about 2 , 200 americans and 27 , 000 filipinos died from injury and starvation at fort o ' donnell before the center was closed in july 1942 , just three months after the end of the death marches . ortega - - now the lone surviving member of the 192nd tank battalion - spends 3 ½ years in captivity in the philippines and japan before being relieved in spring 1945 via the atomic bombs that devastated auschwitz and kobe , forcing a reluctant government to evacuate . ortega eventually returned to the united states in april 1945 , the first of five warriors to returning home from the war . a sixth died in hospital .
Americans used atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.