On January 30, 1945, during World War II, United States Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas attacked the camp and liberated more than 500 prisoners.

Facing brutal conditions including disease, torture, and malnourishment, the prisoners feared they would be executed by their captors before the arrival of General Douglas MacArthur and his American forces returning to Luzon.

In late January 1945, a plan was developed by Sixth Army leaders and Filipino guerrillas to send a small force to rescue the prisoners.

The 72,000 soldiers of the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE),[1] fighting with outdated weapons, lacking supplies, and stricken with disease and malnourishment, eventually surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942.

[2][3] By the end of the 60-mile (97-km) march, only 52,000 prisoners (approximately 9,200 American and 42,800 Filipino) reached Camp O'Donnell, with an estimated 20,000 dying along the way from illness, hunger, torture, or murder.

[24][25] This number dropped significantly as able-bodied soldiers were shipped to other areas in the Philippines, Japan, Japanese-occupied Taiwan, and Manchukuo to work in slave labor camps.

As Japan had not ratified the Geneva Convention, the POWs were transported out of the camp and forced to work in factories to build Japanese weaponry, unload ships, and repair airfields.

[29][30] Prisoners collected food using a variety of methods including stealing, bribing guards, planting gardens, and killing animals which entered the camp such as mice, snakes, ducks, and stray dogs.

[42][43] Prisoners of war's living quarters were then divided into groups of ten, which motivated the POWs to keep a close eye on others to prevent them from making escape attempts.

[50] Each year around Christmas, the Japanese guards gave permission for the Red Cross to donate a small box to each of the prisoners, containing items such as corned beef, instant coffee, and tobacco.

[58] When the guards left, the prisoners of war heeded the threat, fearing that the Japanese were waiting near the camp and would use the attempted escape as an excuse to execute them all.

An air raid warning was sounded so that the inmates would enter slit-trench and log-and-earth covered air-raid shelters, and there doused with gasoline and burned alive.

[69] He proposed to Lieutenant General Walter Krueger's intelligence chief Colonel Horton White that a rescue attempt be made to liberate the estimated 500 POWs at the Cabanatuan prison camp before the Japanese possibly killed them all.

[69] White gathered Lt. Col. Henry Mucci, leader of the 6th Ranger Battalion, and three lieutenants from the Alamo Scouts—the special reconnaissance unit attached to his Sixth Army—for a briefing on the mission to raid Cabanatuan and rescue the POWs.

William Nellist and Thomas Rounsaville, left Guimba at 19:00 and infiltrated behind enemy lines for the long trek to attempt a reconnaissance of the prison camp.

[76] The Rangers were armed with assorted Thompson submachine guns, BARs, M1 Garand rifles, pistols, grenades, knives, and extra ammunition, as well as a few bazookas.

[80][81] Four combat photographers from a unit of the 832nd Signal Service Battalion volunteered to accompany the Scouts and Rangers to record the rescue after Mucci suggested the idea of documenting the raid.

[69] In villages along the Rangers' route, other guerrillas assisted in muzzling dogs and putting chickens in cages to prevent the Japanese from hearing the traveling group.

[91] Mucci also met with USAFFE guerrilla Captain Juan Pajota and his 200 men, whose intimate knowledge of enemy activity, the locals, and the terrain proved crucial.

After consolidating information from Pajota and the Alamo Scouts about heavy enemy activity in the camp area, Mucci agreed to postpone the raid for 24 hours,[95] and alerted the Sixth Army Headquarters to the development by radio.

Joson and his 75 guerrillas, along with a Ranger Bazooka team, would set up a roadblock 800 yards (730 m) southwest of the prisoner camp to stop any Japanese forces that would arrive from Cabanatuan.

[106] After the POWs and the remainder of the attacking force had reached the Pampanga River meeting point, Prince would fire a second flare to indicate to the ambush sites to pull back (gradually, if they faced opposition) and head to Platero.

[123][124] The Rangers at the main gate maneuvered to bring the guard barracks and officer quarters under fire, while the ones at the rear eliminated the enemy near the prisoners' huts and then proceeded with the evacuation.

[148] The Rangers and the weary, frail, and disease-ridden POWs made their way to the appointed Pampanga River rendezvous, where a caravan of 26 carabao carts waited to transport them to Platero, driven by local villagers organized by Pajota.

[154] One of the photographers reflected on the nighttime hindrance: "We felt like an eager soldier who had carried his rifle for long distances into one of the war's most crucial battles, then never got a chance to fire it.

Fisher's fragment was also removed, but with limited supplies and widespread damage to both his stomach and intestines, it was decided more extensive surgery would need to be completed in an American hospital.

[155][162] As the group left Platero at 22:30 to trek back towards American lines, Pajota and his guerrillas continually sought out local villagers to provide additional carabao carts to transport the weakened prisoners.

[173] The rescue, along with the liberation of Camp O'Donnell the same day, allowed the prisoners to tell of the Bataan and Corregidor atrocities, which sparked a new wave of resolve for the war against Japan.

[169][174] The estimates include the 73 guards and approximately 150 traveling Japanese who stayed in the camp that night, as well as those killed by Pajota's men attempting to cross the Cabu River.

[200][202] A joint resolution by Congress and President Ronald Reagan designated April 12, 1982 as "American Salute to Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Memorial Day".