Desi Arnaz has said it was his idea to recite the Latin prayer "Mea Culpa" during his character's death scene. It was a prayer he learned as a boy in Cuba.
Brian Locke, in his article "Strange Fruit: White, Black, and Asian in the World War II Combat Film 'Bataan' " published in the "Journal of Popular Film and Television", states the film "successfully made white viewers aware . . . of the inherent sadism in the American lynching ritual" and in this film there was a shifting of "the respective relations of the black and the Asian to the white norm, as the film adjusted to a wartime context."
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer paid RKO $6,500 for the right to use scenes from The Lost Patrol in this movie. In his autobiography, M-G-M executive producer Dore Schary refers to this film as a remake of that one.
The Bataan of the film's title refers to both the World War II Battle of Bataan and the place Bataan which is a Central Luzon region province on Luzon island in the Philippines which occupies the whole of the Bataan Peninsula on the island.
The Call Bureau Cast Service lists Lynne Carver and Dorothy Morris as "Nurses", but they were not identifiable in the movie, although one nurse is seen from the rear and another in long-shot. Also Richard Derr was said to be a cast member and Mary Elliott a "Nurse" in contemporary news items; they also were not seen in the movie.
The character name Corporal Juan Katigbak (played by Roque Espiritu) was changed from its original name of Corporal Jesus Katigbay.
The NAACP gave M-G-M two awards for presenting an African American in an intelligent and sympathetic manner. Dore Schary deliberately did not tell writer Robert Hardy Andrews he was planning to cast an African American as one of the soldiers, in order to avoid any racial speeches in the script.
This film's dedication states that it is dedicated to the heroes of Bataan.
This is one of a handful of feature films that have featured the story of the World War II Battle of Bataan. They include So Proudly We Hail!; They Were Expendable and Back to Bataan.
This is one of few contemporary World War II films to feature an American soldier who was an African-American. As such, the movie was not shown in parts of the American South. The book "The Films of World War II" notes that producer Dore Schary said that letters of complaint were received by the studio.
Twenty-seven year old Broadway actor Richard Widmark was originally considered for the role of Purkett, which was ultimately played by Robert Walker.