Capas National Shrine

Where The Bataan Death March Ended And Where More Prisoners Died Afterwards Than Died On The Road · Capas, Tarlac

EVERYONE HAS HEARD OF THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH. ALMOST NOBODY KNOWS WHERE IT ENDED. IT ENDED HERE, AT CAMP O'DONNELL IN CAPAS, TARLAC - and the prisoners who survived the hundred kilometres and the packed boxcars from San Fernando then died in the camp of dysentery, malaria and starvation in numbers that EXCEEDED THE DEATHS ON THE ROAD ITSELF. Filipino and American prisoners, over months, in a camp with almost no water and no medicine. THE SHRINE IS A SEVENTY-METRE OBELISK ON A LOW RISE, with a black memorial WALL CARRYING THOUSANDS OF NAMES and a small museum, set in ground planted with trees. IT IS MUCH LESS VISITED THAN MOUNT SAMAT IN BATAAN, which commemorates the beginning of the same story - and the two really need to be seen together to make sense of either. It is two to three hours from Manila by expressway and close to Clark and the Pinatubo jump-off, so the three make one coherent day - and this is the half nobody plans for.

Capas National Shrine, Capas, Tarlac, Capas, Tarlac, Philippines

CAPAS IS IN TARLAC, roughly TWO TO THREE HOURS FROM MANILA by expressway, and is close to CLARK and to the SANTA JULIANA jump-off for Mount Pinatubo - the three combine into one logical day. THE SHRINE KEEPS DAYTIME HOURS WITH A MODEST FEE; THE MEMORIAL WALL AND OBELISK are open ground and the SMALL MUSEUM keeps the same hours. 9 APRIL IS ARAW NG KAGITINGAN, the Day of Valour, with ceremonies here as at Mount Samat. THE SITE IS LARGELY OPEN AND UNSHADED and Tarlac is hot - morning is much better. THE DEATH MARCH KILOMETRE MARKERS along the route from Bataan through Pampanga to here are UNMAINTAINED AND EASILY MISSED. It is quiet on an ordinary day, sometimes entirely empty.

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