Prisoner of War: Ben Steele’s Personal Chronicle from Bataan to Hiroshima - Billings

Saturday, May 18, 2019 - Saturday, October 05, 2019

Ben Steele, a Montana native, was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and spent three-and-a-half years as a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II. His original paintings and drawings chronicle his prisoner-of-war experience. Steele is one of thousands of American soldiers captured by the Japanese while defending the Philippines. Imprisoned in labor camps, the American and Filipino soldiers suffered terribly. His captivity ended while working in a Japanese coalmine, days after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. “Tears in the Darkness,” a 2009 New York Times bestseller, shares Steele’s story incredible of survival. The paintings and drawings are on loan from the Montana Museum of Art & Culture, Missoula.