The Japanese attacked the Philippines the day after Pearl Harbor December 7, 1942, For three months after the Japanese began their attack on the Philippines, the combined US-Filipino army held out despite lack of naval and air support, crippled by starvation and disease. On April 9, 1942, 75,000 troops, of which 23,000 were American, surrendered and were forced on the Bataan Death March. Thousands of troops died because of the brutality of their captors. Thousands more died in POW camps because of disease, mistreatment and starvation. Others were shipped to Japan to provide slave labor for companies such as Mitsubishi.
Iris Chang wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled Betrayed by the White House in which she made the case for getting reparations for the 5,000 servicemen still living who were used as slave labor by the Japanese for companies such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Nippon Steel.
The Bataan survivors sought reparations and apologies from the Japanese government over many years. In 2009, Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan’s ambassador to the US apologized. Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Mitsubishi apologized in 2015.
