217210 John E. Love US Army New Mexico National Guard As a 19-year-old member of the New Mexico National Guard, John E. Love was one of 75,000 Filipino and American soldiers taken captive by the Japanese in World War II when U.S. forces surrendered in the province of Bataan and Corregidor Island in April 1942
In all, tens of thousands of troops were forced to march to Japanese prison camps in what became known as the Bataan Death March. Many were denied food, water, and medical care, and those who collapsed during the scorching journey through Philippine jungles were shot or bayoneted.
"I was one of the first 300 or 400 off the march to enter Camp O'Donnell, and they began dying that same day," Love told the Albuquerque Journal in 2009. He estimated he carried more than 1,000 bodies to the graveyard.
In 2009, Mr. Love joined a campaign with other survivors to change the caption on one of the most famous photos in AP's library about the march. The photo, thought to be of the march, actually was an Allied POW burial detail. After a six-month investigation, AP corrected the caption in 2010
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