Bataan Death March Statue and Walkway
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Bataan, a jungle peninsula on the island of Luzon, was a place where cornered Allied troops fought a last ditch action and surrendered after the Japanese invaded the Philippines. The 78,000 Americans and Filipinos were forced by their captors to walk 65 miles toward prison camps set up in the north. The hellish "Bataan Death March" of March 1942 claimed 11,000 lives from sickness, thirst, and summary executions by bayonet.
The infamous Death March is memorialized in a veterans park in Las Cruces with three larger-than-life bronze statues by sculptor Kelley S. Hestir. Two soldiers assist a third, collapsing comrade; the implication is he probably won't survive the ordeal. According to a sign, more New Mexicans were POWs of the Japanese "per capita" than any other state. The footprints of 38 soldiers "made from the feet of those who survived" create a path in the cement in front of the marchers.
Every year since 1989, a marathon run Bataan Memorial Death March is conducted through the high desert at nearby White Sands Missile Range.