Casey – To Fight for My Country, Sir!: Memoirs of a 19-year-old B-17 Navigator Shot Down in Nazi Germany'' 2009 ==External links== Prisoners of war and humanitarian law, ICRC. Prisoners of War UK National Archives. Prisoners of War 1755–1831 UK National Archives ADM 103 Archive of World War II memories BBC. Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II HistoryNet. Reports made by World War I prisoners of war UK National Archives First hand account of being a Japanese POW.
Lewis and John Mewha, History of prisoner of war utilization by the United States Army, 1776–1945; Dept.
Jewitt, a sailor who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of the Nootka people on the Pacific Northwest coast from 1802 to 1805. ===French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars=== 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 and the Napoleonic Wars.
Jewitt, a sailor who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of the Nootka people on the Pacific Northwest coast from 1802 to 1805. ===French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars=== 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 and the Napoleonic Wars.
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.
Jewitt, a sailor who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of the Nootka people on the Pacific Northwest coast from 1802 to 1805. ===French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars=== 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 and the Napoleonic Wars.
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.
The bad conditions inside the graveyard contributed to a city-wide epidemic after the battle. ===Prisoner exchanges=== The extensive period of conflict during the American Revolutionary War and 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.
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 18 August 1864 with his now famous statement.
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=== Chapter II of the Annex to the 1907 Hague Convention IV – The Laws and Customs of War on Land covered the treatment of prisoners of war in detail.
Gullett, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–18, Vol.
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== Devaux, Roger.
When the besieged garrison of Kaunas surrendered in 1915, 20,000 Russians became prisoners.
Some 11,800 British soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the five-month Siege of Kut, in Mesopotamia, in April 1916.
About 3.3 million men became prisoners. The 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 in 1918.
Plans were made for them to be sent via Dunkirk to Dover and a large reception camp was established at 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.
in France, until 1920.
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== Devaux, Roger.
These provisions were further expanded in the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Prisoners of War and were largely revised in the Third Geneva Convention in 1949. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters, and certain civilians.
These are also the highest numbers in any war since the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War entered into force on 19 June 1931.
By comparison, 8,348 Western Allied prisoners died in German camps during 1939–45 (3.5% of the 232,000 total). The Germans officially justified their policy on the grounds that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention.
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, two years after Stalin died. ====Polish==== As a result of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers became prisoners of war in the Soviet Union.
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 , European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: 16 November 2011. Paul J.
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 , European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: 16 November 2011. Paul J.
For example, Major Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, a Palestinian 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. However, a small number of Allied personnel were sent to concentration camps, for a variety of reasons including being Jewish.
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.
Shortly after the German invasion in 1941, the USSR made Berlin an offer of a reciprocal adherence to the Hague Conventions.
Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945", Dietz, Bonn 1997, Bligh, Alexander.
VII The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine 10th edition (Sydney: Angus & Robinson, 1941) . 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.
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.
In contrast, Nikolai Tolstoy recounts that the German Government – as well as the International Red Cross – made several efforts to regulate reciprocal treatment of prisoners until early 1942, but received no answers from the Soviet side.
After 20 March 1943, the Imperial Navy was under orders to execute all prisoners taken at sea. After the Armistice of Cassibile, Italian soldiers and civilians in East Asia were taken as prisoners by Japanese armed forces and subject to the same conditions as other POWs. 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.
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. =====Italian POWs===== 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 or Eastern Europe, where they were held for the duration of World War II.
Many of the prisoners were also pressed into combat as extra troops due to a lack of Allied manpower. ====Italians==== In 1943, Italy overthrew Mussolini and became an Allied co-belligerent.
The work of these refugees in contributing to the Allied victory was declassified over half a century later. In February 1944, 59.7% of POWs in America were employed.
By the end of May 1944, POW employment was at 72.8%, and by late April 1945 it had risen to 91.3%.
András Toma, a Hungarian soldier taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1944, was discovered in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000.
About 34,000 Italian POWs were active in 1944 and 1945 on 66 US military installations, performing support roles such as quartermaster, repair, and engineering work. ====Cossacks==== On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the USSR.
Another prisoner stated that "The German plan was to keep us alive, yet weakened enough that we wouldn't attempt escape." 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.
By the end of May 1944, POW employment was at 72.8%, and by late April 1945 it had risen to 91.3%.
(see Other Losses). After the surrender of Germany in May 1945, the POW status of the German prisoners was in many cases maintained, and they were for several years used as public labourers in countries such as the UK and France.
"By September 1945 it was estimated by the French authorities that two thousand prisoners were being maimed and killed each month in accidents". In 1946, the UK held over 400,000 German POWs, many having been transferred from POW camps in the US and Canada.
However, after making appeals to the Allies in the autumn of 1945, the Red Cross was allowed to investigate the camps in the British and French occupation zones of Germany, as well as providing relief to the prisoners held there.
chose to hand over several hundred thousand German prisoners to the Soviet Union in May 1945 as a "gesture of friendship".
Jackson, chief US prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials, told US President Harry S Truman in October 1945 that the Allies themselves:have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for.
About 34,000 Italian POWs were active in 1944 and 1945 on 66 US military installations, performing support roles such as quartermaster, repair, and engineering work. ====Cossacks==== On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the USSR.
The forced repatriation operations took place in 1945–1947. ====Post-World War II==== During the Korean War, the North Koreans developed a reputation for severely mistreating prisoners of war (see Treatment of POWs by North Korean and Chinese forces).
There was more demand than supply of prisoners throughout the war, and 14,000 POW repatriations were delayed in 1946 so prisoners could be used in the spring farming seasons, mostly to thin and block sugar beets in the west.
While some in Congress wanted to extend POW labour beyond June 1946, President Truman rejected this, leading to the end of the program. 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.
"By September 1945 it was estimated by the French authorities that two thousand prisoners were being maimed and killed each month in accidents". In 1946, the UK held over 400,000 German POWs, many having been transferred from POW camps in the US and Canada.
On 4 February 1946, the Red Cross was also permitted to visit and assist prisoners in the US occupation zone of Germany, although only with very small quantities of food.
Out of Anders' 80,000 evacuees from the Soviet Union in the United Kingdom, only 310 volunteered to return to Poland in 1947. Of the 230,000 Polish prisoners of war taken by the Soviet army, only 82,000 survived. ====Japanese==== After the Soviet–Japanese War, 560,000 to 760,000 Japanese prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet Union.
The JSP were used until 1947 for labour purposes, such as road maintenance, recovering corpses for reburial, cleaning, and preparing farmland.
These provisions were further expanded in the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Prisoners of War and were largely revised in the Third Geneva Convention in 1949. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters, and certain civilians.
pp. 19–35. Full text of Third Geneva Convention, 1949 revision Gendercide site "Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century", Greenhill Books, London, 1997, G.
While POWs in peace camps were reportedly treated with more consideration, regular prisoners of war were usually treated very poorly. The 1952 Inter-Camp POW Olympics were held from 15 to 27 November 1952 in Pyuktong, North Korea.
Code of Conduct and terminology=== The United States Military Code of Conduct was promulgated in 1955 via Executive Order 10631 under President Dwight D.
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, two years after Stalin died. ====Polish==== As a result of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers became prisoners of war in the Soviet Union.
of the Army, 1955. Vetter, Hal, Mutine at Koje Island; Charles Tuttle Company, Vermont, 1965. Jin, Ha, War Trash: A novel; Pantheon, 2004.
of the Army, 1955. Vetter, Hal, Mutine at Koje Island; Charles Tuttle Company, Vermont, 1965. Jin, Ha, War Trash: A novel; Pantheon, 2004.
"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). ===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.
Histoire de la captivité des Français en Allemagne (1939–1945), Éditions Gallimard, France, 1967 – . McGowran, Tom, Beyond the Bamboo Screen: Scottish Prisoners of War under the Japanese.
"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.
Cualann Press Ltd Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America 1979 Stein & Day; 1991, 1996 Scarborough House.
The two were imprisoned as spies for three years before being interned in a mental asylum in Ranchi, where they spent the following 38 years under a special prisoner status. The last prisoners of the 1980-1988 Iran–Iraq War were exchanged in 2003. ==Numbers of POWs== This section lists nations with the highest number of POWs since the start of World War II and ranked by descending order.
VII The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine 10th edition (Sydney: Angus & Robinson, 1941) . 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.
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. During the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, Serb paramilitary forces supported by JNA forces killed POWs at Vukovar and Škarbrnja, while Bosnian Serb forces killed POWs at Srebrenica.
Cualann Press Ltd Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America 1979 Stein & Day; 1991, 1996 Scarborough House.
Republished by Penguin, 1992; . George G.
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 – with Peter Copeland She Went to War: The Rhonda Cornum Story 1992 *John Borling – a collection of his poetry Taps on the Walls: Poems from the Hanoi Hilton 2013 *Donald E.
Cualann Press Ltd Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America 1979 Stein & Day; 1991, 1996 Scarborough House.
pp. 19–35. Full text of Third Geneva Convention, 1949 revision Gendercide site "Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century", Greenhill Books, London, 1997, G.
Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945", Dietz, Bonn 1997, Bligh, Alexander.
Carlson, WE WERE EACH OTHER'S PRISONERS: An Oral History of World War II American and German Prisoners of War, 1st Edition.; 1997, BasicBooks (HarperCollins, Inc).
. Bob Moore,& 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 Prisoners and Detainees in War , European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: 16 November 2011. Paul J.
"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). ===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.
captives. In 2000, the U.S.
András Toma, a Hungarian soldier taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1944, was discovered in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000.
A large number of surviving Croatian or Bosnian POWs described the conditions in serbian concentration camps as similar to those in Germany in World War 2, including regular beatings, torture and random executions. In 2001, reports emerged 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 following 38 years under a special prisoner status. The last prisoners of the 1980-1988 Iran–Iraq War were exchanged in 2003. ==Numbers of POWs== This section lists nations with the highest number of POWs since the start of World War II and ranked by descending order.
of the Army, 1955. Vetter, Hal, Mutine at Koje Island; Charles Tuttle Company, Vermont, 1965. Jin, Ha, War Trash: A novel; Pantheon, 2004.
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== Devaux, Roger.
A January 2008 directive states that the reasoning behind this is since "Prisoner of War" is the international legal recognized status for such people there is no need for any individual country to follow suit.
. 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) . H.S.
Casey – To Fight for My Country, Sir!: Memoirs of a 19-year-old B-17 Navigator Shot Down in Nazi Germany'' 2009 ==External links== Prisoners of war and humanitarian law, ICRC. Prisoners of War UK National Archives. Prisoners of War 1755–1831 UK National Archives ADM 103 Archive of World War II memories BBC. Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II HistoryNet. Reports made by World War I prisoners of war UK National Archives First hand account of being a Japanese POW.
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 Webcast Author Interview at the Pritzker Military Library on 26 June 2010 Gascare, Pierre.
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. | EBook Richard D.
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 , European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: 16 November 2011. Paul J.
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 – with Peter Copeland She Went to War: The Rhonda Cornum Story 1992 *John Borling – a collection of his poetry Taps on the Walls: Poems from the Hanoi Hilton 2013 *Donald E.
"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). ===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.
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