Bangkok--13 Oct--Image Impact
Title: Philippine Resistance: Refusal to Surrender
Channel: HISTORY on TrueVisions A23 and D48
Telecast Date & Time: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 9.00 p.m.
9th April 1942, American forces make a final stand against the invading Japanese at Bataan in the Philippines. The situation is desperate. Food and ammunition are exhausted. The worst capitulation in American military history is just hours away. Among the defenders that day is Richard Sakakida, a first generation Japanese-American and General Douglas MacArthur's personal translator. A year earlier, Richard has been sent to Manila on a top-secret mission. Travelling incognito from his home in Hawaii as a deck hand on board a US Army transport, he was to live among the Japanese community in Manila and flush out the spies and agents of the Japanese army. Sakakida gets a job in a Japanese-run hotel, the perfect cover to observe the passports of Japanese visitors to the city. But the attack on Pearl Harbour ends this operation. The Americans order all Japanese aliens to report for internment. sakakida has to obey or blow his cover. But a few days before the Japanese enter Manila, the Americans snatch Sakakida from prison. On Christmas Eve, while bombs fall on Manila, he is bundled onto a tiny stramer bound for Bataan. here sakakida becomes General MacArthur's personal interpreter. He is sent on patrols. He interrogates prisoners-of-war. Sakakida even ventures to the front to collect papers and diaries off the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers in search of valuable information. But on 9th April 1942, Bataan falls. 76,000 American and Filippino soldiers are taken prisoner and forced to embark on the infamous Bataan Death March. One of them is Sakakida. The dreaded Japanese military police, the Kempeitei, take a special interest in Sakakida. He is severely tortured. For a year, Sakakida insists he was forced to work for the Americans, until he convinces a Colonel who takes him on as a translator. Sakakida now finds himself with easy access to sensitive documents but no way of transmitting these secrets to the Americans. But one day, the wife of an imprisoned Filipino guerrilla leader walks into Sakakida's office to apply for a visit pass. He reveals his true identity to her and they hatch a plot. With members of the Filipino resistance, they engineer the escape of 500 resistance fighters from prison. By 1943, Sakakida himself joins the resistance in the jungle. But an injury during an attack leaves him to fend for himself alone in the jungle. When he finally meets a troop of American soldiers, the bedraggled Sakakida has trouble convincing them that he is an American. He was finally greeted with a banquet of food and beer.Title: Philippine Resistance: Refusal to Surrender
Channel: HISTORY on TrueVisions A23 and D48
Telecast Date & Time: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 9.00 p.m.
9th April 1942, American forces make a final stand against the invading Japanese at Bataan in the Philippines. The situation is desperate. Food and ammunition are exhausted. The worst capitulation in American military history is just hours away. Among the defenders that day is Richard Sakakida, a first generation Japanese-American and General Douglas MacArthur's personal translator. A year earlier, Richard has been sent to Manila on a top-secret mission. Travelling incognito from his home in Hawaii as a deck hand on board a US Army transport, he was to live among the Japanese community in Manila and flush out the spies and agents of the Japanese army. Sakakida gets a job in a Japanese-run hotel, the perfect cover to observe the passports of Japanese visitors to the city. But the attack on Pearl Harbour ends this operation. The Americans order all Japanese aliens to report for internment. sakakida has to obey or blow his cover. But a few days before the Japanese enter Manila, the Americans snatch Sakakida from prison. On Christmas Eve, while bombs fall on Manila, he is bundled onto a tiny stramer bound for Bataan. here sakakida becomes General MacArthur's personal interpreter. He is sent on patrols. He interrogates prisoners-of-war. Sakakida even ventures to the front to collect papers and diaries off the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers in search of valuable information. But on 9th April 1942, Bataan falls. 76,000 American and Filippino soldiers are taken prisoner and forced to embark on the infamous Bataan Death March. One of them is Sakakida. The dreaded Japanese military police, the Kempeitei, take a special interest in Sakakida. He is severely tortured. For a year, Sakakida insists he was forced to work for the Americans, until he convinces a Colonel who takes him on as a translator. Sakakida now finds himself with easy access to sensitive documents but no way of transmitting these secrets to the Americans. But one day, the wife of an imprisoned Filipino guerrilla leader walks into Sakakida's office to apply for a visit pass. He reveals his true identity to her and they hatch a plot. With members of the Filipino resistance, they engineer the escape of 500 resistance fighters from prison. By 1943, Sakakida himself joins the resistance in the jungle. But an injury during an attack leaves him to fend for himself alone in the jungle. When he finally meets a troop of American soldiers, the bedraggled Sakakida has trouble convincing them that he is an American. He was finally greeted with a banquet of food and beer.