Welcome to the American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor Memorial Society. We recently changed our name from Descendants Group--American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor to better reflect our mission and membership.
Our mission is to preserve and perpetuate the story of the men and women who defended the Philippines and other Allied outposts against overwhelming odds during the first months of World War II in the Pacific and later became prisoners-of-war. We will accomplish this through education, preservation of documents and artifacts, and historical research dedicated to telling the stories of the battles and the courage that allowed them to survive the deprivations of three and a half years of imprisonment and slave labor. We continue to host the American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor at our annual conventions.
2012 Annual Convention
The 2012 convention will be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on May 2-6, 2012. It will be held at the Hotel Albuquerque in Old Town. May 6, 2012 is the 70th Anniversary of the surrender of Corregidor. The Schedule of Events and Registration forms are available on our Current Conventions page. Information on the Memoir writing seminar and on an optional tour of Santa Fe and about Hot Air Balloon rides has also been added to the Current Conventions page.
New Documentary Film--"The Tragedy of Bataan"
Tragedy of Bataan website Jan Thompson's "Tragedy of Bataan" has received three awards at the Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts. The documentary film received "Award of Excellence" in the faculty documentary short form competition, the accompanying five-part radio series received the "Best of Festival" in faculty audio competition, and the Tragedy of Bataan website was awarded "Best of Competition Website" in the Faculty Interactive Multimedia Category. Please ask your local PBS stations to broadcast Tragedy of Bataan. DVDs of the program may be purchased from the PBS shop.
New--The DG is now funding competitive grants.
For 2012 there will be $5,000 in grant money available for a limited number of grants. Projects that tell the stories of the Japanese Invasion of the Philippines and other Pacific islands and the POWs that were held there or in other locations, or those that develop school curricula, or for development of a play, video production, art display or civic monuments depicting the experiences of the POWs of Japan are eligible for funding.
Links to the application form and guidelines can be found on our Grant Applications page.
Banner drawing by former POW Ben Steele.