The Kempeitai was the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army. The organization also shared civilian secret police, espionage, and counter-intelligence roles within Japan and its occupied territories, and was notorious for its brutality and role in suppressing dissent. The broad duties of the Kempeitai included maintaining military discipline, enforcing conscription laws, protecting vital military zones, and investigating crimes among soldiers. In occupied areas, it also issued travel permits, recruited labor, arrested resistance, requisitioned food and supplies, spread propaganda, and suppressed anti-Japanese sentiment. At its peak at the end of World War II, the Kempeitai was an extensive corps with about 35,000 personnel.
The Raid at Cabanatuan, also known as the Great Raid, was a rescue of Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians from a Japanese camp near Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. On January 30, 1945, during World War II, United States Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas liberated more than 500 from the POW camp.
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission is a non-fiction book written by Hampton Sides. It is about the World War II Allied prison camp raid at Cabanatuan in the Philippines.
Henry Andrews Mucci was a colonel in the United States Army Rangers. In January 1945, during World War II, he led a force of 121 Army Rangers on a mission which rescued 513 survivors of the Bataan Death March from Cabanatuan Prison Camp, despite being heavily outnumbered. It is widely considered the most successful rescue mission in the history of the United States military.
The Alamo Scouts was a reconnaissance unit of the Sixth United States Army in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. The unit is best known for its role in liberating American prisoners of war (POWs) from the Japanese Cabanatuan POW camp near Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines in January 1945.
Captain Juan Pajota was involved in the Raid at Cabanatuan, an action which took place in the Philippines on 30 January 1945 by US Army Rangers and Filipino guerrillas and resulted in the liberation of more than 511 American prisoners of war (POWs) from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan.
The 6th Ranger Battalion was a United States Army Ranger Battalion which saw action in the Pacific during World War II. The battalion is best known for its role in the Raid at Cabanatuan in the Philippines in January 1945.
The Raid on Los Baños in the Philippines, early Friday morning on 23 February 1945, was executed by a combined United States Army Airborne and Filipino guerrilla task force, resulting in the liberation of 2,147 Allied civilian and military internees from an agricultural school campus turned Japanese internment camp. The 250 Japanese in the garrison were killed. It has been celebrated as one of the most successful rescue operations in modern military history. It was the second precisely-executed raid by combined U.S.-Filipino forces within a month, following on the heels of the Raid at Cabanatuan at Luzon on 30 January, in which 522 Allied military POWs had been rescued. The air/sea/land raid was the subject of a 2015 nonfiction book, Rescue at Los Baños: The Most Daring Prison Camp Raid of World War II, by New York Times bestselling author Bruce Henderson.
Margaret Elizabeth Doolin "Peggy" Utinsky was an American nurse who worked with the Filipino resistance movement to provide medicine, food, and other items to aid Allied prisoners of war in the Philippines during World War II. She was recognized in 1946 with the Medal of Freedom for her actions.
Arthur D. "Bull" Simons was a United States Army Special Forces colonel best known for leading the Sơn Tây raid, an attempted rescue of U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War from a North Vietnamese prison at Sơn Tây. He also led the successful 1979 rescue of two employees of Electronic Data Systems from prison in Iran.
Hong Sa-ik, also known by the Japanese reading of his name Kō Shiyoku, was a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army and the top-ranking ethnic Korean in Japan to be charged with war crimes relating to the conduct of the Empire of Japan in World War II.
Robert Lapham was a reserve lieutenant in the US Army in World War II. He served in the Philippines attached to the 45th Infantry, evaded capture in the spring of 1942, and organized and led one of the largest and most successful guerrilla armies on the central plains of the northern island of Luzon. He was promoted to major by war's end, age 28, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General Douglas MacArthur. Lapham was the third person, after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and MacArthur, to receive the Philippine Legion of Honor. Historian Norling says that Laphams's Luzon Guerrilla Army Force (LGAF) was probably the most efficient of the many guerrilla armies on Luzon. The U.S. Guerrilla Affairs Division commended Lapham for having the best-disciplined guerrilla organization.
Robert W. Prince was an officer in the United States Army's elite 6th Ranger Battalion. In 1945 he was chosen personally by Lt. Col. Henry Mucci to plan the rescue at the Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines.
Back to Bataan is a 1945 American black-and-white World War II war film drama from RKO Radio Pictures, produced by Robert Fellows, directed by Edward Dmytryk, that stars John Wayne and Anthony Quinn. The film depicts events that took place after the Battle of Bataan (1941–42) on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The working title of the film was The Invisible Army.
Return from the River Kwai is a 1989 British film directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring Edward Fox, Chris Penn and Timothy Bottoms.
Rafael Manio Ileto was a Filipino general who served as the 22nd Secretary of the Department of National Defense (DND) of the Philippines. He also became the Vice Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). He also served as Philippine Ambassador to Turkey, Iran, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos.
The Noborito Research Institute, officially the Army Ninth Technical Research Institute, was a military development laboratory run by the Imperial Japanese Army from 1939 to 1945. Based at a compound in the Noborito area of Tama-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, the institute developed special weapons and equipment for covert operations. Noborito's projects included intelligence and spycraft items, counterfeit Chinese currency, chemical and biological weapons, and the Fu-Go balloon bomb.
The Cabanatuan American Memorial is a World War II memorial located in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija in the Philippines. It is located on the site of what was once Camp Pangatian, a military training camp which operated for twenty years until it was converted into an internment camp for Allied prisoners of war during the Japanese occupation.
Bataan Rescue is a 2003 television documentary film about the Raid at Cabanatuan. Produced by PBS for the American Experience documentary program, it begins with the Fall of Bataan in 1942 up to the titular event in January 1945, where more than 500 prisoners of war were liberated from a Japanese camp in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. Directed by Peter Jones and written and produced by David Axelrod, the film first aired on PBS in the United States on July 7, 2003.
Naomi Flores (1921-2013) was active in the Philippine resistance to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. Flores was a member of the "Miss U Spy Ring." Working clandestinely and at great risk to herself, she delivered life-saving supplies and messages to American and Filipino prisoners of war in prison camps. She later married an American and moved to the United States. She was honored by the United States with a Medal of Freedom in 1948.
