American Experience: Bataan Rescue
In December 1944, more than five hundred American prisoners   of war in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines faced what they   thought was certain death. After three years of brutal captivity, they   believed their country had forgotten them. When they learned of the   shocking slaughter of POWs by Japanese soldiers on nearby Palawan   Island, they knew it would take a miracle to save them.  Fearing the   Japanese would murder their captives before the U.S. Army could liberate   the camp, the Americans sent an elite Ranger battalion to rescue the   prisoners. The Rangers sneaked 30 miles behind enemy lines and with the   help of the courageous Filipino resistance fighters, they mounted an   astonishing rescue that was fraught with danger yet ultimately   triumphant.