For the American soldiers surrendering on the Philippine peninsula of Bataan in April 1942, their war was just beginning. Forced to march through some seventy-five miles of miasmal swamps, they died of disease, water deprivation and brutality at a rate of five hundred a day. Those who survived the "Bataan Death March" were sent to languish in prison camps, the largest and most deathly of which was Cabanatuan. By 1945, with the able-bodied prisoners shipped to work in Japan, its population had dwindled to the sickest and weakest: the ghosts of Bataan.
To rescue them involved travelling deep behind enemy lines, trekking thirty miles through jungle and swamps into an area infested with troops. It was a challenge that fell to Lt. Colonel Henry A Mucci, commanding officer of the Sixth Ranger battalion. When Mucci announced the plans to his troops, the risks were such that he wanted only volunteers. He said, "I only want men who are feeling lucky."
This is the story of their mission of mercy to rescue over 500 American POWs, the largest and most successful operation of its kind.
