SHRINE OF A THOUSAND HEROES

Every Filipino knows what happened during the Bataan Death March of 1942. It was when the Japanese Imperial Army forcibly transferred about 80,000 Filipino and American prisoner-soldiers from Bataan to the Province of Tarlac during the World War Two. Characterized by various physical abuse and torture, the inhumane treatment of the Japanese army then resulted to thousands and thousands of deaths.

The 106KM Death March Marker

The 128-km march started in Mariveles, Bataan. In Pampanga, many of these Filipino and Japanese soldiers were loaded into boxcars and transported to Tarlac. At the 106km mark, a lot of them were already dead and buried right there in Sto. Domingo, Capas. An inverted-V marker stands proud to this day to remind the Filipinos of it.
In the 1980’s, a new shrine was built in Barangay O’Donnel in Capas, where Death March had ended. Bones of the dead soldiers buried under the Death March Marker were transferred to this monument so that every 9th of April, Veteran’s Day, all of the perished were commemorated.Inside the 90-hectare land are thousands of trees that represent each of the perished soldier and an obelisk that point to the heavens. Surrounding this obelisk is a three-segment black wall of heroes, where all the names of the perished.