Friday, April 27, 2018

POW Convention May 3-5 in New Mexico


AMERICAN POWS OF JAPAN
COMMEMORATE THE 76TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH
May 3-5 in Albuquerque, NM
                                                                                                                        
A leading voice for Pacific War veterans and their families, the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor MemorialSociety (ADBC-MS)/, holds its annual convention Thursday, May 3 through Saturday, May 5 at the Hotel Albuquerque Old Town in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Convention features a panel discussion with former POWs and family members who traveled to Japan last year as guests of the Japanese government. There will also be presentations on the Texas Lost Battalion, a Texas National Guard unit surrendered on Java in early 1942, on the life of a New Mexico survivor of the Bataan Death March, and on the fate of 19 members the 27th Bomb Group, who evaded capture on Bataan by hiding in the Filipino jungles.
Keynote speakers will be Dr. Frank Blazich, curator for the Division of Armed Forces History at the National Museum of American History (Smithsonian), discussing his new book, Bataan Survivor, in a talk entitled, Dapecol: the Davao Penal Colony as Experienced by Col. David L. Hardee and Major General NM Kenneth A. Nava, The Adjutant General, New Mexico National Guard. Two New Mexico National Guard units, the 515th Coast Artillery and the 200th Coast Artillery, fought in the defense the Philippine Islands.
Free and open to the public will be a screening on Saturday, May 5 at 2:30pm of Paper Lanterns (60 minutes), an award winning documentary on the quest of a Hiroshima survivor to discover the identities and honor the memory of the 12 American POWs who were killed in the bombing of Hiroshima.
The ADBC-MS promotes education and scholarship about the POW experience in the Pacific and supports programs of reconciliation and understanding.  The ADBC-MS is the point of contact for all official U.S. government activities affecting American POWs of Japan, such as the annual Japan/POW Friendship visits to Japan and the annual White House Veterans Breakfast.
Over 26,000 Americans were POWs of Imperial Japan. Nearly 11,000 died in POW camps, aboard “hell ships,” or as slave laborers to Japanese companies. Only an estimated 15,000 returned home.

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