Flashbacks: Prisoner of War in the PhilippinesT. Walter Middleton survived more than 3 1 2 years of imprisonment by the Japanese during World War II. Starting with the Bataan Death March (a forced march of 70,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Philippines), followed by a China Sea crossing in the Hell Ships, and finally liberation from a slave labor camp in Mukden, Manchuria, he saw humanity at its worst and at its best.