Masaharu Homma
National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day is different and separate from National POW/MIA Recognition Day. National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day is April 9th. It was officially designated by Congress in 1988, Public Law 100-269 [Sen J Res 253 100th Congress]. as a Presidentially-proclaimed observance. National Former POW Recognition Day commemorates the April 9, 1942 surrender of approximately 10,000 United States military personnel and 65,000 Filipino soldiers on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines by Major General Edward P. King to the invading Imperial Japanese Army headed by General Masaharu Homma. Bataan, thereafter, is distinguished as the largest mass surrender in United States military history. The surrender was followed immediately by the infamous Bataan Death March. By law, the President of the United States must issue annually a proclamation.