Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Congressional Gold Medal Act

II 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 1079 To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the troops from the United States and the Philippines who defended Bataan and Corregidor, in recognition of their personal sacrifice and service during World War II. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES APRIL 13, 2021 Mr. HEINRICH (for himself, Mr. LUJA´N, Ms. SINEMA, Ms. ERNST, and Mr. CORNYN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs A BILL To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the troops from the United States and the Philippines who defended Ba- taan and Corregidor, in recognition of their personal sacrifice and service during World War II. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Defenders of Bataan 4 and Corregidor Congressional Gold Medal Act’’. 5 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 6 Congress finds the following: 7 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •S 1079 IS (1) Hours after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, 1 Hawaii, Imperial Japanese forces launched an at- 2 tack on the Philippines, cutting off vital lines of 3 communication to members of the Armed Forces of 4 the United States (referred to in this Act as the 5 ‘‘Armed Forces’’) and Filipino troops in the Far 6 East under the command of General Douglas Mac- 7 Arthur. 8 (2) On December 8, 1941, the 200th and 515th 9 Coast Artillery Regiments, successors to the New 10 Mexico National Guardsmen who made up part of 11 the famed ‘‘Rough Riders’’ of the Spanish-American 12 War, were the ‘‘first to fire’’. 13 (3) Despite being cut off from supply lines and 14 reinforcements, members of the Armed Forces and 15 Philippine troops quickly executed a plan to delay 16 the Japanese invasion and defend the Philippines 17 against that invasion. 18 (4) Combined Armed Forces and Filipino 19 ground forces fought a prolonged 6-month resistance 20 to Imperial Japan’s invasion of the Philippines. 21 With the Armed Forces unable to deliver reinforce- 22 ments, the Armed Forces and Filipino forces slowly 23 deteriorated in combat effectiveness from— 24 (A) lack of food, supplies, and ammunition; 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •S 1079 IS (B) disease; and 1 (C) no air and naval support. 2 (5) By December 10, 1941, the United States 3 Army Air Corps airfields at Del Carmen, Clark, 4 Nichols, and Nielson on Luzon in the Philippines, as 5 well as the nearby United States naval facilities at 6 Cavite and Olongapo, had been destroyed. The sur- 7 viving sailors, marines, and airmen were organized 8 into provisional infantry units and sent to fight on 9 the Bataan Peninsula. 10 (6) By April 1942, troops from the United 11 States and the Philippines had bravely and staunch- 12 ly fought off enemy attacks in Bataan for more than 13 4 months under strenuous conditions that resulted 14 in widespread starvation and disease. 15 (7) Securing the withdrawal of Armed Forces 16 on Luzon to the Bataan Peninsula were the fol- 17 lowing: 18 (A) 1,809 New Mexico National Guards- 19 men from 200th and 515th Coast Artillery 20 (Antiaircraft) regiments. First stationed at 21 Fort Stotsenberg north of Manila, they are 22 credited as being the ‘‘first to fire’’ in the de- 23 fense of the Philippines on December 8, 1941. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 4 •S 1079 IS (B) 1,006 National Guardsmen of the 1 192nd GHQ Light Tank Battalion (596) com- 2 posed of Company A from Janesville, Wis- 3 consin, Company B from Maywood, Illinois, 4 Company C from Port Clinton, Ohio, and Com- 5 pany D from Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and the 6 194th Light Tank Battalion (410) composed of 7 Company A from Brainerd, Minnesota, Com- 8 pany B from Saint Joseph, Missouri, and Com- 9 pany C from Salinas, California. The 192nd 10 and 194th Tank Battalions had arrived in the 11 Philippines on or before Thanksgiving Day, 12 1941. 13 (8) Barely 1⁄2 of the men from the National 14 Guard units described in paragraph (7) returned 15 home at the end of the war, with the majority dying 16 as prisoners of war of the Imperial Japanese Army. 17 (9) By maintaining their position and engaging 18 the enemy for as long as they did, the troops at Ba- 19 taan were able to change the momentum of the war, 20 delaying the Japanese timetable to take control of 21 the Southeast Pacific for needed war materials. Be- 22 cause of the heroic actions of the defenders of Ba- 23 taan, members of the Armed Forces and other Allied 24 forces throughout the Pacific had time to regroup 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 5 •S 1079 IS and prepare for the successful liberation of the Pa- 1 cific and the Philippines. 2 (10) On April 9, 1942, approximately 12,000 3 members of the Armed Forces and 66,000 Filipino 4 soldiers became prisoners of war with the surrender 5 of the Armed Forces and Filipino forces on the Ba- 6 taan Peninsula in the Philippines by Major General 7 Edward P. King. 8 (11) Beginning on April 9, 1942, and lasting 9 for almost 2 weeks, troops from the Armed Forces 10 and the Philippines were taken prisoner and forced 11 to march 65 miles without any food, water, or med- 12 ical care in what came to be known as the ‘‘Bataan 13 Death March’’. They marched from Marviveles north 14 to the San Fernando train station. At San Fer- 15 nando, the men were packed standing in 16 unventilated boxcars for the 24-mile journey by rail 17 to Capas. Survivors then marched an additional 3 18 miles to the makeshift prisoner-of-war camp at 19 Camp O’Donnell, an unfinished Philippine Army 20 training facility. 21 (12) During this forced march, an estimated 22 700 members of the Armed Forces and possibly 23 10,000 Filipino soldiers died from starvation, lack of 24 medical care, sheer exhaustion, or abuse by their 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 6 •S 1079 IS captors. Hundreds of men on the Death March re- 1 main unaccounted for from the march and its imme- 2 diate aftermath. 3 (13) Conditions at the prisoner-of-war camps 4 were appalling, leading to increased disease and mal- 5 nutrition, which precipitated extraordinary death 6 rates of as high as 300 per day. 7 (14) Thousands of troops fought under siege 8 conditions on Corregidor (Fort Mills), a fortress is- 9 land in Manila Bay, the headquarters of the wartime 10 U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, and the nearby 11 fortified islands of Fort Hughes, Fort Drum, and 12 Fort Frank until May 6, 1942. 13 (15) On May 6, 1942, Corregidor, which had 14 become the military command center for all the Phil- 15 ippines, United States Forces in the Philippines 16 (USFIP), was surrendered by Lt. General Jonathan 17 M. Wainwright. Nearly 10,000 members of the 18 Armed Forces as well as more than 3,000 Filipino 19 soldiers and nurses became prisoners of war of Im- 20 perial Japan. 21 (16) On June 6, 1942, the prisoners at Camp 22 O’Donnell were transferred to Camp Cabanatuan, 23 north of Camp O’Donnell. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 7 •S 1079 IS (17) Nearly 26,000 of the 50,000 Filipino pris- 1 oners of war died at Camp O’Donnell and survivors 2 were gradually paroled from September through De- 3 cember 1942. 4 (18) Between September of 1942 and December 5 of 1944, prisoners of war from the Armed Forces 6 who had survived the horrific death march were 7 shipped north for forced labor aboard ‘‘hell ships’’ 8 and succumbed in great numbers because of the 9 abysmal conditions. Many of those ships were mis- 10 takenly targeted by Allied naval forces because the 11 Japanese military convoys were not properly labeled 12 as carrying prisoners of war. The sinking of the 13 Arisan Maru alone claimed nearly 1,800 lives of 14 members of the Armed Forces. 15 (19) The prisoners who remained in the camps 16 suffered from continued mistreatment, malnutrition, 17 lack of medical care, and horrific conditions until 18 they were liberated in 1945. 19 (20) The veterans of Bataan and Corregidor 20 represented the best of the United States and the 21 Philippines, hailed from various locales across both 22 countries, and represented true diversity. 23 (21) Over the subsequent decades, the veterans 24 of Bataan and Corregidor formed support groups, 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 8 •S 1079 IS were honored in local and State memorials, and told 1 their stories to all people of the United States. 2 (22) The United States Navy has continued to 3 honor the history and stories of the veterans of Ba- 4 taan by naming 2 ships after the battle, including 1 5 ship that is still in service, the USS Bataan (LHD– 6 5), in memory of their valor and honorable resist- 7 ance against Imperial Japanese forces. 8 (23) Many of the survivors of Bataan and Cor- 9 regidor have died and those who remain continue to 10 tell their stories. 11 (24) The people of the United States and the 12 Philippines are forever indebted to these men for— 13 (A) the courage and tenacity they dem- 14 onstrated during the first 4 months of World 15 War II fighting against enemy soldiers; and 16 (B) the perseverance they demonstrated 17 during 3 years of capture, imprisonment, and 18 atrocious conditions, while maintaining dignity, 19 honor, patriotism, and loyalty. 20 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 21 (a) AWARD AUTHORIZED.—The Speaker of the 22 House of Representatives and the President pro tempore 23 of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the 24 collective award, on behalf of Congress, of a gold medal 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 9 •S 1079 IS of appropriate design to the troops from the United States 1 and the Philippines who defended Bataan and Corregidor, 2 in recognition of their personal sacrifice and service during 3 World War II. 4 (b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For purposes of the 5 award under subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury 6 (referred to in this Act as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall strike 7 the gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and in- 8 scriptions, to be determined by the Secretary. 9 (c) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.— 10 (1) IN GENERAL.—Following the award of the 11 gold medal under subsection (a), the gold medal 12 shall be given to the Smithsonian Institution, where 13 it shall be displayed as appropriate and made avail- 14 able for research. 15 (2) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of 16 Congress that the Smithsonian Institution should 17 make the gold medal received under paragraph (1) 18 available for display at other locations, particularly 19 at locations that are associated with the prisoners of 20 war at Bataan and the troops from the United 21 States and the Philippines who defended Bataan and 22 Corregidor. 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 10 •S 1079 IS SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 1 (a) STRIKING OF DUPLICATES.—Under such regula- 2 tions as the Secretary may prescribe, the Secretary may 3 strike duplicates in bronze of the gold medal struck under 4 section 3. 5 (b) SELLING OF DUPLICATES.—The Secretary may 6 sell such duplicates under subsection (a) at a price suffi- 7 cient to cover the costs of such duplicates, including labor, 8 materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses. 9 (c) PROCEEDS OF SALE.—Amounts received from the 10 sale of duplicate bronze medals under subsection (b) shall 11 be deposited in the United States Mint Public Enterprise 12 Fund. 13 SEC. 5. STATUS OF MEDALS. 14 (a) NATIONAL MEDALS.—Medals struck under this 15 Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 16 31, United States Code. 17 (b) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of section 18 5134 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck 19 under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic items. 20 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Apr 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S1079.IS S1079 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS