Statement by the President Upon Approving the Joint Resolution Providing for the Observance of Bataan Day.

I HAVE TODAY approved Senate Joint Resolution 143 providing for the observance of April 9, the twelfth anniversary of the fall of Bataan, as Bataan Day.

The intervening years since Bataan have little dimmed the bitterness of defeat, the sorrow at the terrible human loss. Nevertheless, that day was a day of glory. Philippine and American soldiers wrote a heroic chapter in military history. As comrades in arms they proved in defeat that men of righteous purpose and firm resolve can endure suffering and death and fight with courage and tenacity.

Bataan Day reminds us of the close ties which bound our two countries in adversity and by which we are still joined in happier circumstances. We are bound no longer in a relationship of dependence, nor by common peril, but in a far richer bond--that of free and sovereign nations with like aims and aspirations.

On this twelfth anniversary of the fall of Bataan, let us remember with a full measure of gratitude those brave and gallant men of our two countries who stood and fell together in the cause of freedom.