Professor Greg Jackson

I managed to grasp the rifle and hold it long enough to plunge the bayonet again and again deep into his neck.

I cringed as deeply into my foxhole as I could and listened as the gurgling and choking gradually slowed.

After 19 straight days of fighting, with almost no artillery and barely any rations, the Americans and Filipinos stopped the Japanese from linking the pockets and managed to reform the Abukai Line on February 17, 1942.

Bataan is still theirs, and for the first time since the first torpedo struck in Pearl Harbor's shallow waters, the Japanese have not only been stopped, but pushed back.

But the good news doesn't last.

General Homa responds with a blockade around the peninsula.

By February 26th, American and Filipino forces on Bataan are completely cut off from the outside world, including American units on other Philippine islands.

Food is so scarce that, soon, Ed and the 26th Cavalry will resort to slaughtering their horses for meat.

As the news tightens, General Douglas MacArthur, now headquartered on the island of Corregidor, just south of Luzon Island's Bataan Peninsula, gets an order from Washington in order to leave.

See, President Franklin D. Roosevelt doesn't want the Japanese winning a propaganda victory by capturing Doug.

So, the Far East commander and Philippine President Manuel Quezon are ordered to evacuate to Australia.

Previously, Doug had refused such suggestions, insisting he'll stay with his troops, his boys.

But this is a direct order from the president.

He feels that he has no choice.

That said, one sailor will later remark, this is the only time Doug ever does as he's told.

But even then, doing as he's told isn't easy.

The journey to Australia begins at 7.30 p.m., March 11th, 1942, on Corregidor's bomb-damaged South Dock.

Doug is joined by several generals, his staff, including chief aide and friend, Sid Huff, and his family, his wife, Jean, his four-year-old, Arthur, and the boy's nanny, a Cantonese woman named Lao Gao, called Ah Chiu, who Doug insists has been part of the family since Arthur's birth.

This whole group is traveling to Australia, though no one knows if they'll make it even the first 10 miles.

The first leg is by sea.