Mount Pinatubo before 1991
Before 1991, Mt. Pinatubo was an unremarkable and
heavily eroded mountain. It was covered in dense forest which supported a
population of several thousand indigenous people, the Aeta.
Mount Pinatubo Eruption
In mid-March 1991, villagers around Mt. Pinatubo
began feeling earthquakes and after several explosions a Level 5 alert was
issued indicating an eruption was in progress. On June 15th 1991,
the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century took place when
Mt Pinatubo erupted at 1:42 pm local time. The eruption lasted for nine hours
and caused several large earthquakes which resulted in the collapse of the
summit and the creation of a caldera.
At the time of the eruption, Tropical Storm Yunya was
passing to the northeast of Mt. Pinatubo, causing a large amount of rainfall in
the region. The ash that was ejected from the volcano mixed with the water in
the air caused a rainfall of tephra that fell across almost the entire island
of Luzon. There was 10 cm of ash covering an area of 2000 square kilometers and
most of the 800 people who died during the eruption died due to the weight of
the ash collapsing roofs. Had Tropical Storm Yunya not been nearby, the death
toll from the volcano would have been much lower.
Mount Pinatubo Destruction
The human impact of the disaster was staggering. In
addition to the 800 people who lost their lives, there was almost half a
billion dollars in property and economic damage. The economy of central Luzon
was horribly disrupted and the Aeta people were the hardest hit. The total
destruction of many villages meant that many Aeta were unable to return to
their former way of life. The volcanic eruption and two typhoons that entered
the area when the volcano was erupting, turned the breadbasket of the
Philippines into a desolate waste land.
Crater Lake
After the eruptions ended, a crater lake was formed
which was hot and highly acidic. Abundant rainfall cooled and diluted the lake
and increased its depth by about 1 metre per month on average. In September
2001, fears that the walls of the crater might be unstable prompted the
Philippine government to order a controlled draining of the lake. Workers cut a
5 metre notch in the crater rim, and successfully drained about a quarter of
the lake's volume. Swimming in the lake is allowed although it is restricted to
the banks.
·
Tephra: The solid material thrown into the air by a
volcanic eruption that settles on the surrounding areas
·
Caldera.
A large crater formed by volcanic explosion or by collapse of a volcanic cone.
The Aeta
The Aeta are the indigenous people of Mt. Pinatubo who
live in scattered, isolated mountainous parts of Luzon. They were a hunter-gatherer people who were
extremely successful in surviving in the dense jungles and are thought to be
among the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines. The Aeta tribe has always
shown resistance to change and all attempts by the Spanish to settle them in
reservations failed.
Mining, deforestation, illegal logging, and
slash-and-burn farming has caused the indigenous population in all parts of the
Philippines to steadily decrease to the point where they number in the
thousands today. The Philippines affords
them no protection. In addition, the Aeta have become extremely nomadic due to
the social and economic strain on their culture and way of life that had
previously remained unchanged for thousands of years.
Camp O'Donnell (starting point of your trip)
Camp
O'Donnell was a facility of the United States Air Force. During the Japanese
occupation of the Philippines in World War II, Camp O'Donnell was the final
stop of the Bataan Death March and was used as an interment camp for American
and Filipino prisoners of war. About 2,200 Americans and 27,000 Filipinos died
at Camp O'Donnell. The former interment camp is the location for the Capas
National Shrine which was built and is maintained by the Philippine government
as a memorial to the Filipino and American soldiers who died there. Camp
O'Donnell is now a camp of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Crow Valley
Crow
Valley is the moonlike valley you cross when using the 4x4 jeeps to take you to
Mt. Pinatubo. The Crow Valley Bombing and Gunnery Range was the main bombing
range of the United States Armed Forces in the western Pacific and was located
at Camp O'Donnell.
The
42-mile facility was located approximately 14 miles from Clark Air Base and was
primarily used for aerial combat training, which include bombing practice. The
facility featured an airfield as well as sophisticated electronic warfare installations,
including advanced radar and radar jamming equipment and even a Russian
surface-to-air missile installation. At present, the facility is used for
practice by the Philippine Air Force.
Capas National Shrine
The
Capas National Shrine is a memorial to the Filipino and American soldiers who
died in Camp O'Donnell at the end of the Bataan Death March. The shrine
encompasses 54 hectares of parkland, 35 hectares of which have been planted
with rows of trees to represent each of the deceased. A 70-meter obelisk towers
above the grounds of the former interment camp. The obelisk is surrounded by a
black marble wall engraved with the names of the Filipinos and Americans known
to have died. Nearby is a small museum and monument built by the Battling
Bastards of Bataan honouring the American dead at Camp O'Donnell.
The
Bataan Death March
The
Bataan Death march was a forced march of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners
of war captured by the Japanese from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps at
Capas and Cabanatuan in April 1942. Only about 54,000 men survived the 140 km
march
It
was characterized by wide ranging physical abuse and murder; and resulted in
very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians by the
Japanese. The cutting of throats and casual shootings were the more common and
merciful actions compared to bayonet stabbings, disembowelment and deliberate
refusal of food and water to the prisoners while keeping them continually
marching for nearly a week (for the slowest survivors) in the tropical heat.
Falling down or the inability to continue moving was tantamount to a death
sentence, as was any degree of protest or expression of displeasure.
Prisoners
were attacked for assisting someone failing due to weakness, or for no apparent
reason whatsoever. Strings of Japanese trucks were known to drive over anyone
who fell. Riders in vehicles would casually stick out a rifle bayonet and cut a
string of throats in lines of men marching alongside the road.
The
carnage was not only limited to prisoners. Filipino villagers along the route
often attempted to give water to the men out of compassion and as a result were
shot or killed outright in the street in front of their families and children.
To this day, the Bataan Death March remains one of the most infamous and
horrific war crimes in the annals of military history.
Filipino Soldiers World War II
During
World War II, the Philippines was a United States commonwealth. 250,000 Filipinos
soldiers joined the war effort and played an extremely important role; fighting
valiantly alongside their American counterparts during the Japanese invasion
and the American liberation. However there were many hardships and the pay was
very low - this poem below sums up the difficulty of being a Filipino soldier during
World War II
I
was a Filipino soldier,
A
soldier of MacArthur.
My
denim pants were short cut,
My
helmet made from a coconut
And
the Japs killed us each day.
Do
you think it was that easy
To
be a soldier of MacArthur?
The
coffee was weak and cold
The
rice was moldy and old
and
all for five pesos a day.
Battling Bastards of Baatan
The
75,000 American and Filipino forces under the command of General Douglas
MacArthur on Bataan and Corregidor were to become known as the Battling
Bastards of Bataan. The bulk of the soldiers were untrained, unequipped, and
communication between the troops was difficult. Many of the U.S. and Filipino
soldiers who were left behind felt abandoned and the song below sarcastically
reveals the feelings of the weary and hungry soldiers.
After
surrendering to the Japanese in Bataan the surviving U.S. & Filipino
soldiers were forced on a brutal march to Camp O'Donnell in Northern Luzon. Of
the 70,000 prisoners of war forced on the Bataan Death March nearly 10,000
died. Those who were glad the march was over found no relief; in a little more
than a month over 22,000 died in Camp O’Donnell. Disease, exhaustion and
torture led to one of the highest rates of POW death in World War II.
Liberation for most of the Battling Bastards of Bataan came in August 1945. One
third of the prisoners who were liberated later died within a year, their
bodies and minds ravaged by their experiences.
“We're the Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn. Nobody gives a damn.”
Written
by Frank Hewlett in 1942
Kamikaze Peace Shrine
The
Memorial and Kamikaze Peace Shrine marks the site of the old runway used by
Kamikaze pilots and is located in Mabalacat, Pampanga. It is a tribute to the
first Kamikaze attacks on American ships during World War II and is frequently
visited by tourists, especially Japanese.
The
memorial was built by the Mabalacat Tourism Office; not for the glorification
of the Kamikaze but rather as a reminder that the Kamikaze phenomenon shall
never happen again.
