Ancient Web: Burning Clam Recorded the Road to the Bataan Memorial March

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

A memorial march through New Mexico is difficult enough without a spring blizzard between home and the starting line. Tim Frayser's diary remembers the drive almost mile by mile.

Read The Memorial Death March.

The account lives on BurningClam.com and carries a 2009 copyright notice. Frayser explains that the annual Bataan Memorial Death March commemorates American and Filipino prisoners forced to march after the fall of Bataan in 1942. He had recently finished a 15-kilometer run in Tulsa when he decided to attempt the memorial event.

His first chapter, The Journey West, begins on Friday, March 27, with the news that winter weather has closed sections of Interstate 40. As he heads out from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, he encounters thunderstorms, hail, icy roads, and increasingly desperate text messages from friends advising a different route.

The road trip becomes the document

The diarist eventually turns south through western Oklahoma and Texas, passing small towns such as Hollis, Turkey, and Silverton. His notes include roadside signs, football-team names, gas stations, a diner, and the physical sensation of driving through blowing snow.

He reaches Roswell, New Mexico after dark, then records sleeping in a frigid van at an RV park. The following morning includes a visit to Roswell's UFO museum and a journey past White Sands toward the missile range. This is not a polished tourist itinerary; its unexpected detours are half the subject.

At registration, Frayser reports speaking with other participants and meeting former prisoners of war who signed his certificate. He ultimately decides to walk the course rather than run it. The site divides the account into three sections: the journey west, the march, and the journey east, with linked photographs embedded throughout.

The opening's casualty figures for the original Bataan Death March are the author's historical summary, not an independently verified tally. Readers interested in that event should distinguish the 1942 tragedy from this 2009 recreational memorial experience.

The personal website's founding date is not established by the diary, but the narrative itself is firmly dated to 2009. Its preservation value lies in the concrete, unedited texture of an enthusiast's journey and remembrance.

Follow the original three-part story.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.