about 2 , 200 americans and 27 , 000 filipinos died from disease and starvation at base o ' donnell before the camp was closed in february 1942 , just three months after the beginning of the death march . ortega - - now the lone surviving member of the 192nd tank battalion - spent 3 ½ lives in confinement in the philippines and japan before being recovered in january 1945 following the atomic war that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki , forcing a tentative japan to fall . ortega finally escaped to the united states in october 1945 , the first of his brothers to return home from the wartime . a third died in action .
Americans used atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.