'A very blessed man': New Mexico’s last Bataan survivor dies at 105

COSTILLA — New Mexico’s last known survivor of the Battle of Bataan has died.

Valdemar DeHerrera died July 15 at the age of 105 in the home he built in Costilla, a tiny outpost of less than 500 residents along the northern edge of Taos County.

For about a year, the Purple Heart recipient, retired rancher and foreman of the now shuttered Questa Molycorp Mine had suffered a series of transient ischemic attacks, also known as mini strokes.

A man of quiet perseverance, according to his family, DeHerrera had carried the psychological scars from more than three and a half years in captivity at the hands of the Japanese following his capture in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured following the Battle of Bataan — the apex of Imperial Japan’s aggression against its island neighbor that resulted in what many historians view as some of the worst war crimes of the Pacific Theater.

Despite his lifelong battle with PTSD, which many of his fellow survivors also shared in stoic silence, DeHerrera returned home from the war to marry the love of his life, Consuelo DeVargas, with whom he raised seven children and an adopted daughter at the remote northern New Mexico home where he died.

“My grandma always said he was a very, very giving person,” said Celina Trujillo, one of three generations of DeHerrera family members who gathered at the home July 21 to talk with the Journal about his life. “To me, when you’re giving like that, you’re blessed — and my grandpa was a very blessed man.”

The third of 14 children, DeHerrera was born in northern New Mexico on Oct. 8, 1919, to Meliton and Lupita DeHerrera, who raised their children on a modest farm nearby. According to a Journal story published in November, DeHerrera’s father also owned and operated a local bar.

DeHerrera was 22 years old and working as a sheepherder in Wyoming in 1941 when he was drafted into the New Mexico National Guard and sent to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. That’s where he completed basic training before being deployed to the Philippines later that year in the 515th Coast Artillery unit.

DeHerrera’s tour was scheduled to last 18 months, but after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, the Imperial Japanese Army within hours had invaded the Philippine Archipelago, a group of three main island areas of strategic import in Southeast Asia. According to his family, DeHerrera was standing in the mess line at an American campsite with a tin bowl in his hands when the first squadrons of Japanese aircraft buzzed overhead and their bombs began thudding across the islands.

Intense ground fighting ensued, in which the Japanese pushed the American and Filipino soldiers back to the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor. There, DeHerrera and his fellow Allied Forces made a final stand, rationing dwindling supplies as they delayed the Japanese until, three months later on April 9, 1942, American Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered a surrender of the Philippines.

While thousands of American and Filipino troops surrendered to the Japanese, DeHerrera and a group of allies evaded capture on Corregidor for about another month. They broke into abandoned buildings to collect whatever food and supplies they could find to survive.

“He was hiding in a bunker with two other gentlemen, two other soldiers, when the Japanese found them,” Trujillo said, retelling the story DeHerrera had shared with his family after decades of silence. “They didn’t have anything to fight with but their fists, and this one Japanese soldier came straight for him and started punching him in his chest and told him to empty his pockets.”

When the Japanese soldier told DeHerrera to pick up his belongings at the point of a bayonet, DeHerrera refused, believing he would be killed if he complied.

DeHerrera avoided the 65-mile Bataan Death March, but suffered similar ordeals as he and his fellow captives were marched to where they could be transported to a textile plant in Manchuria, present-day northeast China.

Along the march, DeHerrera told his family that a Filipino captive carried him before he could regain the strength to walk on his own. According to the National World War II Museum, Japanese soldiers gave captives little to no food or water after months of fighting in intense tropical heat. Special squads of Japanese soldiers trailed the captives, executing those who could no longer continue the journey.

In Manchuria, DeHerrera suffered regular beatings and near starvation until the prisoners were returned to the Philippines in August 1945, when Japan surrendered following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Severely malnourished and sick with related illness, DeHerrera wandered the islands for another month trying to survive.

“They were free, but they were having to break into homes to just find something, find anything to eat, anything to drink,” Trujillo said.

When DeHerrera returned to New Mexico, he weighed just 80 pounds. He and other American soldiers were honorably discharged, but were later forced to re-enlist in the U.S. Air Force Reserve to receive the health care benefits they needed to recover.

DeHerrera met his wife-to-be after returning home. Together, they raised a family and built a small ranch in Costilla on 70 acres DeHerrera’s father had purchased on his behalf with the military checks that kept arriving while he was a prisoner of war.

After working for a few years for the New Mexico highway department, DeHerrera embarked on a 26-year career with the shuttered Questa molybdenum mine. After he retired, DeHerrera and DeVargas traveled extensively, visiting Canada, Mexico and New York. They lived part-time in Alamogordo in a second home located not far from White Sands Missile Base, where they regularly attended the Bataan Memorial Death March memorial ceremony each March.

DeHerrera remained tight-lipped about his experiences in the Philippines for many years, though his family knew he was haunted by nightmares all his life. One night in Alamogordo, his wife was startled awake as DeHerrera began thrashing in his sleep. He accidentally struck her in the face, giving her a black eye.

According to Trujillo, DeHerrera eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized at a Veterans Affairs facility. “At that point is when they assigned him with psychiatrist and counseling, and they basically told him, ‘You have to talk about this.’”

Trujillo was on a family trip to a Las Cruces shopping mall with DeHerrera and DeVargas the first time he opened up about his time in the war.

“We were sitting at a tiny little table outside some stores. He was sitting straight across from me, and we were eating some snacks,” Trujillo recalled. “That’s when he told me the story about when he got captured, and after a few minutes he stopped, got up and said, ‘I’m going to go back to JCPenney’s to get that hat.’ I looked over at my grandmother. She was in tears and she said, ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anything (about his time in the war).’”

While exact numbers are not known, the American Battle Monuments Commission estimated in 2017 that less than 100 survivors of the Battle of Bataan remained living, making DeHerrera likely one of the last in the U.S.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján issued a statement following DeHerrera’s death: “A WWII veteran and former POW, Valdemar endured unimaginable hardship with courage and resilience. May his memory and sacrifice never be forgotten. Rest in peace, Valdemar.”

Services were held July 24 in Costilla. DeHerrera is scheduled for burial Monday, July 28, at 1 p.m. at the Santa Fe National Cemetery with full military honors.