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Prisoner of war

A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.[a]

"POW" redirects here. For other uses, see POW (disambiguation) and Prisoner of war (disambiguation).

Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from the enemy combatants still in the field (releasing and repatriating them in an orderly manner after hostilities), demonstrating military victory, using civilians to deter attacks on active military targets, 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.[1]


Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war are automatically granted the enhanced status of protected persons, alongside certain civilians and enemy combatants who are hors de combat (i.e., out of the fight).[2]

Treated humanely with respect for their persons and their honor

Able to inform their next of kin and the of their capture

International Committee of the Red Cross

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

[32]

Troops of the Suffolk Regiment surrendering to the Japanese, 1942

Troops of the Suffolk Regiment surrendering to the Japanese, 1942

Many US and Filipino POWs died on the Bataan Death March, in May 1942

Many US and Filipino POWs died on the Bataan Death March, in May 1942

Water colour sketch of "Dusty" Rhodes by Ashley George Old

Water colour sketch of "Dusty" Rhodes by Ashley George Old

Australian and Dutch POWs at Tarsau, Thailand in 1943

Australian and Dutch POWs at Tarsau, Thailand in 1943

U.S. Army Nurses in Santo Tomas Internment Camp, 1943

U.S. Army Nurses in Santo Tomas Internment Camp, 1943

U.S. Navy nurses rescued from Los Baños Internment Camp, March 1945

U.S. Navy nurses rescued from Los Baños 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

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

Canadian POWs at the Liberation of Hong Kong

Malnourished Australian POWs forced to work at the Aso mining company, August 1945

Malnourished Australian POWs forced to work at the Aso mining company, August 1945

POW art depicting Cabanatuan prison camp, produced in 1946

POW art depicting Cabanatuan prison camp, produced in 1946

Australian POW Leonard Siffleet captured at New Guinea moments before his execution with a Japanese shin gunto sword in 1943

Australian POW 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

Captured soldiers of the British Indian Army executed by the Japanese

1971

Andersonville

Another Time, Another Place

As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me

Blood Oath

The Bridge on the River Kwai

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The Colditz Story

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Land of Mine

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Paradise Road

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Rambo: First Blood Part II

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Some Kind of Hero

Stalag 17

Summer of My German Soldier

T-34

Tea with Mussolini

Tenko

Three Came Home

To End All Wars

Unbroken

Uncommon Valor

Von Ryan's Express

The Walking Dead

Who Goes Next?

The Wooden Horse

"What is a Prisoner of War For?" Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies. Vol. 36, No. 2. 2008. pp. 19–35.

John Hickman

Full text of Third Geneva Convention, 1949 revision

"Prisoner of War". 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 und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945", Dietz, Bonn 1997,  3-8012-5023-7

ISBN

Bligh, Alexander. 2015. "The 1973 War and the Formation of Israeli POW Policy – A Watershed Line? ". In Udi Lebel and Eyal Lewin (eds.), The 1973 Yom Kippur 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 as a test case", Paper presented at the Seventh Annual ASMEA Conference: Searching for Balance in the Middle East and Africa (Washington, D.C., 31 October 2014).

Devaux, Roger. : Life of the French prisoners of war at the peasants of low Bavaria (1939–1945) – Mémoires et Cultures – 2007. ISBN 2-916062-51-3

Treize Qu'ils Etaient

Doylem Robert C. The Enemy in Our Hands: America's Treatment of Prisoners of War From the Revolution to the War on Terror (University Press of Kentucky, 2010); 468 pages; Sources include American soldiers' own narratives of their experiences guarding POWs plus at the Pritzker Military Library on 26 June 2010

Webcast Author Interview

Gascare, Pierre. Histoire de la captivité des Français en Allemagne (1939–1945), Éditions Gallimard, France, 1967.  2-07-022686-7.

ISBN

McGowran, Tom, Beyond the Bamboo Screen: Scottish Prisoners of War under the Japanese. 1999. Cualann Press Ltd

''Nazi Prisoners of War in America 1979 Stein & Day; 1991, 1996 Scarborough House. ISBN 0-8128-8561-9.

Krammer, Arnold

Krebs, Daniel, and Lorien Foote, eds. Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts (University Press of Kansas, 2021).

Moore, Bob, & Kent Fedorowich eds., Prisoners of War and Their Captors in World 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 , European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: 16 November 2011.

Prisoners and Detainees in War

. America's Captives: Treatment of POWs From the Revolutionary War to the 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.

Paul J. Springer

Vance, Jonathan F. (2006). (2nd ed.). Millerton, NY: Grey House Pub, 2006. p. 800. ISBN 978-1-59237-120-4., EBook ISBN 978-1-59237-170-9

The Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War & Internment

Richard D. Wiggers, "The United States and the Denial of Prisoner of 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 II"

United States. Government Accountability Office. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2013.

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.

Rhonda Cornum

ICRC.

Prisoners of war and humanitarian law

UK National Archives.

Prisoners of War

UK National Archives ADM 103

Prisoners of War 1755–1831

BBC.

Archive of World War II memories

HistoryNet.

Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II

UK National Archives

Reports made by World War I prisoners of war

Storyvault

First hand account of being a Japanese POW. Part 1 in a series of 4 video interviews

Historical Eye

German POWs and the art of survival

Current status of Vietnam War POW/MIA

Clifford Reddish.

War Memoirs of a British Army Signalman as a prisoner of the Japanese

CBC Digital Archives

Canada's Forgotten PoW Camps

German army list of Stalags

German army list of Oflags

Colditz Oflag IVC POW Camp

Lamsdorf Reunited

New Zealand Official History

New Zealand PoWs of Germany, Italy & Japan

Notes of Japanese soldier in a USSR prison camp after World War II

(World War II) ICRC

German prisoners of war in Allied hands

World War II U.S. POW Archives

Korean War POW Archives

European Film Gateway

Historic films about POWs in World War I

Jewish POW swapped by Germans in World War II