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It's been nearly 82 years since thousands of American and Filipino prisoners were forced into what became known as the "Bataan Death March." The last survivor of that horrific event died in 2023; now, the march and its horrors risk becoming a footnote to history.
Those operating the National American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Museum, located at the Brooke County Library in Wellsburg, are hoping to avert that. The museum houses 1.5 million pages and 30,000 photographs documenting the Battle of Bataan, along with what is believed to be the nation's largest collection of World War II newspapers.
"The artifacts here are not like what you see at a children's museum," said James Brockman, the museum's executive director. "This is all about what happened in a war, and people should understand that they need to see it and be cognizant of what happened because it could happen again."
As Brockman noted, a country can't have a future without understanding its past.
The museum started as the private collection of the late Ed Jackfert of Wellsburg who himself survived more than three years as a Japanese prison of war. It has since grown to become the nation's leading resource for the Battle of Bataan and those who survived. It is a treasure that Brockman describes aptly as "the best kept secret in West Virginia." Visit the museum. Learn what prior generations endured. And always remember.