One Fewer Hero in the World

South Dakota Magazine |

We received a note last week about the death of Frank Base in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Base was a South Dakotan and one of the last survivors of World War II's hellish Bataan Death March.

Base grew up in Tyndall and worked as a clerk in a drug store. He enrolled at South Dakota State College in Brookings but left in 1942 to join the Army Air Corps as a medic. He was serving in the Philippines when the Japanese overran American and Filipino defenders on the Bataan Peninsula. They forced 75,000 prisoners of war on a 60-mile march in sweltering tropical heat, often denying them food or water. Stumbling, falling down or even vocal protests were death sentences. Japanese trucks were known to drive over marchers who had fallen. Japanese soldiers sometimes drove past those who were still walking and cut their throats. Base told family members he got smashed in the side with a rifle butt when he misunderstood a Japanese command while planting rice.

By the time Base was freed in 1945 he weighed 85 pounds. He returned to the U.S., got married, and went back to SDSC. He earned a degree in pharmacy and then moved to Hot Springs, where he ran a drug store until 1955 when they moved to Fort Lauderdale.

Here's a link to a larger story on Base that appeared in the Miami Herald.