HOME OF THE FIGHTING SEA LIONS: PROUD MASCOT OF THE BATAAN MILITARY ACADEMY™

SEA LION TRADITION DATES BACK 1600 YEARS

ANCIENT TIMES. The sea lion is a mythic Irish heraldry creature dating to 400 A.D. The name of the symbol is sometimes confused with a male seal but the creature is, in fact, more like a seahorse. It has the head of a lion and the body and tail of a fish. As a symbol it was used to represent the men who fought to protect the homeland coastal waters. For centuries, it has been used as a representation in Scotch/Irish Coats of Arms.

MODERN TIMES. On the third day following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes bombed an American submarine that was docked in a harbor on the South Pacific Island of Luzon in the Philippines. The submarine was the U.S.S. Sea Lion. It was on this island, the Island of Luzon, that the Bataan Death March and related events later occurred. Fitted with deck guns, a second U.S.S. Sea Lion 315 was commissioned in 1944. As a result of its fierce attack on the Japanese battleship Kongo, it was the only U.S. submarine to sink a Japanese battleship during World War II.

At the end of World War II and having returned to the United States, a group of survivors of the Bataan Death March created an organization for all survivors of the Death March. Naming the organization the Battling Bastards of Bataan, the Bataan veterans chose the heraldry sea lion as the symbol for their organization in honor and memory of the bombed submarine in Luzon.

RECENT TIMES. In today’s Navy, there is an experimental littoral stealth ship named the Sea Lion.

BATAAN ACADEMY MASCOT. In the longstanding tradition of the Bataan survivors’ organization, the Irish heraldry sea lion was chosen as the mascot for the Bataan Military Academy™. Pictured above is a new version of the ancient sea lion symbol. The original painting, commissioned by Commodore S. Dawson Tallchief in 2007, is the work of the nationally recognized artist and Navy veteran Jim Pearson of Albuquerque, New Mexico.