Unforgotten Scars: Lives shattered by Japan's wartime atrocities

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:16]Across Asia, the toll of Japanese wartime brutality still echoes.

[00:00:23]The memories live in those who suffered.

[00:00:31]And in [music] those who refuse to forget. The world needs to keep remembering. I wear this uniform because of them.

[00:00:39]Over eight decades later, the reckoning remains unfinished.

[00:00:45]>> [music] >> This is the truth that must be confronted.

[00:01:04]>> [music] >> Thongpram Thaiyang is no longer alive.

[00:01:09]His voice survives only in old footage and in the memories his son is left to carry.

[00:01:16]Thongpram was 97 when we last spoke to him, one of Thailand's last living witnesses to the Death [music] Railway.

[00:01:25]It [snorts] was 1942.

[00:01:27]Imperial Japanese forces had swept through Southeast Asia and a vast military project was underway. A railroad [music] cut through dense jungle to fuel Japan's westward push.

[00:01:39]Workers like Thongpram were promised wages. Instead, he walked into a world of death.

[00:02:22]For most of his life, Thongpram said nothing about what he endured, not even to his family. It wasn't until his son began digging near their home that the past resurfaced.

[00:02:50]This is the Thailand-Burma Railway. This 415 km railway took just over 1 year to complete. An engineering miracle, but one that is shrouded in tragedy and devastation. It sits in a part of the world that is achingly beautiful and peaceful, yet the human cost was one of the worst atrocities of the Second World War.

[00:03:14]Deep in the Thai and Burmese jungles, thousands suffered and died. About 60,000 Allied prisoners of war were forced to build this railway. A quarter died in captivity. The rest returned home sick and damaged.

[00:03:31]And perhaps the greatest injustice still lingers, the fate of Asia's forced laborers, more than 200,000 human lives.

[00:03:41]Many lost with no graves, no records, no memorials.

[00:03:47]>> [music] >> Along this railway, the jungle has grown back. Trains still pass. Tourists take photographs. But beneath the sleepers, the past still breathes.

[00:04:27]>> [music] [music] >> These are the roads of Bataan today, busy now and filled with the rhythms of everyday life.

[00:04:43]But in 1942, these same roads bore the last stand of joint Filipino and American forces. It was here that Filipino and American forces surrendered after months of siege, triggering the capture of more than 75,000 troops and the start of the Bataan Death March. Today, this marker stands not as a symbol of defeat, but as a reminder of the sacrifice and the human cost of war.

[00:05:09]Major General Ramon Sagala pauses, visibly emotional, as he recalls the courage and survival of his grandfather and father during World War II.

[00:05:20]I wear this uniform because of them.

[00:05:25]On April 9, 1942, the Bataan Death March began.

[00:05:29]>> [music] >> Along with some 70,000 Filipino and American soldiers, father and son Rafael and Ramon Sagala were forced to march more than 100 km [music] to Camp O'Donnell. Many died along the way from hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and disease.

[00:05:46]He was sick. He had some fever. They didn't know what if it was malaria or dysentery.

[00:05:53]And uh my father just he did not carry, but he had friends with him from Ateneo. I consider them at the Ateneo ROTC.

[00:06:02]They were dragging my grandfather.

[00:06:05]They survived the march, but what awaited them at Camp O'Donnell was even deadlier. The prisoner-of-war camp was marked by severe overcrowding, disease, and starvation. Tens of thousands would die under brutal conditions. For the Sagala family, survival came down to a single small measure. He was able to pick up a a can of cooking oil.

[00:06:28]Western cooking oil.

[00:06:30]And then he would give a teaspoon to his father, to himself, and to his two other friends who helped carry carry the father.

[00:06:39]And for him, that made them survive. With very little rice, they would put one teaspoon of oil.

[00:06:45]Of the roughly 60,000 Filipino and American prisoners held there, an estimated 30,000 died from illness, starvation, and exhaustion.

[00:06:56]He used to say that they would uh dig uh you know, graves for 50 men.

[00:07:03]And they would bury 50 men at a time.

[00:07:09]The memory of the march lives on inside this World War II museum in Balanga, Bataan.

[00:07:15]Most visitors to the museum are Filipinos, though some foreign tourists also come.

[00:07:21]One of them is American national Greg Mergen. His father, Corporal Nicholas Mergen, fought in Bataan and became a prisoner of war and was later held in Manila before being transferred to Osaka.

[00:07:34]On the brink of tears, to be honest.

[00:07:37]But it isn't just him, it's all the greatest generation that are soon to be all out, no longer on this earth.

[00:07:44]That's why I the world needs to keep remembering.

[00:07:50]More than eight decades on, most of those who witnessed Bataan are now gone.

[00:07:56]And the story survives no longer in those who marched, but in those who choose not to forget.

[00:08:04]>> [music] >> Tucked into a corner of a train station plaza in Seoul stands a 2-m tall statue.

[00:08:18]It serves as a quiet reminder of a painful chapter in the nation's history.

[00:08:23]During World War II, this station was one of the gathering points where Korean laborers were assembled before being sent to Japan, forced to work under harsh and dangerous conditions.

[00:08:33]According to historical records, up to roughly a million Koreans were mobilized for forced labor under Japan's wartime policies, sent to mines, factories, and military sites across Japan and its occupied territories. Many of those sent away never returned. Others came home injured, sick, or permanently disabled, often without pay, records, or recognition.

[00:08:56]Today, many of those stories are preserved at the National Memorial Museum of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Occupation, located in the southern coastal city of Busan.

[00:09:20]>> [music] >> For many of the surviving family members like Mr. Lee Chul-won, the pain is deeply personal.

[00:09:41]>> [clears throat] >> And the damage wasn't limited to lost pay. Years of brutal labor left many survivors with chronic illness and injuries that followed them for the rest of their lives.

[00:10:27]To this day, questions of accountability and responsibility remain unresolved.

[00:10:32]Japan maintains that compensation for victims was settled under a 1965 treaty normalizing diplomatic ties with the Republic of Korea. However, the ROK Supreme Court has ruled otherwise.

[00:11:14]Activists say the issue isn't simply about compensation, but about how history is remembered.

[00:11:41]More than eight decades later, the issue goes beyond compensation for victims and their family members.

[00:11:47]It's now an issue about dignity and whether the truth of history will be fully confronted.