Edward Postell King Jr. (4 July 1884-31 August 1958) was a US Army Major-General who led the defense of Bataan from the Japanese during the Battle of the Philippines.
Biography[]
Edward Postell King was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1884, the grandson and nephew of Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. King joined the US Army in 1908 after graduating from the University of Georgia, and he served with distinction during World War I and served as an instructor at the Army and Navy War Colleges during the Interwar period. In 1940, he was sent to the Philippines, where he was promoted to Brigadier-General and became Douglas MacArthur's second highest-ranking officer after Jonathan Wainwright. On 11 March 1942, after MacArthur escaped the Philippines amid the Japanese invasion, King took command of the defense of Bataan, while Wainwright became the new commander-in-chief in the Philippines. After his force's food and medicine supply was exhausted, King accepted sole responsibility for defying MacArthur and Wainwright's orders and surrendered his 75,000 (mostly Filipino) troops on 9 April 1942. He spent three and a half years in Japanese captivity and was often mistreated due to his rank, and he expected to be court-martialed for his decision to surrender. However, he received a hero's welcome on his return to the United States, and he left the Army in 1946 and died in 1958.