war camps were appalling, leading to increased disease and malnutrition, which precipitated extraordinary death rates of as high as 300 per day. (13) Thousands of troops fought under siege conditions on Corregidor (Fort Mills), a fortress island in Manila Bay, the headquarters of the wartime U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, and the nearby fortified islands of Fort Hughes, Fort Drum, and Fort Frank until May 6, 1942. (14) On May 6, 1942, Corregidor, which had become the military command center for all the Philippines, United States Forces in the Philippines (USFIP), was surrendered by Lt. General Jonathan M. Wainwright. Nearly 10,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines as well as over 3,000 Filipino soldiers and nurses become POWs of Imperial Japan. (15) On June 6, 1942, the prisoners at Camp O’Donnell were transferred to Camp Cabanatuan, north of Camp O’Donnell. (16) Nearly 26,000 of the 50,000 Filipino prisoners of war died at Camp O’Donnell and survivors were gradually paroled from September through December 1942. (17) Between September of 1942 and December of 1944, prisoners of war from the Armed Forces who had survived the horrific death march were shipped north for forced labor aboard hell ships and succumbed in great numbers because of the abysmal conditions. Many of those ships were mistakenly targeted by Allied naval forces because the Japanese military convoys were not properly labeled as carrying prisoners of war. The sinking of the Arisan Maru alone claimed nearly 1,800 lives of members of the Armed Forces. (18) The prisoners who remained in the camps suffered from continued mistreatment, malnutrition, lack of medical care, and horrific conditions until they were liberated in 1945. (19) The veterans of Bataan and Corregidor represented the best of the United States and the Philippines, hailed from various locales across both countries, and represented true diversity. (20) Over the subsequent decades, the veterans of Bataan and Corregidor formed support groups, were honored in local and