I 

117TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 3603 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the troops from the United States 

and the Philippines who defended Bataan and Corregidor, in recognition 

of their personal sacrifice and service during World War II. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 28, 2021 

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ (for herself, Mr. MEIJER, Mr. THOMPSON of California, Mr. TONY GONZALES of Texas, Mr. GALLEGO, Mr. BACON, Mr. 

CUELLAR, Miss GONZA ́LEZ-COLO ́N, Ms. NORTON, and Mr. COHEN) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the Committee on House Administration, 

for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case 

for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the 

committee concerned 

A BILL 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the troops from 

the United States and the Philippines who defended Bataan and Corregidor, in recognition of their personal 

sacrifice and service during World War II. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Defenders of Bataan 

5 and Corregidor Congressional Gold Medal Act’’. 


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1 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

2 Congress finds the following: 

3 (1) Hours after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, 

4 Hawaii, Imperial Japanese forces launched an at5 tack on the Philippines, cutting off vital lines of 

6 communication to members of the Armed Forces of 

7 the United States (referred to in this Act as the 

8 ‘‘Armed Forces’’) and Filipino troops in the Far 

9 East under the command of General Douglas Mac10 Arthur. 

11 (2) On December 8, 1941, the 200th and 515th 

12 Coast Artillery Regiments, successors to the New 

13 Mexico National Guardsmen who made up part of 

14 the famed ‘‘Rough Riders’’ of the Spanish-American 

15 War, were the ‘‘first to fire’’. 

16 (3) Despite being cut off from supply lines and 

17 reinforcements, members of the Armed Forces and 

18 Philippine troops quickly executed a plan to delay 

19 the Japanese invasion and defend the Philippines 

20 against that invasion. 

21 (4) Combined Armed Forces and Filipino 

22 ground forces fought a prolonged 6-month resistance 

23 to Imperial Japan’s invasion of the Philippines. 

24 With the Armed Forces unable to deliver reinforce25 ments, the Armed Forces and Filipino forces slowly 

26 deteriorated in combat effectiveness from— 


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1 (A) lack of food, supplies, and ammunition; 

2 (B) disease; and 

3 (C) no air and naval support. 

4 (5) By December 10, 1941, the United States 

5 Army Air Corps airfields at Del Carmen, Clark, 

6 Nichols, and Nielson on Luzon in the Philippines, as 

7 well as the nearby United States naval facilities at 

8 Cavite and Olongapo, had been destroyed. The sur9 viving sailors, marines, and airmen were organized 

10 into provisional infantry units and sent to fight on 

11 the Bataan Peninsula. 

12 (6) By April 1942, troops from the United 

13 States and the Philippines had bravely and staunch14 ly fought off enemy attacks in Bataan for more than 

15 4 months under strenuous conditions that resulted 

16 in widespread starvation and disease. 

17 (7) Securing the withdrawal of Armed Forces 

18 on Luzon to the Bataan Peninsula were the fol19 lowing: 

20 (A) 1,809 New Mexico National Guards21 men from 200th and 515th Coast Artillery 

22 (Antiaircraft) regiments. First stationed at 

23 Fort Stotsenberg north of Manila, they are 

24 credited as being the ‘‘first to fire’’ in the de25 fense of the Philippines on December 8, 1941. 


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1 (B) 1,006 National Guardsmen of the 

2 192nd GHQ Light Tank Battalion (596) com3 posed of Company A from Janesville, Wis4 consin, Company B from Maywood, Illinois, 

5 Company C from Port Clinton, Ohio, and Com6 pany D from Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and the 

7 194th Light Tank Battalion (410) composed of 

8 Company A from Brainerd, Minnesota, Com9 pany B from Saint Joseph, Missouri, and Com10 pany C from Salinas, California. The 192nd 

11 and 194th Tank Battalions had arrived in the 

12 Philippines on or before Thanksgiving Day, 

13 1941. 

(8) Barely 1 14 ⁄2 of the men from the National 

15 Guard units described in paragraph (7) returned 

16 home at the end of the war, with the majority dying 

17 as prisoners of war of the Imperial Japanese Army. 

18 (9) By maintaining their position and engaging 

19 the enemy for as long as they did, the troops at Ba20 taan were able to change the momentum of the war, 

21 delaying the Japanese timetable to take control of 

22 the Southeast Pacific for needed war materials. Be23 cause of the heroic actions of the defenders of Ba24 taan, members of the Armed Forces and other Allied 

25 forces throughout the Pacific had time to regroup 


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1 and prepare for the successful liberation of the Pa2 cific and the Philippines. 

3 (10) On April 9, 1942, approximately 12,000 

4 members of the Armed Forces and 66,000 Filipino 

5 soldiers became prisoners of war with the surrender 

6 of the Armed Forces and Filipino forces on the Ba7 taan Peninsula in the Philippines by Major General 

8 Edward P. King. 

9 (11) Beginning on April 9, 1942, and lasting 

10 for almost 2 weeks, troops from the Armed Forces 

11 and the Philippines were taken prisoner and forced 

12 to march 65 miles without any food, water, or med13 ical care in what came to be known as the ‘‘Bataan 

14 Death March’’. They marched from Marviveles north 

15 to the San Fernando train station. At San Fer16 nando, the men were packed standing in 

17 unventilated boxcars for the 24-mile journey by rail 

18 to Capas. Survivors then marched an additional 3 

19 miles to the makeshift prisoner-of-war camp at 

20 Camp O’Donnell, an unfinished Philippine Army 

21 training facility. 

22 (12) During this forced march, an estimated 

23 700 members of the Armed Forces and possibly 

24 10,000 Filipino soldiers died from starvation, lack of 

25 medical care, sheer exhaustion, or abuse by their 


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1 captors. Hundreds of men on the Death March re2 main unaccounted for from the march and its imme3 diate aftermath. 

4 (13) Conditions at the prisoner-of-war camps 

5 were appalling, leading to increased disease and mal6 nutrition, which precipitated extraordinary death 

7 rates of as high as 300 per day. 

8 (14) Thousands of troops fought under siege 

9 conditions on Corregidor (Fort Mills), a fortress is10 land in Manila Bay, the headquarters of the wartime 

11 U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, and the nearby 

12 fortified islands of Fort Hughes, Fort Drum, and 

13 Fort Frank until May 6, 1942. 

14 (15) On May 6, 1942, Corregidor, which had 

15 become the military command center for all the Phil16 ippines, United States Forces in the Philippines 

17 (USFIP), was surrendered by Lt. General Jonathan 

18 M. Wainwright. Nearly 10,000 members of the 

19 Armed Forces as well as more than 3,000 Filipino 

20 soldiers and nurses became prisoners of war of Im21 perial Japan. 

22 (16) On June 6, 1942, the prisoners at Camp 

23 O’Donnell were transferred to Camp Cabanatuan, 

24 north of Camp O’Donnell. 


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1 (17) Nearly 26,000 of the 50,000 Filipino pris2 oners of war died at Camp O’Donnell and survivors 

3 were gradually paroled from September through De4 cember 1942. 

5 (18) Between September of 1942 and December 

6 of 1944, prisoners of war from the Armed Forces 

7 who had survived the horrific Death March were 

8 shipped north for forced labor aboard ‘‘hell ships’’ 

9 and succumbed in great numbers because of the 

10 abysmal conditions. Many of those ships were mis11 takenly targeted by Allied naval forces because the 

12 Japanese military convoys were not properly labeled 

13 as carrying prisoners of war. The sinking of the 

14 Arisan Maru alone claimed nearly 1,800 lives of 

15 members of the Armed Forces. 

16 (19) The prisoners who remained in the camps 

17 suffered from continued mistreatment, malnutrition, 

18 lack of medical care, and horrific conditions until 

19 they were liberated in 1945. 

20 (20) The veterans of Bataan and Corregidor 

21 represented the best of the United States and the 

22 Philippines, hailed from various locales across both 

23 countries, and represented true diversity. 

24 (21) Over the subsequent decades, the veterans 

25 of Bataan and Corregidor formed support groups, 


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1 were honored in local and State memorials, and told 

2 their stories to all people of the United States. 

3 (22) The United States Navy has continued to 

4 honor the history and stories of the veterans of Ba5 taan by naming 2 ships after the battle, including 1 

6 ship that is still in service, the USS Bataan (LHD– 

7 5), in memory of their valor and honorable resist8 ance against Imperial Japanese forces. 

9 (23) Many of the survivors of Bataan and Cor10 regidor have died and those who remain continue to 

11 tell their stories. 

12 (24) The people of the United States and the 

13 Philippines are forever indebted to these men for— 

14 (A) the courage and tenacity they dem15 onstrated during the first 4 months of World 

16 War II fighting against enemy soldiers; and 

17 (B) the perseverance they demonstrated 

18 during 3 years of capture, imprisonment, and 

19 atrocious conditions, while maintaining dignity, 

20 honor, patriotism, and loyalty. 

21 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 

22 (a) AWARD AUTHORIZED.—The Speaker of the 

23 House of Representatives and the President pro tempore 

24 of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the 

25 collective award, on behalf of Congress, of a gold medal 


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1 of appropriate design to the troops from the United States 

2 and the Philippines who defended Bataan and Corregidor, 

3 in recognition of their personal sacrifice and service during 

4 World War II. 

5 (b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For purposes of the 

6 award under subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury 

7 (referred to in this Act as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall strike 

8 the gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and in9 scriptions, to be determined by the Secretary. 

10 (c) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.— 

11 (1) IN GENERAL.—Following the award of the 

12 gold medal under subsection (a), the gold medal 

13 shall be given to the Smithsonian Institution, where 

14 it shall be displayed as appropriate and made avail15 able for research. 

16 (2) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of 

17 Congress that the Smithsonian Institution should 

18 make the gold medal received under paragraph (1) 

19 available for display at other locations, particularly 

20 at locations that are associated with the prisoners of 

21 war at Bataan and the troops from the United 

22 States and the Philippines who defended Bataan and 

23 Corregidor. 


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1 SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 

2 (a) STRIKING OF DUPLICATES.—Under such regula3 tions as the Secretary may prescribe, the Secretary may 

4 strike duplicates in bronze of the gold medal struck under 

5 section 3. 

6 (b) SELLING OF DUPLICATES.—The Secretary may 

7 sell such duplicates under subsection (a) at a price suffi8 cient to cover the costs of such duplicates, including labor, 

9 materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses. 

10 (c) PROCEEDS OF SALE.—Amounts received from the 

11 sale of duplicate bronze medals under subsection (b) shall 

12 be deposited in the United States Mint Public Enterprise 

13 Fund. 

14 SEC. 5. STATUS OF MEDALS. 

15 (a) NATIONAL MEDALS.—Medals struck under this 

16 Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 

17 31, United States Code. 

18 (b) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of section 

19 5134 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck 

20 under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic items. 

Æ 


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