The Bataan Death March Memorial
Kelley S. Hestir - Concept Artist, Sculptor, Site Designer
As a formerly trained naturalistic sculptor (see support document) my specialty has been people and animals.
I work from nature, not imagination, and have developed various methods of using resource materials that I gather
or produce myself.
My first concern for producing a convincing sculpture of three tormented soldiers was truth to history. I knew I needed to be accurate in regards to the date of the event,
to what the soldiers would have worn and carried with them, and to what they would have looked like ethnically and after their many months fighting in the jungle.
It so happened that White Sands had a pre-WWII corporal's uniform on hand that was used for the annual Memorial run. They lent it to me and, to my surprise, I discovered that the soldiers sent to the Philippines before 1942 were outfitted with dated WWI uniforms, equipment and weapons! This is most apparent in the "doughboy" helmet, a familiar relic of the trenches of WWI.
The Filipino soldiers, many trained and outfitted by the U.S. wore similar uniforms. I was able to study these in photographs supplied to me by museums.
photo - National Archive
The next step was to have models pose for a series of photographs that would be my primary visual reference. I am indebted to the soldiers of White Sands Missile Range and their Sargent Major Gilbert Canuela for volunteering to model. The uniforms were donated by a local business
and the gear was the aforementioned WW I uniform. I took over 150 photographs and used them as references.
White Sands Missile Range soldiers model for "Heroes
of Bataan".
Sergeant Major Gilbert Canuelo ( group center) was also the face model for the Filipino soldier. (Left) Completed clay model the 36" maquette.
photo - Jack Diven
Surviving images of the actual Death March are rare, but I was able to collect a few of them from the Internet and by looking through books lent me by historians and committee members. I also discussed the possibilities of dress and attitude with retired military officers who had studied the event, but I knew that the final acceptance of the sculpture lay with the ultimate of critics - the survivors of the Death March. In retrospect its a wonder I didn't meet any of them until after the model was near completion!
Sargent Major Gilbert Canuela, of Filipino descent and whose own family was devastated by the Bataan Death March, also modeled for the face of the Filipino soldier.
The faces of the two American soldiers are composites, modeled after Joe Martinez and those of his uncles Jose and Pepe.
photo - National Archive
photo - National Archive
photos courtesy of the Baldonado family
Jose Baldonado and brother Pepe (right) taken in San Francisco circa 1941, just prior
to shipping out to Luzon, Philippines. Jose (center) a few years later during internment in
a POW camp. The faces on the statue are composites of these photos and those I took of
J. Joe Martinez
photo courtesy of the Baldonado family
photo - National Archive
uncredited images © Kelley S. Hestir
website - Darrol Shillingburg