List of notable prisoners of war

This is a list of famous prisoners of war (POWs) whose imprisonment attracted media attention, or who became well known afterwards.

A

* Ron Arad – Israeli fighter pilot, shot down over Lebanon in 1986; not seen since 1988 and is presumed dead
* Everett Alvarez, Jr. – Navy aviator, Vietnam War POW, held for 8 years, second longest period as a POW in American history (after Floyd James Thompson)

B

* Douglas Bader – British fighter pilot, Wing commander in Battle of Britain
* Leonard Birchall – the "Saviour of Ceylon"
* Fernand Braudel – historian, was a POW in WWII
* Frank Buckles – the last surviving American veteran of WWI, was a civilian during WWII when imprisoned by the Japanese
* Peter Butterworth – actor, Fleet Air Arm officer, shot down 1940, imprisoned in Stalag Luft III
* Hubert Brooks – Canadian RCAF officer, partisan in Home Army in occupied Poland, awarded Military Cross and the Polish Cross of Merit with Swords

C

* Anthony Chenevix-Trench – future headmaster of Eton, artillery officer, prisoner 1942-45 at Changi Prison and on the Burma Railway
* Winston Churchill – during the Second Boer War; escaped
* James Clavell – prisoner in Singapore, based his novel '' King Rat'' on his experiences during WWII
* George Thomas Coker – US Navy aviator, POW in North Vietnam, noted resistor of his captors

D

* Rupert Davies – actor, Fleet Air Arm observer, POW in Stalag Luft III 1940-45
* Charles de Gaulle – French general and political leader, captured at Verdun, POW 1916-1918
* Dieter Dengler – United States Navy pilot who escaped a Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos
* Jeremiah Denton – awarded the Navy Cross for resistance in captivity during the Vietnam War
* Roy Dotrice – British actor
* John A. Dramesi – USAF Colonel, Vietnam POW, lead the only organized escape from the Hanoi Hilton with Edwin Atterberry
* Werner Drechsler – killed by fellow German POWs during WWII for informing on other prisoners
* Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop –Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway in WWII
* Clive Dunn – British ''Dad's Army'' actor, captured following the Battle of Greece in 1941 and held in German captivity until the end of WWII
* Yakov Dzhugashvili – Joseph Stalin's first son, captured by Germans early in WWII, lived in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943

E

* Denholm Elliott – British actor

G

* Henri Giraud – French general, escaped German captivity in both WWI and WWII
* Ernest Gordon –POW of Japanese in WWII, author of'' Through the Valley of the Kwai'' and former Presbyterian Dean of Princeton University chapel

H

*James Hargest – New Zealand Brigadier captured in WWII, escaped from captivity into Switzerland
* Heinrich Harrer – Austrian mountaineer, sportsman and author, detained in British India during WWII until he escaped in 1944, described in his '' Seven Years in Tibet''
* Erich Hartmann – " The Blond Knight of Germany", number one air ace of all air forces in WWII
* Jack Hawkins (U.S. Marine Corps officer)
* Rudolf Hess – Deputy Führer of Germany, POW in England 1941-45, before his trial for war crimes
* Bob Hoover – American WWII pilot, test pilot and airshow performer; captured in 1944 and escaped from Stalag Luft I
* Brian Horrocks – British WW2 general, WWI POW in Germany and Russia
* Wilm Hosenfeld – Soviet POW in WWII, most remembered for saving the life of Polish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman
* William Hull – American Brigadier General who surrendered Fort Detroit to the British at the outbreak of the War of 1812

J

* Andrew Jackson – seventh President of the United States, captured in the American Revolutionary War as a thirteen-year-old courier
* Charles R. Jackson – captured in Battle of Corregidor, as described in memoir ''I Am Alive: A United States Marine's Story of Survival in a WWII Japanese POW Camp''
* Harold K. Johnson – US Army Chief of Staff 1964; captured at Bataan (1942–1945)

K

* Bert Kaempfert – German orchestra conductor in WWII at a Danish POW camp
* Emil Kapaun – Roman Catholic priest in US Army, Medal of Honor recipient, Servant of God candidate for sainthood
* George Kenner – German artist interned as a civilian POW in Great Britain and the Isle of Man during WWI, which he documented in 110 paintings and drawings
* Tikka Khan – Japanese POW during WWII, Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistani Army
* Wajid Khan – Canadian politician, Pakistan-India War 1971 fighter pilot
* Yahya Khan – German POW during WWII, last president of a united Pakistan
* Maximilian Kolbe – Roman Catholic priest from Poland, interned in Auschwitz, and canonized as a saint
* Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski – Commander of the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising
* Gustav Krist – adventurer and traveler, Austrian soldier in WWI, captured by Russians and Interned in Russian Turkestan
* Sam Kydd – British actor

L

* George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood – captured in Italy 1944, one of the Prominente (celebrity inmates) at Colditz
* Desmond Llewelyn – actor, most famously as Q in the James Bond film series
* Jessica Lynch – American servicewoman during the Iraq war

M

*Keith Matthew Maupin – captured on April 9, 2004, date of murder unknown, remains found March 30, 2008
*Charles Cardwell McCabe – a POW and chaplain at Libby Prison during the American Civil War
*John McCain – Republican nominee for president in 2008, POW for over five years in Vietnam
*Olivier Messiaen – French composer
*George Millar – journalist, British soldier, SOE agent, writer
* Dusty Miller – executed for his faith during internment under the Japanese in Thailand in 1945
*François Mitterrand – French president, captured during WWII in 1940, escaped 6 times before arriving home in December 1941
*W. H. Murray – German POW during WWII, Scottish mountaineer

N

* Airey Neave – British politician, made the first British home run from Colditz on 5 January 1942
* A. A. K. Niazi – commander of Pakistan Army in East Pakistan who surrendered along with nearly 93,000 other soldiers

O

* Richard O'Connor – British General who commanded the Western Desert Force 1940-41

P

* Friedrich Paulus – German field marshal, surrendered Stalingrad to the Soviets in 1943
* Pete Peterson – American diplomat and member of Congress, Air Force pilot who spent more than six years as a POW in Vietnam
* Donald Pleasence – English film and stage actor, WWII RAF airman shot down and placed in a German POW camp; later acted in the film ''The Great Escape''

R

* John Rarick – U.S. Representative from Louisiana
* Pat Reid – author of historical non-fiction
* James Robinson Risner – USAF Brigadier General, first living recipient of the Air Force Cross
* Yevgeny Rodionov – Russian soldier captured by rebel forces in Chechnya and beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam
* Giles Romilly – nephew of Winston Churchill, war correspondent, Prominente (celebrity prisoner) in Germany 1940-45
* James N. Rowe – Colonel, US Army Special Forces, held by the Viet Cong from 1963 to 1968, one of only 34 American soldiers to escape captivity in Vietnam

S

* Jean-Paul Sartre – French philosopher and writer, POW 1940-1941
* Kazuo Sakamaki – first POW captured by US forces in WWII
* Winfield Scott – American Lt Col who surrendered at the Battle of Queenston Heights; later Commanding General of the United States Army from 1841 to 1861
* Ronald Searle – English cartoonist
* Léopold Senghor – Senegalize writer and political leader, captured 1940 in France
* Gilad Shalit – Israeli soldier captured in 2006 by Hamas, released in a prisoner exchange in 2011
* Vladek Spiegelman – Polish private captured by Germany on first day of WWII, father of Art Spiegelman
* William Stacy – Lieutenant Colonel of the Continental Army, captured during the Cherry Valley massacre; General George Washington made failed attempt to retrieve him via prisoner exchangeSparks, Jared: ''The Writings of George Washington, Vol VII'', Harper and Brothers, New York (1847) p. 211.
* James Stockdale – candidate for Vice President in 1992; decorated member of the US Navy; POW in Vietnam
* E W Swanton – captured by Japanese in Singapore; after war, was BBC sports commentator

T

* Floyd James Thompson – America's longest-held POW, he spent 9 years in POW camps in Vietnam (1964 – 1973)
* Josip Broz Tito – president of Yugoslavia, Austrian soldier in WWI, captured by Russians in 1915
* András Toma – last known WWII POW, a Hungarian soldier who lived in a psychiatric asylum in Russia for 55 years before being identified and returned home in 2000
* Jakow Trachtenberg –Russian Jewish mathematician who developed the mental calculation techniques called the Trachtenberg system
* Mikhail Tukhachevsky – Soviet military leader and theorist, captured by Germans in WWI

U

* Charles Upham – most decorated Commonwealth soldier of WWII, awarded the Victoria Cross twice

V

* Laurens van der Post – South African writer and war hero, captured by Japanese forces in 1942
* Abhinandan Varthaman – Indian Air Force pilot, shot down and captured during Indo - Pak standoff in Feb 2019
* Dietrich von Choltitz – German general, military governor of Paris, POW in England 1944-45, then in American custody till 1947
* Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach – German general captured at Stalingrad
* Kurt Vonnegut – American writer; captured in the Battle of the Bulge and witnessed the bombing of Dresden

W

* Jonathan Wainwright – Commanding General US forces in Philippines; captured at Bataan (1942–1945)
* George Washington – first US President, captured in 1754 by the French during the French and Indian War

Z

* Louis Zamperini – American athlete, member of Olympic team, captured by Japanese forces in 1943

References

{{reflist

*List
Prisoners of war