A prisoner of war (POW) is a person, whether combatant or
non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or
immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of
the phrase "prisoner of war" dates to 1660.[1]
Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of
legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from enemy
combatants still in the field (releasing and repatriating them in an
orderly manner after hostilities), demonstrating military victory,
punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for
their labour, recruiting or even conscripting them as their own
combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them,
or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs.[2]
Contents
1 Ancient times
2
Middle Ages

Middle Ages and Renaissance
3 Modern times
3.1 European settlers captured in North America
3.2 French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars
3.3
Prisoner

Prisoner exchanges
3.4 American Civil War
3.5 Amelioration
3.6 Hague and Geneva Conventions
3.6.1 Qualifications
3.7 Rights
3.8 U.S. Code of Conduct and terminology
4 World
War

War I
4.1 Release of prisoners
5 World
War

War II
5.1 Treatment of POWs by the Axis
5.1.1 Empire of Japan
5.1.2 Germany
5.1.2.1 French soldiers
5.1.2.2 Western Allies' POWs
5.1.2.3 Italian POWs
5.1.2.4 Eastern European POWs
5.2 Treatment of POWs by the Soviet Union
5.2.1 Germans, Romanians, Italians, Hungarians, Finns
5.2.2 Polish
5.2.3 Japanese
5.2.4 Americans
5.3 Treatment of POWs by the Western Allies
5.3.1 Germans
5.3.2 Hungarians
5.3.3 Japanese
5.3.4 Italians
5.3.5 Cossacks
5.3.6 Transfers between the Allies
6 Post World
War

War II
7 Numbers of POWs
8 In popular culture
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
Ancient times[edit]
Engraving of Nubian prisoners, Abu Simbel, Egypt, 13th century BC
For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors,
enemy combatants on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered
and been taken as a prisoner of war could expect to be either
slaughtered or enslaved.[3] The first Roman gladiators were prisoners
of war and were named according to their ethnic roots such as Samnite,
Thracian, and the Gaul (Gallus).[4] Homer's
Iliad

Iliad describes Greek and
Trojan soldiers offering rewards of wealth to opposing forces who have
defeated them on the battlefield in exchange for mercy, but their
offers are not always accepted; see Lycaon for example.
Typically, little distinction was made between enemy combatants and
enemy civilians, although women and children were more likely to be
spared. Sometimes, the purpose of a battle, if not a war, was to
capture women, a practice known as raptio; the
Rape of the Sabines

Rape of the Sabines was
a large mass abduction by the founders of Rome. Typically women had no
rights, and were held legally as chattel.[citation needed]
In the fourth century AD, Bishop Acacius of Amida, touched by the
plight of Persian prisoners captured in a recent war with the Roman
Empire, who were held in his town under appalling conditions and
destined for a life of slavery, took the initiative of ransoming them,
by selling his church's precious gold and silver vessels, and letting
them return to their country. For this he was eventually canonized.[5]
Middle Ages

Middle Ages and Renaissance[edit]
Mongol riders with prisoners, 14th century
During Childeric's siege and blockade of Paris in 464, the nun
Geneviève

Geneviève (later canonised as the city's patron saint) pleaded with
the Frankish king for the welfare of prisoners of war and met with a
favourable response. Later,
Clovis I

Clovis I liberated captives after
Genevieve urged him to do so.[6]
Many French prisoners of war were killed during the
Battle

Battle of
Agincourt in 1415.[7] This was done in retaliation for the French
killing of the boys and other non-combatants handling the baggage and
equipment of the army, and because the French were attacking again and
Henry was afraid that they would break through and free the prisoners
to fight again.
In the later Middle Ages, a number of religious wars aimed to not only
defeat but eliminate their enemies. In Christian Europe, the
extermination of heretics was considered desirable. Examples include
the 13th century
Albigensian Crusade

Albigensian Crusade and the Northern Crusades.[8]
When asked by a Crusader how to distinguish between the Catholics and
Cathars

Cathars once they'd taken the city of Béziers, the Papal Legate
Arnaud Amalric famously replied, "Kill them all, God will know His
own".[9]
Likewise, the inhabitants of conquered cities were frequently
massacred during the
Crusades

Crusades against the Muslims in the 11th and 12th
centuries.
Noblemen

Noblemen could hope to be ransomed; their families would
have to send to their captors large sums of wealth commensurate with
the social status of the captive.
In feudal Japan there was no custom of ransoming prisoners of war, who
were for the most part summarily executed.[10]
Aztec

Aztec sacrifices, Codex Mendoza
The expanding
Mongol Empire

Mongol Empire was famous for distinguishing between
cities or towns that surrendered, where the population were spared but
required to support the conquering Mongol army, and those that
resisted, where their city was ransacked and destroyed, and all the
population killed. In Termez, on the Oxus: "all the people, both men
and women, were driven out onto the plain, and divided in accordance
with their usual custom, then they were all slain".[11]
The Aztecs were constantly at war with neighbouring tribes and groups,
with the goal of this constant warfare being to collect live prisoners
for sacrifice.[12] For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of
Tenochtitlan in 1487, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were
sacrificed.[13] [14]
During the early
Muslim

Muslim conquests, Muslims routinely captured large
number of prisoners. Aside from those who converted, most were
ransomed or enslaved.[15][16] Christians who were captured during the
Crusades, were usually either killed or sold into slavery if they
could not pay a ransom.[17] During his lifetime,
Muhammad

Muhammad made it the
responsibility of the Islamic government to provide food and clothing,
on a reasonable basis, to captives, regardless of their religion;
however if the prisoners were in the custody of a person, then the
responsibility was on the individual.[18] The freeing of prisoners was
highly recommended as a charitable act.
Modern times[edit]
Russian and Japanese prisoners being interrogated by Chinese officials
during the Boxer Rebellion.
The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War,
established the rule that prisoners of war should be released without
ransom at the end of hostilities and that they should be allowed to
return to their homelands.[19]
Union Army
.svg/440px-Flag_of_the_United_States_of_America_(1863-1865).svg.png)
Union Army soldier on his release from
Andersonville prison

Andersonville prison in May
1865.
There also evolved the right of parole, French for "discourse", in
which a captured officer surrendered his sword and gave his word as a
gentleman in exchange for privileges. If he swore not to escape, he
could gain better accommodations and the freedom of the prison. If he
swore to cease hostilities against the nation who held him captive, he
could be repatriated or exchanged but could not serve against his
former captors in a military capacity.
European settlers captured in North America[edit]
Further information: American Revolution prisoners of war
Early historical narratives of captured colonial Europeans, including
perspectives of literate women captured by the indigenous peoples of
North America, exist in some number. The writings of Mary Rowlandson,
captured in the brutal fighting of King Philip's War, are an example.
Such narratives enjoyed some popularity, spawning a genre of the
captivity narrative, and had lasting influence on the body of early
American literature, most notably through the legacy of James Fenimore
Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. Some Native Americans continued to
capture Europeans and use them both as labourers and bargaining chips
into the 19th century; see for example John R. Jewitt, an Englishman
who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of the Nootka people
on the
Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest coast from 1802–1805.
French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars[edit]
The earliest known purposely built prisoner-of-war camp was
established at Norman Cross, England in 1797 to house the increasing
number of prisoners from the
French Revolutionary Wars

French Revolutionary Wars and the
Napoleonic Wars.[citation needed] The average prison population was
about 5,500 men. The lowest number recorded was 3,300 in October 1804
and 6,272 on 10 April 1810 was the highest number of prisoners
recorded in any official document.
Norman Cross

Norman Cross was intended to be a
model depot providing the most humane treatment of prisoners of war.
The British government went to great lengths to provide food of a
quality at least equal to that available to locals. The senior officer
from each quadrangle was permitted to inspect the food as it was
delivered to the prison to ensure it was of sufficient quality.
Despite the generous supply and quality of food, some prisoners died
of starvation after gambling away their rations. Most of the men held
in the prison were low-ranking soldiers and sailors, including
midshipmen and junior officers, with a small number of privateers.
About 100 senior officers and some civilians "of good social
standing", mainly passengers on captured ships and the wives of some
officers, were given parole d'honneur outside the prison, mainly in
Peterborough

Peterborough although some further afield in Northampton, Plymouth,
Melrose and Abergavenny. They were afforded the courtesy of their rank
within English society. The Leipzig citizen Rochlitz remarked in his
account about the
Battle

Battle of Leipzig, that large crowds of French POWs
were held on fields outside the town, begged passersby for food, and
that most of them didn't survive this ordeal.
Prisoner

Prisoner exchanges[edit]
The extensive period of conflict during the American Revolutionary War
and
Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815), followed by the Anglo-American War
of 1812, led to the emergence of a cartel system for the exchange of
prisoners, even while the belligerents were at war. A cartel was
usually arranged by the respective armed service for the exchange of
like-ranked personnel. The aim was to achieve a reduction in the
number of prisoners held, while at the same time alleviating shortages
of skilled personnel in the home country.
American Civil War[edit]
Main article: American Civil
War

War prison camps
At the start of the civil war a system of paroles operated. Captives
agreed not to fight until they were officially exchanged. Meanwhile,
they were held in camps run by their own army where they were paid but
not allowed to perform any military duties.[20] The system of
exchanges collapsed in 1863 when the Confederacy refused to exchange
black prisoners. In the late summer of 1864, a year after the Dix-Hill
Cartel was suspended; Confederate officials approached Union General
Benjamin Butler, Union Commissioner of Exchange, about resuming the
cartel and including the black prisoners. Butler contacted Grant for
guidance on the issue, and Grant responded to Butler on August 18,
1864 with his now famous statement. He rejected the offer, stating in
essence, that the Union could afford to leave their men in captivity,
the Confederacy could not.[21] After that about 56,000 of the 409,000
POWs died in prisons during the American Civil War, accounting for
nearly 10% of the conflict's fatalities.[22] Of the 45,000 Union
prisoners of war confined in Camp Sumter, located near Andersonville,
Georgia, 13,000 (28%) died.[23] At Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois,
10% of its Confederate prisoners died during one cold winter month;
and
Elmira Prison
_(14760407854).jpg/500px-The_photographic_history_of_the_Civil_War_-_thousands_of_scenes_photographed_1861-65,_with_text_by_many_special_authorities_(1911)_(14760407854).jpg)
Elmira Prison in New York state, with a death rate of 25% (2,963),
nearly equalled that of Andersonville.[24]
Amelioration[edit]
During the 19th century, there were increased efforts to improve the
treatment and processing of prisoners. As a result of these emerging
conventions, a number of international conferences were held, starting
with the Brussels Conference of 1874, with nations agreeing that it
was necessary to prevent inhumane treatment of prisoners and the use
of weapons causing unnecessary harm. Although no agreements were
immediately ratified by the participating nations, work was continued
that resulted in new conventions being adopted and becoming recognized
as international law that specified that prisoners of war be treated
humanely and diplomatically.
Hague and Geneva Conventions[edit]
Chapter II of the Annex to the 1907 Hague Convention IV – The Laws
and Customs of
War

War on Land covered the treatment of prisoners of war
in detail. These provisions were further expanded in the 1929 Geneva
Convention on the Prisoners of
War

War and were largely revised in the
Third Geneva Convention

Third Geneva Convention in 1949.
Article 4 of the
Third Geneva Convention

Third Geneva Convention protects captured military
personnel, some guerrilla fighters, and certain civilians. It applies
from the moment a prisoner is captured until he or she is released or
repatriated. One of the main provisions of the convention makes it
illegal to torture prisoners and states that a prisoner can only be
required to give their name, date of birth, rank and service number
(if applicable).
The
ICRC

ICRC has a special role to play, with regards to international
humanitarian law, in restoring and maintaining family contact in times
of war, in particular concerning the right of prisoners of war and
internees to send and receive letters and cards (Geneva Convention
(GC) III, art.71 and GC IV, art.107).
However, nations vary in their dedication to following these laws, and
historically the treatment of POWs has varied greatly. During World
War

War II,
Imperial Japan
.svg/250px-Flag_of_Japan_(1870–1999).svg.png)
Imperial Japan and
Nazi Germany
.jpg/440px-Westfaelischer_Friede_in_Muenster_(Gerard_Terborch_1648).jpg)
Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and
Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against
prisoners of war. The German military used the Soviet Union's refusal
to sign the
Geneva Convention

Geneva Convention as a reason for not providing the
necessities of life to Soviet POWs; and the Soviets similarly killed
Axis prisoners or used them as slave labour. The Germans also
routinely executed Western Allied commandos captured behind German
lines per the Commando Order. North Korean and North and South
Vietnamese forces[25] routinely killed or mistreated prisoners taken
during those conflicts.
Qualifications[edit]
Japanese illustration depicting the beheading of Chinese captives.
Sino-Japanese
War

War of 1894–5.
To be entitled to prisoner-of-war status, captured persons must be
lawful combatants entitled to combatant's privilege—which gives them
immunity from punishment for crimes constituting lawful acts of war
such as killing enemy combatants. To qualify under the Third Geneva
Convention, a combatant must be part of a chain of command, wear a
"fixed distinctive marking, visible from a distance", bear arms
openly, and have conducted military operations according to the laws
and customs of war. (The Convention recognizes a few other groups as
well, such as "[i]nhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the
approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the
invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into
regular armed units".)
Thus, uniforms and/or badges are important in determining
prisoner-of-war status; and francs-tireurs, terrorists, saboteurs,
mercenaries, and spies do not qualify because they do not always
follow the laws and customs of war and therefore they fall under the
category of unlawful combatants. In practice, these criteria are
rarely interpreted strictly. Guerrillas, for example, usually do not
wear a uniform or carry arms openly, but captured guerrillas are often
granted POW status.
The criteria are applied primarily to international armed conflicts;
in civil wars, insurgents are often treated as traitors or criminals
by government forces, and are sometimes executed. However, in the
American Civil War, both sides treated captured troops as POWs,
presumably out of reciprocity, although the Union regarded Confederate
personnel as separatist rebels. However, guerrillas and other
irregular combatants generally cannot expect to receive benefits from
both civilian and military status simultaneously.
Rights[edit]
Under the Third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war (POW) must be:
Treated humanely with respect for their persons and their honor
Able to inform their next of kin and the International Committee of
the Red Cross of their capture
Allowed to communicate regularly with relatives and receive packages
Given adequate food, clothing, housing, and medical attention
Paid for work done and not forced to do work that is dangerous,
unhealthy, or degrading
Released quickly after conflicts end
Not compelled to give any information except for name, age, rank, and
service number[26]
In addition, if wounded or sick on the battlefield, the prisoner will
receive help from the International Committee of the Red Cross.[27]
When a country is responsible for breaches of prisoner of war rights,
those accountable will be punished accordingly. An example of this is
the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials. German and Japanese military
commanders were prosecuted for preparing and initiating a war of
aggression, murder, ill treatment, and deportation of individuals, and
genocide during World
War

War II.[28] Most were executed or sentenced to
life in prison for their crimes.
U.S. Code of Conduct and terminology[edit]
Waiting interrogation, 199th LT INF BG by James Pollock
The United States Military Code of Conduct
.pdf/page1-440px-Code_of_Conduct_(United_States_Military).pdf.jpg)
The United States Military Code of Conduct was promulgated in 1955 via
Executive Order 10631 under President
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve as
a moral code for United States service members who have been taken
prisoner. It was created primarily in response to the breakdown of
leadership and organization, specifically when U.S. forces were POWs
during the Korean War.
When a military member is taken prisoner, the Code of Conduct reminds
them that the chain of command is still in effect (the highest ranking
service member eligible for command, regardless of service branch, is
in command), and requires them to support their leadership. The Code
of Conduct also requires service members to resist giving information
to the enemy (beyond identifying themselves, that is, "name, rank,
serial number"), receiving special favors or parole, or otherwise
providing their enemy captors aid and comfort.
Since the Vietnam War, the official U.S. military term for enemy POWs
is EPW (Enemy
Prisoner

Prisoner of War). This name change was introduced in
order to distinguish between enemy and U.S. captives.[29][30]
In 2000, the U.S. military replaced the designation "
Prisoner

Prisoner of War"
for captured American personnel with "Missing-Captured". A January
2008 directive states that the reasoning behind this is since
"
Prisoner

Prisoner of War" is the international legal recognized status for
such people there is no need for any individual country to follow
suit. This change remains relatively unknown even among experts in the
field and "
Prisoner

Prisoner of War" remains widely used in the Pentagon which
has a "POW/Missing Personnel Office" and awards the
Prisoner

Prisoner of War
Medal.[31][32]
World
War

War I[edit]
See also: World
War

War I prisoners of war in Germany
American prisoners of war in
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany in 1917
German soldiers captured by the British in Flanders.
During World
War

War I, about eight million men surrendered and were held
in POW camps until the war ended. All nations pledged to follow the
Hague rules on fair treatment of prisoners of war, and in general the
POWs had a much higher survival rate than their peers who were not
captured.[33] Individual surrenders were uncommon; usually a large
unit surrendered all its men. At Tannenberg 92,000 Russians
surrendered during the battle. When the besieged garrison of Kaunas
surrendered in 1915, 20,000 Russians became prisoners. Over half the
Russian losses were prisoners as a proportion of those captured,
wounded or killed. About 3.3 million men became prisoners.[34]
The
German Empire

German Empire held 2.5 million prisoners; Russia held 2.9 million,
and Britain and France held about 720,000, mostly gained in the period
just before the
Armistice
.jpg/440px-Westfaelischer_Friede_in_Muenster_(Gerard_Terborch_1648).jpg)
Armistice in 1918. The US held 48,000. The most
dangerous moment for POW's was the act of surrender, when helpless
soldiers were sometimes mistakenly shot down. Once prisoners reached a
POW camp conditions were better (and often much better than in World
War

War II), thanks in part to the efforts of the International Red Cross
and inspections by neutral nations.
There was however much harsh treatment of POWs in Germany, as recorded
by the American ambassador to
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany (prior to America's entry into
the war), James W. Gerard, who published his findings in "My Four
Years in Germany". Even worse conditions are reported in the book
"Escape of a Princess Pat" by the Canadian George Pearson. It was
particularly bad in Russia, where starvation was common for prisoners
and civilians alike; a quarter of the over 2 million POWs held there
died.[35] Nearly 375,000 of the 500,000
Austro-Hungarian
.svg/250px-Flag_of_Austria-Hungary_(1869-1918).svg.png)
Austro-Hungarian prisoners of
war taken by Russians perished in
Siberia

Siberia from smallpox and
typhus.[36] In Germany, food was short, but only 5% died.[37]
The
Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire often treated prisoners of war poorly. Some 11,800
British soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the
five-month
Siege

Siege of Kut, in Mesopotamia, in April 1916. Many were weak
and starved when they surrendered and 4,250 died in captivity.[38]
During the
Sinai and Palestine campaign

Sinai and Palestine campaign 217 Australian and unknown
numbers of British,
New Zealand

New Zealand and Indian soldiers were captured by
Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire forces. About 50% of the Australian prisoners were
light horsemen including 48 missing believed captured on 1 May 1918 in
the Jordan Valley.
Australian Flying Corps

Australian Flying Corps pilots and observers were
captured in the Sinai Peninsula, Palestine and the Levant. One third
of all Australian prisoners were captured on Gallipoli including the
crew of the submarine AE2 which made a passage through the Dardanelles
in 1915. Forced marches and crowded railway journeys preceded years in
camps where disease, poor diet and inadequate medical facilities
prevailed. About 25% of other ranks died, many from malnutrition,
while only one officer died.[39][40]
The most curious case came in Russia where the
Czechoslovak Legion
.jpg/500px-Praha_svým_vítězným_synům_(2).jpg)
Czechoslovak Legion of
Czechoslovak

Czechoslovak prisoners (from the
Austro-Hungarian
.svg/250px-Flag_of_Austria-Hungary_(1869-1918).svg.png)
Austro-Hungarian army): they were
released in 1917, armed themselves, briefly culminating into a
military and diplomatic force during the Russian Civil War.
Release of prisoners[edit]
A memorial to German prisoners of war who died in 1914–1920
Celebration for returning POWs, Berlin 1920
At the end of the war in 1918 there were believed to be 140,000
British prisoners of war in Germany, including thousands of internees
held in neutral Switzerland.[41] The first British prisoners were
released and reached
Calais

Calais on 15 November. Plans were made for them
to be sent via
Dunkirk

Dunkirk to
Dover

Dover and a large reception camp was
established at
Dover

Dover capable of housing 40,000 men, which could later
be used for demobilisation.
On 13 December 1918, the armistice was extended and the Allies
reported that by 9 December 264,000 prisoners had been repatriated. A
very large number of these had been released en masse and sent across
Allied lines without any food or shelter. This created difficulties
for the receiving Allies and many released prisoners died from
exhaustion. The released POWs were met by cavalry troops and sent back
through the lines in lorries to reception centres where they were
refitted with boots and clothing and dispatched to the ports in
trains.
Upon arrival at the receiving camp the POWs were registered and
"boarded" before being dispatched to their own homes. All commissioned
officers had to write a report on the circumstances of their capture
and to ensure that they had done all they could to avoid capture. Each
returning officer and man was given a message from King George V,
written in his own hand and reproduced on a lithograph. It read as
follows:[42]
The Queen joins me in welcoming you on your release from the miseries
& hardships, which you have endured with so much patience and
courage.
During these many months of trial, the early rescue of our gallant
Officers & Men from the cruelties of their captivity has been
uppermost in our thoughts.
We are thankful that this longed for day has arrived, & that back
in the old Country you will be able once more to enjoy the happiness
of a home & to see good days among those who anxiously look for
your return. George R.I.
While the Allied prisoners were sent home at the end of the war, the
same treatment was not granted to
Central Powers

Central Powers prisoners of the
Allies and Russia, many of whom had to serve as forced labour, e.g. in
France, until 1920. They were released after many approaches by the
ICRC

ICRC to the Allied Supreme Council.[43]
World
War

War II[edit]
Jewish Soviet POW captured by the German Army, August 1941. At least
50,000 Jewish soldiers were shot after selection.
Historian Niall Ferguson, in addition to figures from Keith Lowe,
tabulated the total death rate for POWs in World
War

War II as
follows:[44][45]
Percentage of
POWs that Died
Soviet POWs held by Germans
57.5%
German POWs held by Yugoslavs
41.2%
German POWs held by Soviets
35.8%
American POWs held by Japanese
33.0%
American POWs held by Germans
1.19%
German POWs held by Eastern Europeans
32.9%
British POWs held by Japanese
24.8%
German POWs held by Czechoslovaks
5.0%
British POWs held by Germans
3.5%
German POWs held by French
2.58%
German POWs held by Americans
0.15%
German POWs held by British
0.03%
Treatment of POWs by the Axis[edit]
See also:
Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs

Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs and Japanese war crimes
Empire of Japan[edit]
The Empire of Japan, which had signed but never ratified the 1929
Geneva Convention

Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War,[46] did not treat prisoners of
war in accordance with international agreements, including provisions
of the Hague Conventions, either during the Second Sino-Japanese War
or during the Pacific War, because the Japanese viewed surrender as
dishonorable. Moreover, according to a directive ratified on 5 August
1937 by Hirohito, the constraints of the Hague Conventions were
explicitly removed on Chinese prisoners.[47]
Prisoners of war from China, the United States, Australia, Britain,
Canada, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the Philippines held
by the Japanese armed forces were subject to murder, beatings, summary
punishment, brutal treatment, forced labour, medical experimentation,
starvation rations, poor medical treatment and cannibalism.[48] The
most notorious use of forced labour was in the construction of the
Burma–Thailand Death Railway. After 20 March 1943, the Imperial Navy
was under orders to execute all prisoners taken at sea.[49]
According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate of
Western prisoners was 27.1%, seven times that of POWs under the
Germans and Italians.[50] The death rate of Chinese was much higher.
Thus, while 37,583 prisoners from the United Kingdom, Commonwealth,
and Dominions, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from the United
States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number for the
Chinese was only 56.[51] The 27,465
United States Army

United States Army and United
States Army Air Forces POWs in the Pacific Theater had a 40.4% death
rate.[52] The
War

War Ministry in Tokyo issued an order at the end of the
war to kill all surviving POWs.[53]
No direct access to the POWs was provided to the International Red
Cross. Escapes among Caucasian prisoners were almost impossible
because of the difficulty of men of Caucasian descent hiding in
Asiatic societies.[54]
Allied POW camps and ship-transports were sometimes accidental targets
of Allied attacks. The number of deaths which occurred when Japanese
"hell ships"—unmarked transport ships in which POWs were transported
in harsh conditions—were attacked by US Navy submarines was
particularly high. Gavan Daws has calculated that "of all POWs who
died in the Pacific War, one in three was killed on the water by
friendly fire".[55] Daves states that 10,800 of the 50,000 POWs
shipped by the Japanese were killed at sea[56] while Donald L. Miller
states that "approximately 21,000 Allied POWs died at sea, about
19,000 of them killed by friendly fire."[57]
Life in the POW camps was recorded at great risk to themselves by
artists such as Jack Bridger Chalker, Philip Meninsky, Ashley George
Old, and Ronald Searle. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant
juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". Some of
their works were used as evidence in the trials of Japanese war
criminals.
Research into the conditions of the camps has been conducted by The
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.[58]
Troops of the
Suffolk Regiment

Suffolk Regiment surrendering to the Japanese, 1942
Many US and Filipino POWs died as a result of the Bataan Death March,
in May 1942
Water colour sketch of "Dusty" Rhodes by Ashley George Old
Australian and Dutch POWs at Tarsau, Thailand in 1943
U.S. Army Nurses in Santo Tomas
Internment

Internment Camp, 1943
U.S. Navy nurses rescued from Los Baños
Internment

Internment Camp, March 1945
Allied prisoners of war at Aomori camp near Yokohama, Japan waving
flags of the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands in
August 1945.
Canadian POWs at the Liberation of Hong Kong
POW art depicting Cabanatuan prison camp, produced in 1946
Australian POW
Leonard Siffleet

Leonard Siffleet captured at New Guinea moments before
his execution with a Japanese shin gunto sword in 1943.
Captured soldiers of the British Indian Army executed by the Japanese.
Germany[edit]
French soldiers[edit]
Main article: French prisoners of war in World
War

War II
After the French armies surrendered in summer 1940,
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany seized two
million French prisoners of war and sent them to camps in Germany.
About one third were released on various terms. Of the remainder, the
officers and non-commissioned officers were kept in camps and did not
work. The privates were sent out to work. About half of them worked
for German agriculture, where food supplies were adequate and controls
were lenient. The others worked in factories or mines, where
conditions were much harsher.[59]
Western Allies' POWs[edit]
See also: Belgian prisoners of war in World
War

War II
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany and Italy generally treated prisoners from the British
Commonwealth, France, the USA, and other western Allies in accordance
with the Geneva Convention, which had been signed by these
countries.[60] Consequently, western Allied officers were not usually
made to work and some personnel of lower rank were usually
compensated, or not required to work either. The main complaints of
western Allied prisoners of war in German POW camps—especially
during the last two years of the war—concerned shortages of food.
Representation of a "Forty-and-eight" boxcar used to transport
American POWs in
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany during World
War

War II.
Only a small proportion of western Allied POWs who were Jews—or whom
the Nazis believed to be Jewish—were killed as part of the Holocaust
or were subjected to other antisemitic policies.[dubious –
discuss][citation needed] For example, Major Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, a
Palestinian
Jew

Jew who had enlisted in the British Army, and who was
captured by the Germans in Greece in 1941, experienced four years of
captivity under entirely normal conditions for POWs.[61]
Telegram notifying parents of an American POW of his capture by
Germany
However, a small number of Allied personnel were sent to concentration
camps, for a variety of reasons including being Jewish.[62] As the US
historian Joseph Robert White put it: "An important exception ... is
the sub-camp for U.S. POWs at Berga an der Elster, officially called
Arbeitskommando 625 [also known as Stalag IX-B]. Berga was the
deadliest work detachment for American captives in Germany. 73 men who
participated, or 21 percent of the detachment, perished in two months.
80 of the 350 POWs were Jews."[citation needed] Another well-known
example was a group of 168 Australian, British, Canadian, New Zealand
and US aviators who were held for two months at Buchenwald
concentration camp;[63] two of the POWs died at Buchenwald. Two
possible reasons have been suggested for this incident: German
authorities wanted to make an example of Terrorflieger ("terrorist
aviators") and/or these aircrews were classified as spies, because
they had been disguised as civilians or enemy soldiers when they were
apprehended.
Information on conditions in the stalags is contradictory depending on
the source. Some American POWs claimed the Germans were victims of
circumstance and did the best they could, while others accused their
captors of brutalities and forced labour. In any case, the prison
camps were miserable places where food rations were meager and
conditions squalid. One American admitted "The only difference between
the stalags and concentration camps was that we weren't gassed or shot
in the former. I do not recall a single act of compassion or mercy on
the part of the Germans." Typical meals consisted of a bread slice and
watery potato soup which, however, was still more substantial than
what Soviet POWs or concentration camp inmates received. Another
prisoner stated that "The German plan was to keep us alive, yet
weakened enough that we wouldn't attempt escape."[64]
As Soviet ground forces approached some POW camps in early 1945,
German guards forced western Allied POWs to walk long distances
towards central Germany, often in extreme winter weather
conditions.[citation needed] It is estimated that, out of 257,000
POWs, about 80,000 were subject to such marches and up to 3,500 of
them died as a result.[citation needed]
Italian POWs[edit]
Main articles: Operation Achse, Italian military internees, and
Massacre of the Acqui Division
In September 1943 after the Armistice, Italian officers and soldiers
that in many places waited for clear superior orders, were arrested by
Germans and Italian fascists and taken to German internment camps in
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany or Eastern Europe, where they were held for the duration of
World
War

War II. The
International Red Cross

International Red Cross could do nothing for them,
as they were not regarded as POWs, but the prisoners held the status
of "military internees". Treatment of the prisoners was generally
poor. The author
Giovannino Guareschi

Giovannino Guareschi was among those interned and
wrote about this time in his life. The book was translated and
published as "My Secret Diary". He wrote about the hungers of
semi-starvation, the casual murder of individual prisoners by guards
and how, when they were released (now from a German camp), they found
a deserted German town filled with foodstuffs that they (with other
released prisoners) ate.[citation needed]. It is estimated that of the
1,070,000 Italians taken prisoner by the Germans, around 40,000 died
in detention and more than 13,000 lost their lives during the
transportation from the Greek islands to the mainland.[65]
Eastern European POWs[edit]
Main article: German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war
An improvised camp for Soviet POWs. Between June 1941 and January
1942, the Nazis killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet prisoners of
war, whom they viewed as "subhuman".[66]
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany did not apply the same standard of treatment to non-western
prisoners, especially many Polish and Soviet POWs who suffered harsh
conditions and died in large numbers while in captivity.
Between 1941 and 1945 the Axis powers took about 5.7 million Soviet
prisoners. About one million of them were released during the war, in
that their status changed but they remained under German authority. A
little over 500,000 either escaped or were liberated by the Red Army.
Some 930,000 more were found alive in camps after the war. The
remaining 3.3 million prisoners (57.5% of the total captured) died
during their captivity.[67] Between the launching of Operation
Barbarossa in the summer of 1941 and the following spring, 2.8 million
of the 3.2 million Soviet prisoners taken died while in German
hands.[68] According to Russian military historian General Grigoriy
Krivosheyev, the Axis powers took 4.6 million Soviet prisoners, of
whom 1.8 million were found alive in camps after the war and 318,770
were released by the Axis during the war and were then drafted into
the Soviet armed forces again.[69] By comparison, 8,348 Western Allied
prisoners died in German camps during 1939–45 (3.5% of the 232,000
total).[70]
Naked Soviet prisoners of war in Mauthausen concentration camp.
The Germans officially justified their policy on the grounds that the
Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention. Legally, however,
under article 82 of the Geneva Convention, signatory countries had to
give POWs of all signatory and non-signatory countries the rights
assigned by the convention.[71] Shortly after the German invasion in
1941, the
USSR

USSR made Berlin an offer of a reciprocal adherence to the
Hague Conventions. Third Reich officials left the Soviet "note"
unanswered.[72][73] In contrast,
Nikolai Tolstoy

Nikolai Tolstoy recounts that the
German Government - as well as the
International Red Cross

International Red Cross - made
several efforts to regulate reciprocal treatment of prisoners until
early 1942, but received no answers from the Soviet side.[74] Further,
the Soviets took a harsh position towards captured Soviet soldiers, as
they expected each soldier to fight to the death, and automatically
excluded any prisoner from the "Russian community".[75][need quotation
to verify]
Some Soviet POWs and forced labourers whom the Germans had transported
to
Nazi Germany
.jpg/440px-Westfaelischer_Friede_in_Muenster_(Gerard_Terborch_1648).jpg)
Nazi Germany were, on their return to the USSR, treated as traitors
and sent to gulag prison-camps.
Treatment of POWs by the Soviet Union[edit]
German POW at Stalingrad
Main articles: POW labor in the Soviet Union, Japanese prisoners of
war in the Soviet Union, Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union,
Romanian POW in the Soviet Union, Polish prisoners of war in the
Soviet Union (after 1939), Finnish prisoners of war in the Soviet
Union, German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, Katyn massacre,
and Gulag
Germans, Romanians, Italians, Hungarians, Finns[edit]
According to some sources, the Soviets captured 3.5 million Axis
servicemen (excluding Japanese) of which more than a million died.[76]
One specific example is that of the German POWs after the
Battle

Battle of
Stalingrad, where the Soviets captured 91,000 German troops in total
(completely exhausted, starving and sick) of whom only 5,000 survived
the captivity.
German soldiers were kept as forced labour for many years after the
war. The last German POWs like Erich Hartmann, the highest-scoring
fighter ace in the history of aerial warfare, who had been declared
guilty of war crimes but without due process, were not released by the
Soviets until 1955, three years after Stalin died.[77]
Polish[edit]
Katyn 1943 exhumation. Photo by
International Red Cross

International Red Cross delegation.
As a result of the
Soviet invasion of Poland

Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, hundreds of
thousands of Polish soldiers became prisoners of war in the Soviet
Union. Thousands of them were executed; over 20,000 Polish military
personnel and civilians perished in the Katyn massacre.[78] Out of
Anders' 80,000 evacuees from Soviet Union gathered in the United
Kingdom only 310 volunteered to return to Poland in 1947.[79]
Out of the 230,000 Polish prisoners of war taken by the Soviet army,
only 82,000 survived.[80]
Japanese[edit]
With the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, in 1945, Japanese soldiers
became prisoners in the Soviet Union, where they, just as other Axis
POWs, had to work.
Americans[edit]
There were stories during the Cold
War

War to the effect that 23,000
Americans who had been held in German POW camps were seized by the
Soviets and never repatriated. This myth had been perpetuated after
the release of people like John H. Noble. Careful scholarly studies
have demonstrated this is a myth based on a misinterpretation of a
telegram that was talking about Soviet prisoners held in Italy.[81]
Treatment of POWs by the Western Allies[edit]
See also: List of World
War

War II POW camps and Allied war crimes during
World
War

War II
Main articles: Operation Keelhaul, Forced labor of Germans after World
War

War II, Japanese prisoners of war in World
War

War II, and German
prisoners of war in the United States
Germans[edit]
Remagen

Remagen open-field Rheinwiesenlager
US Army: Card of capture for German POWs – front
The reverse of above card
Certificate of Discharge
of a German General
(Front- and Backside)
During the war, the armies of Western Allied nations such as
Australia, Canada, the UK and the US[82] were ordered to treat Axis
prisoners strictly in accordance with the Geneva Convention.[83] Some
breaches of the Convention took place, however. According to Stephen
E. Ambrose, of the roughly 1,000 US combat veterans that he had
interviewed, only one admitted to shooting a prisoner, saying that he
"felt remorse, but would do it again". However, one-third told him
they had seen US troops kill German prisoners.[84]
Towards the end of the war in Europe, as large numbers of Axis
soldiers surrendered, the US created the designation of Disarmed Enemy
Forces (DEF) so as not to treat prisoners as POWs. A lot of these
soldiers were kept in open fields in makeshift camps in the Rhine
valley (Rheinwiesenlager). Controversy has arisen about how Eisenhower
managed these prisoners[85] (see Other Losses).
After the surrender of
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany in May 1945, the POW status of the
German prisoners was in many cases maintained, and they were for
several years used as forced labour in countries such as the UK and
France. Many died when forced to clear minefields in Norway, France
etc.; "by September 1945 it was estimated by the French authorities
that two thousand prisoners were being maimed and killed each month in
accidents"[86][87]
In 1946, the UK had more than 400,000 German prisoners, many had been
transferred from POW camps in the US and Canada. Many of these were
for over three years after the German surrender used as forced labour,
as a form of "reparations".[88][89] A public debate ensued in the UK,
where words such as "forced labour", "slaves", "slave labour" were
increasingly used in the media and in the House of Commons.[90] In
1947 the Ministry of Agriculture argued against repatriation of
working German prisoners, since by then they made up 25 percent of the
land workforce, and they wanted to use them also in 1948.[90]
The "London Cage", an
MI19

MI19 prisoner of war facility in the UK used for
interrogating prisoners before they were sent to prison camps during
and immediately after World
War

War II, was subject to allegations of
torture.[91]
After the German surrender, the
International Red Cross

International Red Cross was prohibited
from providing aid such as food or visiting prisoner camps in Germany.
However, after making approaches to the Allies in the autumn of 1945
it was allowed to investigate the camps in the British and French
occupation zones of Germany, as well as to provide relief to the
prisoners held there.[92] On 4 February 1946, the Red Cross was
permitted to visit and assist prisoners also in the US occupation zone
of Germany, although only with very small quantities of food. "During
their visits, the delegates observed that German prisoners of war were
often detained in appalling conditions. They drew the attention of the
authorities to this fact, and gradually succeeded in getting some
improvements made".[92]
The Allies also shipped POWs between them, with for example 6,000
German officers transferred from Western Allied camps to the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen concentration camp that now was under Soviet Union
administration.[93] The US also shipped 740,000 German POWs as forced
labourers to France from where newspaper reports told of very bad
treatment. Judge Robert H. Jackson, Chief US prosecutor in the
Nuremberg trials, in October 1945 told US President Harry S. Truman
that the Allies themselves:
have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the
Germans for. The French are so violating the
Geneva Convention

Geneva Convention in the
treatment of prisoners of war that our command is taking back
prisoners sent to them. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are
practicing it.[94][95]
Hungarians[edit]
Hungarians became POWs of the Western Allies. Some of these were, like
Germans, used as forced labour in France after the cessation of
hostilities.[96] After the war the POWs were handed over to the
Soviets, and after the POWs were transported to the
USSR

USSR for forced
labour. It is called even today in
Hungary

Hungary malenkij robot—little
work. András Toma, a Hungarian soldier taken prisoner by the Red Army
in 1944, was discovered in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000. He
was probably the last prisoner of war from World
War

War II to be
repatriated.[97]
Japanese[edit]
A group of Japanese captured during the
Battle

Battle of Okinawa
Although thousands of Japanese were taken prisoner, most fought until
they were killed or committed suicide. Of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers
present at the beginning of the
Battle

Battle of Iwo Jima, over 20,000 were
killed and only 216 were taken prisoner.[98] Of the 30,000 Japanese
troops that defended Saipan, fewer than 1,000 remained alive at
battle's end.[99] Japanese prisoners sent to camps fared well;
however, some Japanese were killed when trying to surrender or were
massacred[100] just after they had surrendered (see Allied war crimes
during World
War

War II in the Pacific). In some instances, Japanese
prisoners were tortured by a variety of methods.[101] A method of
torture used by the Chinese
National Revolutionary Army

National Revolutionary Army (NRA) included
suspending the prisoner by the neck in a wooden cage until they
died.[101][102] In very rare cases, some were beheaded by sword, and a
severed head was once used as a football by Chinese National
Revolutionary Army (NRA) soldiers.[101][103]
After the war, many Japanese were kept on as Japanese Surrendered
Personnel until mid-1947 and used as forced labour doing menial tasks,
while 35,000 were kept on in arms within their wartime military
organisation and under their own officers and used in combat alongside
British troops seeking to suppress the independence movements in the
Dutch East Indies

Dutch East Indies and French Indochina.
Italians[edit]
In 1943, Italy overthrew Mussolini and became a co-belligerent with
the Allies. This did not mean any change in status for Italian POWs
however, since due to the labour shortages in the UK, Australia and
the USA, they were retained as POWs there.[104]
Cossacks[edit]
On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the
United States and the United Kingdom signed a
Repatriation

Repatriation Agreement
with the USSR.[105] The interpretation of this Agreement resulted in
the forcible repatriation of all Soviets (Operation Keelhaul)
regardless of their wishes. The forced repatriation operations took
place in 1945–1947.[106]
Transfers between the Allies[edit]
The United States handed over 740,000 German prisoners to France, a
signatory of the Geneva Convention. The Soviet Union had not signed
the Geneva Convention. According to Edward Peterson, the U.S. chose to
hand over several hundred thousand German prisoners to the Soviet
Union in May 1945 as a "gesture of friendship".[107] U.S. forces also
refused to accept the surrender of German troops attempting to
surrender to them in
Saxony
.svg/240px-Flag_of_Saxony_(state).svg.png)
Saxony and Bohemia, and handed them over to the
Soviet Union instead.[108] It is also known that 6000 of the German
officers who were sent from camps in the West to the Soviets were
subsequently imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which
at the time was one of the NKVD special camp.[109][110]
Post World
War

War II[edit]
A U.S. Army POW of the 21st
Infantry

Infantry Regiment bound and killed by
North Koreans during the Korean War.
An American POW being released by his North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
captors in February 1973.
Recently released American POWs from North Vietnamese prison camps in
1973.
During the Korean War, the North Koreans developed reputation for
severely mistreating prisoners of war (see Crimes against POWs). Their
POWs were housed in three camps, according to their potential
usefulness to the North Korean army. Peace camps and reform camps were
for POWs that were either sympathetic to the cause or who had valued
skills that could be useful in the army and thus these enemy soldiers
were indoctrinated and sometimes conscripted into the North Korean
army. The regular prisoners of war were usually very poorly treated.
POWs in peace camps were reportedly treated with more
consideration.[111]
In 1952, the 1952 Inter-Camp P.O.W. Olympics were held during 15 and
27 November 1952, in Pyuktong, North Korea. The Chinese hoped to gain
worldwide publicity and while some prisoners refused to participate
some 500 P.O.W.s of eleven nationalities took part.[112] They were
representative of all the prison camps in
North Korea

North Korea and competed in:
football, baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, track and field,
soccer, gymnastics, and boxing.[112] For the P.O.W.s this was also an
opportunity to meet with friends from other camps. The prisoners had
their own photographers, announcers, even reporters, who after each
day's competition published a newspaper, the "Olympic Roundup".[113]
Of about 16,500 French soldiers who fought at the
Battle

Battle of Dien Bien
Phu in French Indochina, more than 3,000 were killed in battle, while
almost all of the 11,721 men taken prisoner died in the hands of the
Viet Minh
.svg/440px-Flag_of_North_Vietnam_(1945-1955).svg.png)
Viet Minh on death marches to distant POW camps, and in those camps in
the last three months of the war.[114]
The
Vietcong

Vietcong and the
North Vietnamese Army

North Vietnamese Army captured many United States
service members as prisoners of war during the Vietnam War, who
suffered from mistreatment and torture during the war. Some American
prisoners were held in the prison called the Hanoi Hilton.
Main article: U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War
Communist Vietnamese held in custody by South Vietnamese and American
forces were also tortured and badly treated.[25] After the war,
millions of South Vietnamese servicemen and government workers were
sent to "re-education" camps where many perished.
Like in previous conflicts, there has been speculation without
evidence that there were a handful of American pilots captured by the
North Koreans and the North Vietnamese who were transferred to the
Soviet Union and were never repatriated.[115][116][117]
Regardless of regulations determining treatment to prisoners,
violations of their rights continue to be reported. Many cases of POW
massacres have been reported in recent times, including October 13
massacre in Lebanon by Syrian forces and June 1990 massacre in Sri
Lanka.
In 1982, during the Falklands War, prisoners were well treated in
general by both parties of the conflict, with military commanders
dispatching 'enemy' prisoners back to their homelands in record
time.[118]
In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, American, British, Italian, and
Kuwaiti POWs (mostly crew members of downed aircraft and special
forces) were tortured by the Iraqi secret police. An American military
doctor, Major Rhonda Cornum, a 37-year-old flight surgeon captured
when her Blackhawk UH-60 was shot down, was also subjected to sexual
abuse.[119]
During the 1990s Yugoslav Wars,
Serb

Serb paramilitary forces supported by
JNA forces killed POWs at Vukovar and Škarbrnja while Bosnian Serb
forces killed POWs at Srebrenica.
In 2001, there were reports concerning two POWs that India had taken
during the Sino-Indian War, Yang Chen and Shih Liang. The two were
imprisoned as spies for three years before being interned in a mental
asylum in Ranchi, where they spent the next 38 years under a special
prisoner status.[120]
The last prisoners of Iran–Iraq
War

War (1980–1988) were exchanged in
2003.[121]
Numbers of POWs[edit]
This is a list of nations with the highest number of POWs since the
start of World
War

War II, listed in descending order. These are also the
highest numbers in any war since the Convention Relative to the
Treatment of Prisoners of
War

War entered into force on 19 June 1931. The
USSR

USSR had not signed the Geneva convention.[122]
Armies
Number of POWs held in captivity
Name

Name of conflict
Soviet Union
2.7-3 million taken by
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany (1.6 million died in German POW camps
(56–68%))
[123]
World
War

War II (Total)
Nazi Germany
6,435,502 taken by
USSR

USSR (474,967 died in captivity (15.2%))[123]
(according to another source 1,094,250 died in captivity (35.8%))[124]
unknown number in Yugoslavia, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark
(the death rate for German prisoners of war was highest in Yugoslavia
with over 50%)[125]
1.3 million unknown[126]
World
War

War II
France
1,800,000 taken by Germany
World
War

War II
Poland
675,000 (420,000 taken by Germany; 240,000 taken by the Soviets in
1939; 15,000 taken by
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany in Warsaw in 1944)
Invasion of Poland, and Warsaw Uprising
United Kingdom
≈200,000 (135,000 taken in Europe, does not include Pacific or
Commonwealth figures)
World
War

War II
United States
≈130,000 (95,532 taken by Germany)
World
War

War II
Pakistan
90,368 taken by India & Bangladesh Liberation force (Mukti
Bahini). Later released by India in accordance with the Simla
Agreement.
Bangladesh Liberation War
Iraq
≈175,000 taken by Coalition of the Gulf War
Persian Gulf War
In popular culture[edit]
Further information:
War

War film
Movies & Television
1971
Andersonville
Another Time, Another Place
As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me

As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me [German: So weit die Füße tragen]
Blood Oath
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Brylcreem Boys
The Colditz Story
Danger Within
The Deer Hunter
Empire of the Sun
Escape to Athena
"Escape from Sobibor
Faith of My Fathers
Grand Illusion
The Great Escape
The Great Raid
Hanoi Hilton
Hart's War
Hogan's Heroes
Homeland
Katyń
King Rat
Life Is Beautiful
P.O.W.- Bandi Yuddh Ke
The McKenzie Break
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Missing in Action
The One That Got Away
Paradise Road
The Purple Heart
Prisoner

Prisoner of
War

War (Several films of this title are listed here[127])
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rescue Dawn
Schindler's List
Slaughterhouse Five
Some Kind of Hero
Stalag 17
Summer of My German Soldier
Tea with Mussolini
To End All Wars
Unbroken
Uncommon Valor
Von Ryan's Express
The Pianist
The Walking Dead
Who Goes Next?
The Wooden Horse
Songs
"Prisoners of War" by Funker Vogt
"Captured" by Malevhhjjolent Creation
"Take No Prisoners" by Megadeth
See also[edit]
KIA – Killed in Action
MIA – Missing in Action
WIA – Wounded in action
13th Psychological Operations Battalion (Enemy
Prisoner

Prisoner of War)
1952 POW olympics
American Civil
War

War prison camps
American Revolution prisoners of war
Civilian

Civilian Internee
Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland (1919–1924)
Disarmed Enemy Forces
Soviet POWs in German captivity
Geneva Convention
German Prisoners of
War

War in the United States
Illegal combatant
Italian military internees
Korean
War

War POWs detained in North Korea
Elsa Brändström: The "Angel of Siberia" for Millions of German POWs
in World
War

War I
Laws of war
List of notable prisoners of war
List of prisoner-of-war escapes
Military Chaplain#Noncombatant status
Polish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (after 1939)
Postal censorship
Prisoner

Prisoner of war mail
Prison

Prison escape
Prisoner-of-war camp
Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts Project (RULAC)
Thomas E. "Tom" Walsh, Sr.
The United States Military Code of Conduct
Vietnam
War

War POW/MIA issue
War

War crime
World
War

War I prisoners of war in Germany
World
War

War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion
References[edit]
Notes
^ Compare Harper, Douglas. "camouflage". Online Etymology Dictionary.
Retrieved 2017-10-28. - "Captives taken in war have been called
prisoners since mid-14c.; phrase prisoner of war dates from 1670s".
^ John Hickman (2008). "What is a
Prisoner

Prisoner of
War

War For". Scientia
Militaria. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ Wickham, Jason (2014) The Enslavement of
War

War Captives by the Romans
up to 146 BC, University of Liverpool PhD Dissertation. "Archived
copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 May 2015.
Retrieved 24 May 2015. Wickham 2014 notes that for Roman warfare
the outcome of capture could lead to release, ransom, execution or
enslavement.
^ "The Roman Gladiator", The University of Chicago.
^ "CHURCH FATHERS: Church History, Book VII (Socrates Scholasticus)".
www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
^ Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary
of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
ISBN 0-14-051312-4.
^ "But when the outcries of the lackies and boies, which ran awaie for
feare of the Frenchmen thus spoiling the campe came to the kings
eares, he doubting least his enimies should gather togither againe,
and begin a new field; and mistrusting further that the prisoners
would be an aid to his enimies, or the verie enimies to their takers
in deed if they were suffered to live, contrarie to his accustomed
gentleness, commended by sound of trumpet, that everie man (upon pain
and death) should uncontinentlie slaie his prisoner. When this
dolorous decree, and pitifull proclamation was pronounced, pitie it
was to see how some Frenchmen were suddenlie sticked with daggers,
some were brained with pollaxes, some slaine with malls, others had
their throats cut, and some their bellies panched, so that in effect,
having respect to the great number, few prisoners were saved." :
Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland,
quoted by Andrew Gurr in his introduction to Shakespeare, William;
Gurr, Andrew (2005). King Henry V. Cambridge University Press.
p. 24. ISBN 0-521-84792-3.
^ "History of Europe, p. 362–by Norman Davies
ISBN 0-19-520912-5
^ According to the Dialogus Miraculorum by Caesarius of Heisterbach,
Arnaud Amalric was only reported to have said that.
^ Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan, The Journal
of Japanese Studies
^ "Central Asian world cities". Faculty.washington.edu. 29 September
2007. Archived from the original on 18 January 2012. Retrieved 14
April 2012.
^ Meyer, Michael C. and William L. Sherman. The Course of Mexican
History. Oxford University Press, 5th ed. 1995.
^ Hassig, Ross (2003). "El sacrificio y las guerras floridas".
Arqueología mexicana, pp. 46–51.
^ "The Enigma of
Aztec

Aztec Sacrifice". Latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved
14 April 2012.
^ (Crone (2004), pp. 371–72)
^ Roger DuPasquier. Unveiling Islam. Islamic Texts Society, 1992, p.
104
^ Nigosian, S. A. (2004). Islam. Its History, Teaching, and Practices.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 115.
^ Maududi (1967), Introduction of Ad-Dahr, "Period of revelation", p.
159.
^ "
Prisoner

Prisoner of war", Encyclopædia Britannica
^ Roger Pickenpaugh (2013). Captives in Blue: The Civil
War

War Prisons of
the Confederacy. University of Alabama Press. pp. 57–73.
^ "Myth: General Ulysses S. Grant stopped the prisoner exchange, and
is thus responsible for all of the suffering in Civil
War

War prisons on
both sides – Andersonville National Historic Site (U.S. National
Park Service)". Nps.gov. 2014-07-18. Retrieved 2014-07-28.
^ Richard Wightman Fox (7 January 2008). "National Life After Death".
Slate. Archived from the original on 10 December 2012. Retrieved 10
December 2012.
^ "Andersonville:
Prisoner

Prisoner of
War

War Camp-Reading 1". Nps.gov. Retrieved
28 November 2008.
^ "US Civil
War

War
Prison

Prison Camps Claimed Thousands". National Geographic
News. 1 July 2003.
^ a b "In South Vietnamese Jails". Retrieved 30 November 2009.
^ "Geneva Convention". Peace Pledge Union. Retrieved 6 April
2014.
^ "Story of an idea- the Film". International Committee of the Red
Cross. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
^ Penrose, Mary Margaret. "
War

War Crime". Encyclopædia Britannica.
Retrieved 6 April 2014.
^ John Pike (12 August 1949). "FM3-19.40 Part 1 Fundamentals of
Internment/Resettlement Operations Chptr 1 Introduction".
Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ Schmitt, Eric (19 February 1991). "
War

War in the Gulf: P.O.W.'s; U.S.
Says Prisoners Seem War-Weary". The New York Times.
^ Thompson, Mark (2012-05-17). "Pentagon: We Don't Call Them POWs
Anymore". Time. Retrieved 2014-07-28.
^ "Department of Defense INSTRUCTION January 8, 2008 Incorporating
Change 1, August 14, 2009" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-07-28.
^ Geo G. Phillimore and Hugh H. L. Bellot, "Treatment of Prisoners of
War", Transactions of the Grotius Society, Vol. 5, (1919), pp.
47–64.
^ Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War. (1999) pp. 368–69 for data.
^ "Disobedience and Conspiracy in the German Army, 1918–1945".
Robert B. Kane, Peter Loewenberg (2008). McFarland. p.240.
ISBN 0-7864-3744-8
^ "375,000 Austrians Have Died in Siberia; Remaining 125,000 War
Prisoner...—Article Preview—The". New York Times. 8 April 2012.
Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ Richard B. Speed, III. Prisoners, Diplomats and the Great War: A
Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity. (1990); Ferguson, The Pity of
War. (1999) Ch 13; Desmond Morton, Silent Battle: Canadian Prisoners
of
War

War in Germany, 1914–1919. 1992.
^ British National Archives, "The
Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia campaign", at [1];
^ Peter Dennis, Jeffrey Grey, Ewan Morris, Robin Prior with Jean Bou,
The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (2008) p. 429
^ H.S. Gullett, Official History of Australia in the
War

War of 1914–18,
Vol. VII The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine (1941)
pp. 620–2
^ The Postal History Society 1936–2011—75th anniversary display to
the Royal Philatelic Society, London, p. 11
^ "The Queen and technology". Royal.gov.uk. Archived from the original
on 9 May 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ "Search results – Resource centre". International Committee of the
Red Cross.
^ Ferguson, Niall (2004), "
Prisoner

Prisoner Taking and
Prisoner

Prisoner Killing in the
Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat", War
in History, 11 (2) , p. 186
^ Lowe, Keith (2012), Savage Continent: Europe in the aftermath of
World
War

War II , p. 122
^ "International Humanitarian Law – State Parties / Signatories".
Icrc.org. 27 July 1929. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ Akira Fujiwara, Nitchû Sensô ni Okeru Horyo Gyakusatsu, Kikan
Sensô Sekinin Kenkyû 9, 1995, p. 22
^ McCarthy, Terry (12 August 1992). "Japanese troops ate flesh of
enemies and civilians". London: The Independent.
^ Blundell, Nigel (3 November 2007). "Alive and safe, the brutal
Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood".
London: Mail Online (Associated Newspapers Ltd.).
^ Yuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors, 1996, pp. 2, 3.
^ Tanaka, ibid., Herbert Bix,
Hirohito
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Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan,
2001, p. 360
^ "World
War

War II POWs remember efforts to strike against captors". The
Times-Picayune. Associated Press. 5 October 2012. Retrieved 23 June
2013.
^ "title=Japanese Atrocities in the Philippines". Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS)
^ Prisoners of the Japanese : POWs of World
War

War II in the
Pacific—by Gavin Dawes, ISBN 0-688-14370-9
^ Dawes, Gavan (1994). Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World
War

War II
in the Pacific. Melbourne: Scribe Publications. pp. 295–297.
ISBN 1-920769-12-9.
^ Daws (1994), p. 297
^ "Donald L. Miller "D-Days in the Pacific", p. 317"
^ Home. Captivememories.org.uk. Retrieved on 2014-05-24.
^ Richard Vinen, The Unfree French: Life under the Occupation (2006)
pp 183–214
^ "International Humanitarian Law—State Parties / Signatories".
Cicr.org. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ "Ben Aharon Yitzhak". Jafi.org.il. Archived from the original on 18
March 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ See, for example, Joseph Robert White, 2006, "Flint Whitlock. Given
Up for Dead: American GIs in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga"
(book review)
^ See: luvnbdy/secondwar/fact_sheets/pow Veterans Affairs Canada,
2006, "Prisoners of
War

War in the Second World War" and National Museum
of the USAF, "Allied Victims of the Holocaust".[dead link]
^ Ambrose, pp 360
^ "Le porte della Memoria". Retrieved 2006-11-12.
^ Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners (p. 290)—"2.8
million young, healthy Soviet POWs" killed by the Germans, "mainly by
starvation ... in less than eight months" of 1941–42, before "the
decimation of Soviet POWs ... was stopped" and the Germans "began to
use them as laborers".
^ "Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World
War

War II".
Historynet.com. Archived from the original on 30 March 2008. Retrieved
14 April 2012.
^ Davies, Norman (2006). Europe at
War

War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory.
London: Pan Books. p. 271. ISBN 978-0-330-35212-3.
^ "Report at the session of the Russian association of WWII historians
in 1998". Gpw.tellur.ru. Archived from the original on 20 March 2012.
Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ Michael Burleigh. The Third Reich—A New History. Hill and Wang,
New York (2000), ISBN 978-0-8090-9325-0. pp. 512–13.
^ "Part VIII: Execution of the convention #Section I: General
provisions". Retrieved 29 November 2007.
^ Beevor, Stalingrad. Penguin 2001 ISBN 0-14-100131-3 p60
^ James D. Morrow, Order within Anarchy: The Laws of
War

War as an
International Institution, 2014, p.218
^ Nikolai Tolstoy. The Secret Betrayal. Charles Scribner's Sons
(1977), ISBN 0-684-15635-0. p. 33.
^ Gerald Reitlinger. The House Built on Sand. Weidenfeld and
Nicholson, London (1960) ASIN: B0000CKNUO. pp. 90,
100–101.
^ Rees, Simon. "German POWs and the Art of Survival". Historynet.com.
Archived from the original on 19 December 2007. Retrieved 14 April
2012.
^ "German POWs in Allied Hands—World
War

War II". Worldwar2database.com.
27 July 2011. Archived from the original on 12 April 2012. Retrieved
14 April 2012.
^ Fischer, Benjamin B., "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing
Field", Studies in Intelligence, Winter 1999–2000. Archived 9 May
2007 at the Wayback Machine.
^ "Michael Hope—"Polish deportees in the Soviet Union"".
Wajszczuk.v.pl. Archived from the original on 16 February 2012.
Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ "Livre noir du Communisme: crimes, terreur, répression". Stéphane
Courtois, Mark Kramer (1999). Harvard University Press. p. 209.
ISBN 0-674-07608-7
^ Paul M. Cole (1994) POW/MIA Issues: Volume 2, World
War

War II and the
Early Cold
War

War National Defense Research Institute. RAND Corporation,
p. 28 Retrieved 18 July 2012
^ Tremblay, Robert, Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, et al.
"Histoires oubliées – Interprogrammes : Des prisonniers
spéciaux" Interlude. Aired: 20 July 2008, 14h47 to 15h00. Note: See
also Saint Helen's Island.
^ Dear, I.C.B and Foot, M.R.D. (editors) (2005). "
War

War Crimes". The
Oxford Companion to World
War

War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
pp. 983–9=84. ISBN 978-0-19-280670-3. CS1 maint:
Multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: Extra text: authors
list (link)
^ James J. Weingartner, "Americans, Germans, and
War

War Crimes:
Converging Narratives from "the Good War" the Journal of American
History, Vol. 94, No. 4. March 2008 Archived 14 November 2010 at the
Wayback Machine.
^ "Ike's Revenge?". Time. 2 October 1989. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
^ S. P. MacKenzie "The Treatment of Prisoners of
War

War in World
War

War II"
The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 66, No. 3. (September 1994), pp.
487–520.
^ Footnote to: K. W. Bohme, Zur Geschichte der deutschen
Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieges, 15 vols. (Munich,
1962–74), 1, pt. 1:x. (n. 1 above), 13:173;
ICRC

ICRC (n. 12 above), p.
334.
^ Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, "After the Cataclysm: Postwar
Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology" (1979) pp.
35–37
^ Eugene Davidsson, "The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the
Twenty-Two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg", (1997) pp. 518–19 "the Allies stated in 1943 their
intention of using forced workers outside
Germany
.jpg/440px-Germany-_Simon_McDonald_(8484625313).jpg)
Germany after the war, and
not only did they express the intention but they carried it out. Not
only Russia made use of such labour. France was given hundreds of
thousands of German prisoners of war captured by the Americans, and
their physical condition became so bad that the American Army
authorities themselves protested. In England and the United States,
too, some German prisoners of war were being put to work long after
the surrender, and in Russia thousands of them worked until the
mid-50's."
^ a b Inge Weber-Newth; Johannes-Dieter Steinert (2006). "Chapter 2:
Immigration policy—immigrant policy". German migrants in post-war
Britain: an enemy embrace. Routledge. pp. 24–30.
ISBN 978-0-7146-5657-1. Retrieved 15 December 2009. Views in the
Media were mirrored in the House of commons, where the arguments were
characterized by a series of questions, the substance of which were
always the same. Here too the talk was often of slave labour, and this
debate was not laid to rest until the government announced its
strategy.
^ Cobain, Ian (12 November 2005). "The secrets of the London Cage".
The Guardian. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
^ a b Staff.
ICRC

ICRC in WW II: German prisoners of war in Allied hands, 2
February 2005
^ Butler, Desmond (17 December 2001). "Ex-Death Camp Tells Story of
Nazi and Soviet Horrors". The New York Times.
^ David Lubań, "Legal Modernism", Univ of Michigan Press, 1994.
ISBN 978-0-472-10380-5 pp. 360, 361
^ The Legacy of Nuremberg PBF
^ http://www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/francia/francia.pdf
^ Thorpe, Nick. Hungarian POW identified. BBC News, 17 September 2000.
Accessed 11 December 2016
^ Morison, Samuel Eliot (2002) [1960]. Victory in the Pacific, 1945.
Volume 14 of History of United States Naval Operations in World War
II. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
ISBN 0-252-07065-8. OCLC 49784806.
^
Battle

Battle of Saipan, historynet.com
^ American troops 'murdered Japanese PoWs', "American and Australian
soldiers massacred Japanese prisoners of war" according to The Faraway
War

War by Prof Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University. From the diaries
of Charles Lindberg: as told by a US officer, "Oh, we could take more
if we wanted to", one of the officers replied. "But our boys don't
like to take prisoners." "It doesn't encourage the rest to surrender
when they hear of their buddies being marched out on the flying field
and machine-guns turned loose on them." On Australian soldiers
attitudes Eddie Stanton is quoted: "Japanese are still being shot all
over the place", "The necessity for capturing them has ceased to worry
anyone. Nippo soldiers are just so much machine-gun practice. Too many
of our soldiers are tied up guarding them."
^ a b c "Photos document brutality in Shanghai". CNN. 23 September
1996. Retrieved 8 June 2010.
^ CNN 23 September 1996
^ CNN 23 September 1996
^ Insolvibile Isabella, Wops. I prigionieri italiani in Gran Bretagna,
Naples, Italy, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2012,
ISBN 9788849523560
^ "
Repatriation

Repatriation – The Dark Side of World
War

War II". Fff.org. Archived
from the original on 17 January 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ "Forced
Repatriation

Repatriation to the Soviet Union: The Secret Betrayal".
Hillsdale.edu. Archived from the original on 7 February 2012.
Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ Edward N. Peterson, The American Occupation of Germany, pp 42, 116,
"Some hundreds of thousands who had fled to the Americans to avoid
being taken prisoner by the Soviets were turned over in May to the Red
Army in a gesture of friendship."
^ Niall Ferguson, "
Prisoner

Prisoner Taking and
Prisoner

Prisoner Killing in the Age of
Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat"
War

War in
History 2004 11 (2) 148–192 pg. 189, (footnote, referenced to: Heinz
Nawratil, Die deutschen Nachkriegsverluste unter Vertriebenen,
Gefangenen und Verschleppter: mit einer übersicht über die
europäischen Nachkriegsverluste (Munich and Berlin, 1988), pp. 36f.)
^ "Ex-Death Camp Tells Story of Nazi and Soviet Horrors" NYT, 17
December 2001
^ Butler, Desmond (17 December 2001). "Ex-Death Camp Tells Story Of
Nazi and Soviet Horrors". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 December
2013.
^ "Chinese operated three types of POW camps for Americans during the
Korean War". April 1997. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
^ a b Adams, (2007), p. 62.
^ Adams, Clarence. (2007). An American Dream: The Life of an African
American Soldier and POW who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China.
Amherst & Boston. University of Massachusetts Press.
ISBN 978-1-5584-9595-1, p.62
^ Trap Door to the Dark Side. William C. Jeffries (2006). p. 388.
ISBN 1-4259-5120-1
^ Burns, Robert (29 August 1993). "Were Korean
War

War POWs Sent to
U.S.S.R? New Evidence Surfaces: Probe: Former Marine corporal spent 33
months as a prisoner and was interrogated by Soviet agents who thought
he was a pilot". Los Angeles Times.
^ pp 26–33 Transfer of U.S. Korean
War

War POWs To the Soviet Union.
Nationalalliance.org. Retrieved on 2014-05-24. Archived 14 July 2014
at the Wayback Machine.
^ USSR. Taskforceomegainc.org (1996-09-17). Retrieved on 2014-05-24.
^
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/04/27/Falkland-Islands-a-gentlemans-war/9723388728000/
^ "war story: Rhonda Cornum". Frontline. PBS. Retrieved 24 June
2009.
^ Shaikh Azizur Rahman, "Two Chinese prisoners from '62 war
repatriated", The Washington Times.
^ Nazila Fathi (14 March 2003). "THREATS AND RESPONSES: BRIEFLY NOTED;
IRAN-IRAQ PRISONER DEAL". New York Times. Retrieved 14 April
2012.
^ Clark, Alan Barbarossa: The Russian-Geran Conflict 1941–1945 p.
206, ISBN 0-304-35864-9
^ a b Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century,
Greenhill Books, London, 1997, G. F. Krivosheev, editor (ref. Streit)
^ Rüdiger Overmans: "Die
Rheinwiesenlager

Rheinwiesenlager 1945" in: Hans-Erich
Volkmann (ed.): Ende des Dritten Reiches – Ende des Zweiten
Weltkrieges. Eine perspektivische Rückschau. Herausgegeben im Auftrag
des Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes. Munich 1995.
ISBN 3-492-12056-3, p. 277
^ Kurt W. Böhme: "Die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in Jugoslawien",
Band I/1 der Reihe: Kurt W. Böhme,
Erich Maschke (eds.): Zur
Geschichte der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieges,
Bielefeld 1976, ISBN 3-7694-0003-8, pp. 42–136, 254
^ "Kriegsgefangene: Viele kamen nicht
zurück—Politik—stern.de<!— Bot generated title —>".
Stern.de. 6 February 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
^ IMDb Search
Bibliography
Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts Project (RULAC)
John Hickman, "What is a
Prisoner

Prisoner of
War

War For?" Scientia Militaria:
South African Journal of Military Studies. Vol. 36, No. 2. 2008.
pp. 19–35.
Full text of Third Geneva Convention, 1949 revision
"
Prisoner

Prisoner of War".
Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica (CD ed.). 2002.
Gendercide site
"Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century",
Greenhill Books, London, 1997, G. F. Krivosheev, editor.
"Keine Kameraden. Die
Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen
1941–1945", Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-5023-7
Bligh, Alexander. 2015. "The 1973
War

War and the Formation of Israeli POW
Policy – A Watershed Line? ". In Udi Lebel and Eyal Lewin (eds.),
The 1973 Yom Kippur
War

War and the Reshaping of Israeli Civil–Military
Relations. Washington, DC: Lexington Books (2015), 121–146.
Bligh, Alexander. 2014. "The development of Israel's POW policy: The
1967
War

War as a test case", Paper presented at the Seventh Annual ASMEA
Conference: Searching for Balance in the Middle East and Africa
(Washington, D.C., October 31, 2014).
Primary sources
The stories of several American fighter pilots, shot down over North
Vietnam are the focus of American Film Foundation's 1999 documentary
Return with Honor, presented by Tom Hanks.
Lewis H. Carlson, WE WERE EACH OTHER'S PRISONERS: An Oral History of
World
War

War II American and German Prisoners of War, 1st Edition.; 1997,
BasicBooks (HarperCollins, Inc). ISBN 0-465-09120-2.
Peter Dennis, Jeffrey Grey, Ewan Morris, Robin Prior with Jean
Bou : The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History 2nd
edition (Melbourne: Oxford University Press Australia & New
Zealand, 2008) OCLC 489040963.
H.S. Gullett, Official History of Australia in the
War

War of 1914–18,
Vol. VII The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine 10th
edition (Sydney: Angus & Robinson, 1941) OCLC 220900153.
Alfred James Passfield, The Escape Artist: An WW2 Australian
prisoner's chronicle of life in German POW camps and his eight escape
attempts, 1984 Artlook Books Western Australia.
ISBN 0-86445-047-8.
Rivett, Rohan D. (1946). Behind Bamboo. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
Republished by Penguin, 1992; ISBN 0-14-014925-2.
George G. Lewis and John Mewha, History of prisoner of war utilization
by the United States Army, 1776–1945; Dept. of the Army, 1955.
Vetter, Hal, Mutine at Koje Island; Charles Tuttle Company, Vermont,
1965.
Jin, Ha,
War

War Trash: A novel; Pantheon, 2004.
ISBN 978-0-375-42276-8.
Sean Longden, Hitler's British Slaves. First Published Arris Books,
2006. Second Edition, Constable Robinson, 2007.
Desflandres, Jean, Rennbahn: Trente-deux mois de captivité en
Allemagne 1914–1917 Souvenirs d'un soldat belge, étudiant à
l'université libre de Bruxelles 3rd edition (Paris, 1920)
Further reading[edit]
Devaux, Roger. Treize Qu'ils Etaient[dead link]: Life of the French
prisoners of war at the peasants of low Bavaria (1939–1945) —
Mémoires et Cultures—2007—ISBN 2-916062-51-3
Doylem Robert C. The Enemy in Our Hands: America's Treatment of
Prisoners of
War

War From the Revolution to the
War

War on Terror (University
Press of Kentucky, 2010); 468 pages; Sources include American
soldiers' own narratives of their experiences guarding POWs plus
Webcast Author Interview at the
Pritzker Military Library

Pritzker Military Library on 26 June
2010
Gascare, Pierre. Histoire de la captivité des Français en Allemagne
(1939–1945), Éditions Gallimard, France, 1967 –
ISBN 2-07-022686-7.
McGowran, Tom, Beyond the Bamboo Screen: Scottish Prisoners of War
under the Japanese. 1999. Cualann Press Ltd
Arnold Krammer, ''Nazi Prisoners of
War

War in America 1979 Stein &
Day; 1991, 1996 Scarborough House. ISBN 0-8128-8561-9.
Bob Moore,& Kent Fedorowich eds., Prisoners of
War

War and Their
Captors in World
War

War II, Berg Press, Oxford, UK, 1997.
Bob Moore, and Kent Fedorowich. The British Empire and Its Italian
Prisoners of War, 1940–1947 (2002) excerpt and text search
David Rolf, Prisoners of the Reich, Germany's Captives, 1939–1945,
1998; on British POWs
Scheipers, Sibylle Prisoners and Detainees in
War

War , European History
Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: 16
November 2011.
Paul J. Springer. America's Captives: Treatment of POWs From the
Revolutionary
War

War to the
War

War on Terror (University Press of Kansas;
2010); 278 pages; Argues that the US military has failed to
incorporate lessons on POW policy from each successive conflict.
Vance, Jonathan F. (March 2006). The Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War
&
Internment

Internment (PDF)format= requires url= (help) (Hardcover)
(Second ed.). Millerton, NY: Grey House Pub, 2006. p. 800.
ISBN 1-59237-120-5. ISBN 978-1-59237-120-4 EBook
ISBN 978-1-59237-170-9
Richard D. Wiggers, "The United States and the Denial of
Prisoner

Prisoner of
War

War (POW) Status at the End of the Second World War",
Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen 52 (1993) pp. 91–94.
Winton, Andrew, Open Road to Faraway: Escapes from Nazi POW Camps
1941–1945. 2001. Cualann Press Ltd.
Harris, Justin Michael. "American Soldiers and POW Killing in the
European Theater of World
War

War II"
United States. Government Accountability Office. DOD's POW/MIA
Mission: Capability and Capacity to Account for Missing Persons
Undermined by Leadership Weaknesses and Fragmented Organizational
Structure: Testimony before the Subcommittee on Military Personnel,
Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2013.
On 12 February 2013, three American POWs gathered at the Pritzker
Military Library for a webcast conversation regarding their individual
experiences as POWs and the memoirs they each published:
Rhonda Cornum

Rhonda Cornum – with Peter Copeland She Went to War: The Rhonda
Cornum Story 1992 ISBN 9780891414636
John Borling – a collection of his poetry Taps on the Walls: Poems
from the
Hanoi Hilton

Hanoi Hilton 2013 ISBN 9780615659053
Donald E. Casey – To Fight For My Country, Sir!: Memoirs of a 19
year old B-17 Navigator Shot Down in
Nazi Germany
.jpg/440px-Westfaelischer_Friede_in_Muenster_(Gerard_Terborch_1648).jpg)
Nazi Germany 2009
ISBN 9781448669875
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prisoners of war.
Wikisource

Wikisource has the text of the 1922
Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica article
Prisoners of War.
Prisoners of war and humanitarian law
The National Archives 'Your Archives' Prisoners of War
The National Archives ADM 103 Prisoners of
War

War 1755–1831
The National Archives 'Your Archives'—ADM 103 Prisoners of War
1755–1831
Archive of WWII memories, gathered by BBC
Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World
War

War II
Reports made by WW1 prisoners of war on The UK National Archives'
website.
First hand account of being a Japanese POW. Part 1 in a series of 4
video interviews
German POWs and the art of survival
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