Executive Director: Japanese Forces and Cecilia Gaerlan

executive director: Few Americans are aware of the Filipinos who were starving as they relentlessly fended off the more powerful and well-supplied Japanese forces, said Cecilia Gaerlan, executive director of the Berkeley, California-based Bataan Legacy Historical Society organizing the event at the former military fort, according to Brandon Sun. Despite fighting without any air support and without any reinforcement, they disrupted the timetable of the Imperial Japanese army, she said. They commemorated the mostly Filipino soldiers who held off Japanese forces in the Philippines for three months without supplies of food or ammunition before a U.S. Army major general surrendered 75,000 troops to Japan on April 9, 1942. That was their major role, to perform a delaying action. More than 250,000 Filipino soldiers served in World War II, when the Philippines were a U.S. territory. And they did that beyond expectations. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.