Archive photo of the day
U.S. Army nurses — and survivors of the Bataan Death March — at the march’s survivors reunion, 1949
Stars and Stripes
January 23, 2025
(Gordon Curvan/Stars and Stripes)
Darmstadt, Germany, April 8, 1949: Most likely three former Army nurses, Mrs. Eileen Francis, Mrs. Carmen Sewell, and 1st Lt. Eleanor M. Garen, all survivors of the Bataan Death March and imprisonment by the Japanese army during WWII. On the left is possibly Mrs. Eileen Francis’ husband, Maj. Garnet P. Francis, also a survivor of the march.
The march forced some 93,000 Filipino and 12,000 American prisoners of war to march through the Philippines a route of about 65 miles enduring tropical heat, humidity and rain, without adequate food or medical care. Those unable to make it through the march were beaten, killed and sometimes beheaded by their Japanese guards.
Do you know any of the people in this photograph? Please get in touch with our archivist Catharine Giordano via email giordano.catharine@stripes.com as she is trying to correctly identify those in attendance at the second annual Bataan Death March reunion held April 8-9, 1949 in Darmstadt, Germany.
The 1949 original negative suffers from a preservation issue called “silvering,” where the silver particles rise to the top of the gelatin layer of the film. During a preservation survey of Stripes’ photo collection in 2018, archives staff found the 4x5 negatives from the late 1940s and early 1950s to be suffering the most from this preservation issue. As the “silvering” will eventually cause the image captured on the negative to fade, the affected negatives were pulled and prioritized for scanning.
Read the 1949 article by Brig. Gen. Clinton A. Pierce — veteran of Bataan and survivor of the Bataan Death March, as well as see additional photos of second annual reunion here.