- 20 - Pacific War - Fall of Bataan & the Bataan Death March , April 5-12, 1942

Four months have passed since the start of the Pacific War, and of all the initial objectives of the Japanese Empire, only one remained unachieved. The invaders had up until now conquered the Dutch East Indies, advanced down the Malayan Peninsula to capture Singapore, expanded through a series of islands in the Pacific Ocean, and achieved important air and naval attacks that caused havoc on the Allied fleets. Furthermore, with the fall of Rangoon, the Burma operation was on good track, so Tokyo was planning to shift to phase two of operations, looking east towards Midway and the US, south towards Australia and New Guinea and west towards Ceylon and India. But despite the early capture of Manila, still there was a huge thorn on the Japanese side that hadn’t been vanquished by the invaders. Thus, today we’ll continue to cover the Battle of Bataan as the Japanese get reinforced and prepare for a final assault against the Filipino defenders.