This is not a Wikipedia article: This is a workpage, a collection of material and work in progress that may or may not be incorporated into [[List of prisoners of war]]. It should not necessarily be considered factual or authoritative. |
This is a list of notable prisoners of war (POW) whose imprisonment attracted notable attention or influence, or who became famous afterwards.
- Ron Arad — Israeli fighter pilot, shot down over Lebanon in 1986. He has not been seen or heard from since 1988 and is widely presumed to be dead.
- Bowe Bergdahl — U.S. Army Private First Class soldier captured by the Taliban on June 30, 2009.[1]
- Douglas Bader — British fighter pilot, Wing commander in Battle of Britain
- Leonard Birchall — The "Saviour of Ceylon"
- Fernand Braudel — the famous historian, was a POW in World War II.
- Frank Buckles — the last American veteran of World War I, was imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II, as a civilian.
- Winston Churchill — during the Second Boer War; escaped
- James Clavell — prisoner in Singapore, based his novel King Rat on his experiences during World War II
- George Thomas Coker — U.S. Navy aviator, POW in North Vietnam, noted resistor of his captors
- John Cordwell — forged documents to help fellow English soldiers get out of Germany as part of the Great Escape
- Charles de Gaulle — French general and political leader, captured at Verdun, POW 1916-1918
- Dieter Dengler — a United States Navy pilot who escaped a Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos
- Jeremiah Denton — Awarded the Navy Cross for resistance in captivity during the Vietnam War
- Roy Dotrice — British actor
- Werner Drechsler — killed by fellow German POWs during World War II for informing on other prisoners
- Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop — an Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway in World War II
- Yakov Dzhugashvili — Joseph Stalin's first son, was captured by Germans early in World War II. Died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943.
- Denholm Elliott — British actor
- Henri Giraud — French general, escaped German captivity in both World War I and World War II
- Ernest Gordon — Japanese POW in World War II, author of "To End All Wars" and former Presbyterian Dean of Princeton University chapel
- Tom Greenway — American actor, imprisoned for more than a year in Italian and German camps during World War II
- James Hargest — Brigadier in World War II. Highly decorated New Zealand politician in World War I and World War II. Escaped from captivity into Switzerland.
- Erich Hartmann — "The Blond Knight of Germany". Number one air ace of all air forces in World War II.
- Bob Hoover — American World War II pilot, test pilot and airshow performer; captured in 1944 and escaped from Stalag Luft I
- Wilm Hosenfeld — Soviet prisoner in World War II, most remembered for saving Polish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman from death in the ruins of Warsaw.
- Andrew Jackson — Seventh President of the United States, captured in the American Revolutionary War as a thirteen-year-old courier
- Charles R. Jackson — captured in Battle of Corregidor and notable for memoir I Am Alive: A United States Marine's Story of Survival in a World War II Japanese POW Camp
- Stanley D. Jaworski — Polish POW freed by American soldiers
- Harold K. Johnson — U.S. Army Chief of Staff 1964; captured at Bataan (1942-1945)
- Bert Kaempfert — German Orchestra conductor in World War II at a Danish prisoner of war camp
- Tikka Khan — Japanese POW during World War II, Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistani Army
- Wajid Khan Canadian politician — former Pakistan-India War 1971 fighter pilot
- Yahya Khan — German POW during World War II, last president of a united Pakistan
- Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski — Commander of the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising
- Gustav Krist — Adventurer and traveler, Austrian soldier in World War I, captured by Russians in 1914. Interned in Russian Turkestan
- Desmond Llewelyn — went on to a notable acting career, most famously as Q in the James Bond film series
- Jessica Lynch — American servicewoman during the Iraq war.
- Keith Matthew Maupin — captured on April 9, 2004. Date of murder unknown. Remains found March 30, 2008.
- Charles Cardwell McCabe — a prisoner and chaplain at Libby Prison during the American Civil War
- John McCain — American political leader and Republican nominee for president in 2008, prisoner for over five years in Vietnam
- Olivier Messiaen — French composer
- George Millar — Journalist, British soldier, SOE agent, writer
- Dusty Miller — Executed for his faith during internment under the Japanese in Thailand in 1945.[citation needed]
- François Mitterrand — French president, captured during World War II in 1940, escaped 6 times before arriving home in Dec. 1941
- W. H. Murray — German POW during World War II, Scottish mountaineer
- Airey Neave — British politician made the first British home run from Colditz on 5th January 1942
- A. A. K. Niazi — commander of Pakistan Army in East Pakistan who surrendered along with nearly 93,000 prisoners
- Manuel Noriega — Ex-Panamanian dictator captured by U.S. troops in 1990 then jailed for drugs trafficking offences. Only detainee in held by U.S. authorities presently officially designated as a POW by the federal government.
- Friedrich Paulus — German field marshal, surrendered Stalingrad to the Soviets in 1943
- Donald Pleasence — English film and stage actor. Was shot down while serving in the RAF during World War II, taken prisoner, and placed in a German prisoner-of-war camp. He later acted in the film "The Great Escape".
- Pat Reid — non-fiction/historical author
- Yevgeny Rodionov — Russian soldier captured by rebel forces in Chechnya and beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam
- James N. Rowe — Colonel, U.S. Army Special Forces, held by the Viet Cong from October 1963 until December 1968. One of only thirty-four U.S. soldiers to escape captivity in Vietnam. Author of Five Years to Freedom. Assassinated by the New People's Army in the Philippines on April 21, 1989.
- Jean-Paul Sartre — French philosopher and writer, POW 1940-1941
- Kazuo Sakamaki — First POW captured by U.S. forces in World War II
- Ronald Searle — English cartoonist
- Léopold Senghor — Senegalize writer and political leader, captured 1940 in France
- Gilad Shalit — Israeli soldier captured in 2006 by Hamas. He is still being held.
- Vladek Spiegelman — Polish private captured by Germany on September 1, 1939, father of Art Spiegelman
- William Stacy — lieutenant colonel of the Continental Army, captured during the Cherry Valley massacre; General George Washington attempted to orchestrate a prisoner exchange for Lt. Col. Stacy[1] but was unsuccessful.
- James Stockdale — candidate for Vice President in 1992; decorated member of the U.S. Navy; POW in Vietnam
- E W Swanton — captured by Japanese in Singapore; after war, was renowned BBC sports commentator.
- Floyd James Thompson — America's longest-held POW; he spent 9 years in POW camps in Vietnam (1964 — 1973)
- Josip Broz Tito — president of Yugoslavia, Austrian soldier in World War I, captured by Russians in 1915
- András Toma – Hungarian soldier, lived in a psychiatric hospital in Russia for 55 years after being captured as a POW. He was identified and returned home in 2000.
- Mikhail Tukhachevsky — Soviet military leader and theorist, captured by Germans in World War I
- Charles Upham — Most decorated British soldier of World War II. Awarded the Victoria Cross twice.
- Laurens van der Post — South African writer and war hero, captured by Japanese 1942
- Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach — German general captured at Stalingrad
- Kurt Vonnegut — American writer; captured in the Battle of the Bulge and witnessed the Bombing of Dresden in World War II
- Jonathan Wainwright — Commanding General U.S. forces in Philippines; captured at Bataan (1942-1945)
- George Washington — first U.S. President, captured in 1754 by the French during the French and Indian War.
- D. C. Wimberly — POW in World War II from Springhill, Louisiana; educator and a past commander of American Ex-Prisoners of War
- Louis Zamperini — American athlete, member of Olympic team, captured by Japanese 1943
References
edit- ^ Sparks, Jared: The Writings of George Washington, Vol VII, Harper and Brothers, New York (1847) p. 211.