Orrin Hatch: “I rise today with my co-sponsor, Senator Feinstein, to introduce legislation that will help a very special cadre of…”

“I rise today with my co-sponsor, Senator Feinstein, to introduce legislation that will help a very special cadre of Americans, a group of Americans that, over 50 years ago, paid a very dear price on behalf of our country. The incredible sacrifice made by these Americans has never properly been acknowledged, and it is high time that they receive some measure of compensation for that sacrifice. On April 9, 1942, Allied forces in the Philippines surrendered the Bataan Peninsula to the Japanese. Ten to twelve thousand American soldiers were forced to march some 60 miles in broiling heat in a deadly trek known as the Bataan Death March. Following a lengthy internment under horrific conditions, thousands of POWs were shipped to Japan in the holds of freighters known as 'Hell Ships.' Once in Japan, the survivors of the Bataan Death March were joined by hundreds of other American POWs, POWs who had been captured by the Japanese in actions throughout the Pacific theater of war, at Corregidor, at Guam, at Wake Islands, and at countless other battlegrounds. After arriving in Japan, many of the American POWs were forced into slave labor for private Japanese steel mills and other private companies until the end of the war. During their internment, the American POWs were subjected to torture, and to the withholding of food and medical treatment, in violation of international conventions relating to the protection of prisoners of war.”