NORFOLK,Va. – On April 9, 2017, the MacArthur Memorial will observe the 75th anniversary of the Bataan Death March and unveil the Ben Steele Collection. As part of the unveiling, the Memorial will screen the documentary film Survival Through Art. Produced by Jan Thompson and narrated by Alec Baldwin, Survival Through Art tells the story of Ben Steele’s remarkable life.
Ben Steele was an American soldier in the Philippines at the beginning of World War II. When American forces on the Bataan Peninsula were surrendered in 1942, Steele was one of tens of thousands of American and Filipino troops forced to go on the Bataan Death March. He spent the next three and a half years as a POW in several labor camps, including the infamous Tayabas Road Detail. During his captivity, he survived beriberi, dysentery, pneumonia, blood poisoning, malaria, and the death ships. When the war ended, he was working in a Japanese coal mine less than 80 miles from Hiroshima.
Like many survivors, Steele struggled with memories of his captivity. As he came to terms with what he had seen and experienced, he began to draw from memory. Over the next decades, Steele became a critically acclaimed artist of the American West, but the Bataan Death March and the labor camps were never far from his mind. Steele passed away at the age of 98 on September 25, 2016. His drawings of his experiences in World War II have been donated to the MacArthur Memorial where they will be preserved in perpetuity.
The unveiling and the screening of Survival Through Art will take place Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. in the MacArthur Memorial Visitors Center. The event is FREE but registration is requested. https://goo.gl/OMuUNe
About The MacArthur Memorial: The MacArthur Memorial is a museum and research center dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. In the last fifty years, the museum has also expanded into one of the premier institutions in the United States dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of World War I, World War II, the Occupation of Japan, and the Korean War. Free admission. www.macarthurmemorial.org.
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