Darkness is authoritative history. Ten years in the making, it is based on hundreds of interviews with American, Filipino and Japanese combatants. But it is also a narrative achievement. The book seamlessly blends a wide-angle view with the stories of many individual participants. And at this book’s beating emotional heart is the tale of just one American soldier, a young cowboy and aspiring artist out of Montana named Ben Steele . . . What is now known as the Bataan Death March began on April 10, 1942. Some 76,000 soldiers, many already close to death, were forced to walk 66 miles during the hottest season of the year—there were almost no buildings along the way, no trees, no shade—with little food and almost no water. It was called a death march for a simple reason: if you stopped marching, you were killed, by bayonet or rifle. There were many other ways to die during the Bataan Death March; it was a spree of arbitrary brutality. For sport, Japanese soldiers fractured skulls with their rifle butts. Japanese tanks ran over men who fell. Good Samaritans who tried to help fallen comrades were beaten or stabbed. Men were forced to bury others alive. To be on this march, one soldier said, was what it must feel like to 'come to the end of civilization' . . . What’s remarkable about this story, for Ben Steele and many others, was that it was just the beginning of the horrors that awaited them as Japanese prisoners of war . . . There are many Japanese voices in Tears in the Darkness. Mr. and Ms. Norman don't excuse Japan’s actions, but place them in careful context. Japanese soldiers, they write, were the products of 'a closed world of violence where men were subjected to the most brutal system of army discipline in the world.' These soldiers 'had been savaged to produce an army of savage intent' . . . In the end, though, Tears in the Darkness is a book about heroism and survival. All along you are glued, out of the corner of your eye, to one story, Ben Steele’s. If you aren't weeping openly by the book’s final scenes, when he is at last able to call home and let his family know that he is still alive after more than three years 'missing in action,' during which time this thin young man lost 50 pounds, then you have a hard crust of salt around your soul."—Dwight Gardener, The New York Times

"Balanced, beautifully written . . . Many books have examined World War II in the Philippines, but none of them pack the punch of, or are as beautifully written as, this compelling volume . . . A superb book about the unspeakable tragedy of war and the triumph of the human spirit."—Terry Hartle, The Christian Science Monitor

"For Americans the Death March was a first encounter with the brutality that would define Japan's military behavior, and the fact that the story has been told many times before does not dissuade Michael and Elizabeth Norman, both professors at New York University, from another effort. The result is an extremely detailed and thoroughly chilling treatment that, given the passage of time and thinning of ranks, could serve as popular history's final say on the subject. The Normans spent a decade in research and writing, interviewing more than 100 surviving American veterans and relatives of scores of others, and traveling to Japan to track down the most elusive and difficult sources some 20 former soldiers who were involved in the march and a guard from one of the miserable camps where more captives died from sickness, torture or starvation. The authors also find an ideal protagonist in Ben Steele, a former Montana cowboy who in 1940, at 22, joined the Army Air Corps and was sent to the Philippines. Steele survived the Death March and prison camp, and his personal story is the thread by which the authors spin their harrowing narrative, also using Steele's sketches to illustrate it . . . They have little admiration for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. commander in the Philippines who was being glorified at home in 1942 as the greatest American military hero since Ulysses S. Grant. On Jan. 15, the authors report, MacArthur sent his beleaguered troops on Bataan a would-be morale booster, promising them that reinforcements in the form of troops and planes were on the way from the United States. 'It was a lie, a Judas kiss,' they write. 'The Philippines was cut off. Washington knew it and so did MacArthur.'"—Richard Pyle, Associated Press

"Deeply researched and finely documented, Tears in Darkness is written brilliantly in lucid prose . . . A model of excellence in historical bookmaking . . . I couldn't put it down."—Philip Kopper, The Washington Times

"Tears in the Darkness should be required reading for students learning about World War II. Michael and Elizabeth Norman have written a lean, moving account about the infamous Bataan Death March. They describe what happened to the 76,000 American and Filipino soldiers who surrendered to the Japanese in 1942. Many books have described the atrocities. Prisoners were starved, beaten and killed. This is different. It's told from the perspective of an ordinary American soldier named Ben Steele, whose drawings illustrate the book. The authors also interview Filipino and Japanese soldiers. The story they all tell has nothing to do with Hollywood heroics. It's about what men do to survive. Powerful."—Deirdre Donahue, USA Today

"Tears in the Darkness is a valuable addition to the literature on the war. It is the best single volume on Bataan now available. Through a hard-driving narrative interspersed with numerous flashbacks, the Normans retell the painful saga of the battle to control the Philippines, which occurred in late 1941 and early 1942; the 66-mile Death March that followed the surrender; the atrocities that took place in the Japanese POW camps; and the Japanese 'Hell Ships' that transported thousands of POWs to the home islands for slave labor. Although the authors weave the stories of many people in and out of the narrative, they focus largely on Ben Steele, a young Montana cowboy who endured 41 months of agonizing captivity. During this ordeal Steele discovered his artistic talents—he would later become an art professor—and quietly began to sketch his surroundings. Since we have minimal visual documentation of Philippine POW camp life, Steele's many pen-and-ink drawings, recrea...