List of prisoners of war
Encyclopedia
This is a list of notable prisoners of war (POW) whose imprisonment attracted notable attention or influence, or who became famous afterwards.
  • Ron Arad
    Ron Arad (pilot)
    Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad , was an Israeli Air Force weapon systems officer who is officially classified as missing in action since October 1986, but is widely presumed dead...

     — 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
    Bowe Bergdahl
    Bowe Robert Bergdahl is a United States Army soldier who, since June 2009, is in the captivity of the Taliban-supporting Afghanistan Haqqani network.-Military status and disappearance:...

     — U.S. Army Private First Class soldier captured by the Taliban on June 30, 2009.
  • Douglas Bader
    Douglas Bader
    Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader CBE, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, FRAeS, DL was a Royal Air Force fighter ace during the Second World War. He was credited with 20 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged.Bader joined the...

     — British fighter pilot, Wing commander in Battle of Britain
    Battle of Britain
    The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...

  • Leonard Birchall
    Leonard Birchall
    Air Commodore Leonard Joseph Birchall, CM, OBE, DFC, O.Ont, CD , "The Saviour of Ceylon", was a Royal Canadian Air Force officer who warned of a Japanese attack on the island of Ceylon during the Second World War....

     — The "Saviour of Ceylon"
  • Fernand Braudel
    Fernand Braudel
    Fernand Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several decades of intense study: The Mediterranean , Civilization and Capitalism , and the unfinished Identity of France...

     — the famous historian, was a POW in World War II.
  • Frank Buckles
    Frank Buckles
    Frank Woodruff Buckles was the last surviving American veteran of World War I. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1917 and served with a detachment from Fort Riley, driving ambulances and motorcycles near the front lines in Europe.During World War II, he was captured by Japanese forces...

     — the last American veteran of World War I, was imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II, as a civilian.
  • Winston Churchill
    Winston Churchill
    Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

     — during the Second Boer War
    Second Boer War
    The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...

    ; escaped
  • James Clavell
    James Clavell
    James Clavell, born Charles Edmund DuMaresq Clavell was an Australian-born, British novelist, screenwriter, director and World War II veteran and prisoner of war...

     — prisoner in Singapore
    Singapore
    Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

    , based his novel King Rat
    King Rat
    King Rat may mean:* Uromys rex, a species of rat* King Rat , by James Clavell set in World War II* King Rat , released in 1965, based on the James Clavell novel* King Rat , an urban fantasy novel by China Miéville...

    on his experiences during World War II
  • George Thomas Coker
    George Thomas Coker
    George Thomas Coker is a retired US Navy commander, honored with the Navy Cross for his leadership as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, and a Distinguished Eagle Scout noted for his devotion to Scouting....

     — 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
    Charles de Gaulle
    Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

     — French general and political leader, captured at Verdun, POW 1916-1918
  • Dieter Dengler
    Dieter Dengler
    Dieter Dengler was a United States Navy Naval aviator during the Vietnam War. He was one of the two survivors , out of seven, to escape from a Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos. He was rescued after 23 days on the run, and was the first captured U.S...

     — a United States Navy pilot who escaped a Pathet Lao
    Pathet Lao
    The Pathet Lao was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The group was ultimately successful in assuming political power after the Laotian Civil War. The Pathet Lao were always closely associated with Vietnamese communists...

     prison camp in Laos
    Laos
    Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

  • Jeremiah Denton
    Jeremiah Denton
    Jeremiah Andrew Denton Jr. is a retired United States Navy rear admiral, naval aviator and a former Republican U.S. senator, for the state of Alabama...

     — Awarded the Navy Cross
    Navy Cross
    The Navy Cross is the highest decoration that may be bestowed by the Department of the Navy and the second highest decoration given for valor. It is normally only awarded to members of the United States Navy, United States Marine Corps and United States Coast Guard, but can be awarded to all...

     for resistance in captivity during the Vietnam War
  • Roy Dotrice
    Roy Dotrice
    Roy Dotrice, OBE is a British actor known for his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance in the revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten.-Life and career:...

     — British actor
  • Werner Drechsler
    Werner Drechsler
    Werner Drechsler was a German U-boat crewman during World War II. He was stationed on U-118 which was sunk off the Azores in 1943...

     — killed by fellow German POWs during World War II for informing on other prisoners
  • Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop
    Edward Dunlop
    Lieutenant Colonel Sir Ernest Edward "Weary" Dunlop, AC, CMG, OBE was an Australian surgeon who was renowned for his leadership while being held prisoner by the Japanese during World War II.-Early life and family:...

     — an Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway
    Death Railway
    The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Thailand–Burma Railway and similar names, was a railway between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma , built by the Empire of Japan during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign.Forced labour was used in its construction...

     in World War II
  • Yakov Dzhugashvili
    Yakov Dzhugashvili
    Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili was one of Joseph Stalin's four children . Yakov was the son of Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze...

     — Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

    's first son, was captured by Germans early in World War II. Died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
    Sachsenhausen concentration camp
    Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...

     in 1943.
  • Denholm Elliott
    Denholm Elliott
    Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE was an English film, television and theatre actor with over 120 film and television credits...

     — British actor
  • Henri Giraud
    Henri Giraud
    Henri Honoré Giraud was a French general who fought in World War I and World War II. Captured in both wars, he escaped each time....

     — French general, escaped German captivity in both World War I and World War II
  • Ernest Gordon
    Ernest Gordon
    Ernest Gordon was the former Presbyterian dean of the chapel at Princeton University. A native of Scotland, as an officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Gordon spent three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the Second World War...

     — Japanese POW in World War II, author of "To End All Wars
    To End All Wars
    To End All Wars is a 2001 war film starring Robert Carlyle, Kiefer Sutherland and Sakae Kimura and directed by David L. Cunningham.- Storyline :...

    " and former Presbyterian Dean of Princeton University
    Princeton University
    Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

     chapel
  • Tom Greenway
    Tom Greenway
    Tom Greenway was an American character actor of film and television, whose career, primarily in television westerns, extended from 1949 to 1965.-Early life:...

     — American actor, imprisoned for more than a year in Italian and German camps during World War II
  • James Hargest
    James Hargest
    Brigadier James Hargest CBE, DSO & 2 bars, MC, ED, MP, was a New Zealand military officer and politician.Hargest was born in Gore, where his father was a farmer. He joined the Territorial Force in 1911, and when World War I broke out, he volunteered to serve in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force,...

     — Brigadier in World War II. Highly decorated New Zealand politician in World War I and World War II. Escaped from captivity into Switzerland.
  • Heinrich Harrer
    Heinrich Harrer
    Heinrich Harrer was an Austrian mountaineer, sportsman, geographer, and author.He is best known for his books Seven Years in Tibet and The White Spider .-Athletics:...

     — Austrian mountaineer, sportsman and author, detained in British India during World War II until he escaped in 1944, as related in his autobiography Seven Years in Tibet
    Seven Years in Tibet
    Seven Years in Tibet is an autobiographical travel book written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer based on his real life experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during the Second World War and the interim period before the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet in...

    .
  • Erich Hartmann
    Erich Hartmann
    Erich Alfred Hartmann , nicknamed "Bubi" by his comrades and "The Black Devil" by his Soviet enemies, was a German World War II fighter pilot and is the highest-scoring fighter ace in the history of aerial warfare...

     — "The Blond Knight of Germany". Number one air ace of all air forces in World War II.
  • Bob Hoover
    Bob Hoover
    Robert A. "Bob" Hoover is a former air show pilot and United States Air Force test pilot, known for his wide-brimmed straw hat and wide smile. In aviation circles, he is often referred to as "The pilots' pilot."-Aviation career:...

     — American World War II pilot, test pilot and airshow performer; captured in 1944 and escaped from Stalag Luft I
    Stalag Luft I
    Stalag Luft I was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp near Barth, Western Pomerania, Germany, for captured Allied airmen. The presence of the prison camp is said to have shielded the town of Barth from Allied bombing...

  • Wilm Hosenfeld
    Wilm Hosenfeld
    Wilhelm Adalbert Hosenfeld , originally a teacher, was a German Army officer who rose to the rank of Hauptmann by the end of the war. He helped to hide or rescue several Poles, including Jews, in Nazi-occupied Poland, and is perhaps most remembered for helping Polish-Jewish pianist and composer...

     — Soviet prisoner in World War II, most remembered for saving Polish
    Poland
    Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

     pianist
    Piano
    The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

     and composer
    Composer
    A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

     Władysław Szpilman from death in the ruins of Warsaw
    Warsaw
    Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

    .
  • Andrew Jackson
    Andrew Jackson
    Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

     — Seventh President of the United States
    President of the United States
    The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

    , captured in the American Revolutionary War
    American Revolutionary War
    The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

     as a thirteen-year-old courier
  • Charles R. Jackson
    Charles R. Jackson (USMC)
    Charles R. Jackson, was an American Marine, best known for his posthumously published memoir I Am Alive: A United States Marine's Story of Survival in a World War II Japanese POW Camp.-Military career:...

     — captured in Battle of Corregidor
    Battle of Corregidor
    The Battle for Corregidor was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines. The fall of Bataan on 9 April 1942 ended all organized opposition by the U.S...

     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
    Stanley D. Jaworski
    Stanley Dubik Jaworski, Sr. , was a Polish prisoner of war in World War II, a team member in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, a speaker of eight languages, and an author who advocated automobile safety and American citizenship for immigrants.The Polish-born Jaworski attended universities across...

     — Polish POW freed by American soldiers
  • Harold K. Johnson — U.S. Army Chief of Staff 1964; captured at Bataan (1942-1945)
  • Bert Kaempfert
    Bert Kaempfert
    Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records, and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as "Strangers in the Night" and "Spanish Eyes".-Biography:He was born in Hamburg, Germany - where he received his lifelong...

     — German Orchestra conductor in World War II at a Danish prisoner of war camp
  • George Kenner
    George Kenner
    George Kenner was a German artist. He made 110 paintings and drawings during the First World War while interned as a German civilian prisoner of war in Great Britain and the Isle of Man.-Birth and background:...

     — German artist interned as a civilian POW in Great Britain and the Isle of Man during World War I. Documented his experience in 110 paintings and drawings.
  • Tikka Khan
    Tikka Khan
    General Tikka Khan, HJ, HQA, SPk, was a senior four-star general in the Pakistan Army who served as the first Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army from 3 March 1972 to 1 March 1976. Before his four-star assignment, Khan was a Martial Law Administrator of erstwhile East-Pakistan...

     — Japanese POW during World War II, Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistani Army
    Pakistan Army
    The Pakistan Army is the branch of the Pakistani Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The Pakistan Army came into existence after the Partition of India and the resulting independence of Pakistan in 1947. It is currently headed by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan...

  • Wajid Khan
    Wajid Khan
    Wajid Ali Khan is a Canadian businessman and politician. Until 2008, he was a member of the Canadian House of Commons, representing the riding of Mississauga—Streetsville as a Conservative Member of Parliament.-Early life:Khan served as an officer and a pilot in the Pakistan Air Force from 1966 to...

     Canadian politician — former Pakistan-India War 1971 fighter pilot
  • Yahya Khan
    Yahya Khan
    General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan Qizilbash, H.Pk, HJ, S.Pk, psc was the third President of Pakistan from 1969 to 1971, following the resignation of Ayub Khan...

     — German POW during World War II, last president of a united Pakistan
    Pakistan
    Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

  • Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski
    Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski
    General Count Tadeusz Komorowski , better known by the name Bór-Komorowski was a Polish military leader....

     — Commander of the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising
    Warsaw Uprising
    The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...

  • Gustav Krist
    Gustav Krist
    Gustav Krist was an Austrian adventurer, prisoner-of-war, carpet-dealer and author.His accounts of unmonitored journeys, in a politically closed and tightly-controlled Russian, and then Soviet Central Asia, offer a unique glimpse into the essentially unchanged Muslim Central Asia before...

     — Adventurer and traveler, Austrian soldier in World War I, captured by Russians in 1914. Interned in Russian Turkestan
    Russian Turkestan
    Russian Turkestan was the western part of Turkestan within the Russian Empire , comprising the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh steppes, but not the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva.-History:-Establishment:Although Russia had been pushing south into the...

  • Desmond Llewelyn
    Desmond Llewelyn
    Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn was a Welsh actor, famous for playing Q in 17 of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1999.-Early life:...

     — went on to a notable acting career, most famously as Q
    Q (James Bond)
    Q is a fictional character in the James Bond novels and films. Q , like M, is a job title rather than a name. He is the head of Q Branch , the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service...

     in the James Bond film series
  • Jessica Lynch
    Jessica Lynch
    Jessica Dawn Lynch is a former Private First Class in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps. Lynch served in Iraq during the 2003 invasion by U.S. and allied forces. On March 23, 2003 she was injured and captured by Iraqi forces but was recovered on April 1 by U.S...

     — American servicewoman during the Iraq war.
  • Keith Matthew Maupin
    Matt Maupin
    Keith Matthew "Matt" Maupin was a United States Army Private First Class captured by Iraqi insurgents on April 9, 2004, while serving in the Iraq War, after his convoy came under attack by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire near Baghdad, Iraq .On June 28, 2004, Arabic-language...

     — captured on April 9, 2004. Date of murder unknown. Remains found March 30, 2008.
  • Charles Cardwell McCabe
    Charles Cardwell McCabe
    Charles Cardwell McCabe was an American who distinguished himself as a Methodist pastor, an Army chaplain during the American Civil War, a Church executive chiefly in the field of fundraising, as Chancellor of American University, and as a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church , elected in...

     — a prisoner and chaplain
    Chaplain
    Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

     at Libby Prison
    Libby Prison
    Libby Prison was a Confederate Prison at Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. It gained an infamous reputation for the harsh conditions under which prisoners from the Union Army were kept.- Overview :...

     during the American Civil War
    American Civil War
    The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

  • John McCain
    John McCain
    John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....

     — American political leader and Republican
    Republican Party (United States)
    The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

     nominee for president
    United States presidential election, 2008
    The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...

     in 2008, prisoner for over five years in Vietnam
  • Olivier Messiaen
    Olivier Messiaen
    Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

     — French composer
  • George Millar — Journalist, British soldier, SOE agent, writer
  • Dusty Miller
    Dusty Miller (martyr)
    "Dusty" Miller was a British P.O.W. in Thailand on the Burma Railway during Second World War. His life and death is attested to in Ernest Gordon's autobiographical work Through the Valley of the Kwai .-Background:Miller was a gardener from Newcastle and a Methodist...

     — Executed for his faith during internment under the Japanese in Thailand in 1945.
  • François Mitterrand
    François Mitterrand
    François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...

     — 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
    Airey Neave
    Airey Middleton Sheffield Neave DSO, OBE, MC was a British soldier, barrister and politician.During World War II, Neave was one of the few servicemen to escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C at Colditz Castle...

     — British politician made the first British home run from Colditz on 5th January 1942
  • A. A. K. Niazi
    A. A. K. Niazi
    Lieutenant-General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi HJ, MC,; c. 1915 - 2 February 2004), was a former three-star general in the Pakistan Army who was the last unified commander of Pakistan Armed Forces's Eastern Military High Command in East-Pakistan...

     — commander of Pakistan Army in East Pakistan
    East Pakistan
    East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...

     who surrendered along with nearly 93,000 prisoners
  • Manuel Noriega
    Manuel Noriega
    Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno is a Panamanian politician and soldier. He was military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989.The 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States removed him from power; he was captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on...

     — 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
    Friedrich Paulus
    Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus was an officer in the German military from 1910 to 1945. He attained the rank of Generalfeldmarschall during World War II, and is best known for having commanded the Sixth Army's assault on Stalingrad during Operation Blue in 1942...

     — German field marshal, surrendered Stalingrad to the Soviets in 1943
  • Donald Pleasence
    Donald Pleasence
    Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...

     — 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
    Non-fiction
    Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

    /historical
    History
    History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

     author
    Author
    An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

  • Yevgeny Rodionov
    Yevgeny Rodionov
    Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Rodionov was a Russian soldier who was taken prisoner and later executed in Chechen captivity...

     — Russian soldier captured by rebel forces in Chechnya
    Chechnya
    The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

     and beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam
  • James N. Rowe
    James N. Rowe
    James Nicholas "Nick" Rowe was a United States Army officer and one of only thirty-four American prisoners of war to escape captivity during the Vietnam War...

     — 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
    Jean-Paul Sartre
    Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

     — French philosopher and writer, POW 1940-1941
  • Kazuo Sakamaki
    Kazuo Sakamaki
    was a Japanese naval officer who became the first Japanese prisoner of war of World War II captured by American forces.-Biography:Sakamaki was born in what is now part of the city of Awa, Tokushima Prefecture...

     — First POW captured by U.S. forces in World War II
  • Ronald Searle
    Ronald Searle
    Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI, is a British artist and cartoonist, best known as the creator of St Trinian's School. He is also the co-author of the Molesworth series....

     — English cartoonist
    Cartoonist
    A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

  • Léopold Senghor — Senegal
    Senegal
    Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

    ize writer and political leader, captured 1940 in France
  • Gilad Shalit
    Gilad Shalit
    Gilad Shalit is an Israeli – French citizen and Israel Defense Forces soldier. On 25 June 2006, he was captured inside Israel by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid via underground tunnels near the border with Gaza. The Hamas militants held him for over five years, until he was released on...

     — Israeli soldier captured in 2006 by Hamas. He was released in a prisoner exchange on October 18, 2011.
  • Vladek Spiegelman — Polish private
    Private (rank)
    A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career...

     captured by Germany on September 1, 1939, father of Art Spiegelman
    Art Spiegelman
    Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...

  • William Stacy
    William Stacy
    William Stacy was an officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and a pioneer to the Ohio Country...

     — lieutenant colonel of the Continental Army
    Continental Army
    The Continental Army was formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in...

    , captured during the Cherry Valley massacre
    Cherry Valley massacre
    The Cherry Valley Massacre was an attack by British and Seneca forces on a fort and the village of Cherry Valley in eastern New York on the cold, snowy and rainy morning of November 11, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. It has been described as one of the most horrific frontier...

    ; General George Washington
    George Washington
    George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

     attempted to orchestrate a prisoner exchange for Lt. Col. Stacy but was unsuccessful.
  • James Stockdale
    James Stockdale
    Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale was one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the United States Navy.Stockdale led aerial attacks from the carrier during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident...

     — candidate for Vice President in 1992; decorated member of the U.S. Navy; POW in Vietnam
    Vietnam War
    The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

  • E W Swanton — captured by Japanese in Singapore
    Singapore
    Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

    ; after war, was renowned BBC sports commentator.
  • Floyd James Thompson
    Floyd James Thompson
    Floyd James "Jim" Thompson was the longest held prisoner of war in United States history, spending nearly nine years in captivity in Vietnam.-Early life:...

     — America's longest-held POW; he spent 9 years in POW camps in Vietnam (1964 — 1973)
  • Josip Broz Tito
    Josip Broz Tito
    Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...

     — president of Yugoslavia
    Yugoslavia
    Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

    , Austrian soldier in World War I, captured by Russians in 1915
  • András Toma
    András Toma
    András Toma was a Hungarian soldier who was taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1944, then discovered living in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000. He was probably the last prisoner of war from the Second World War to be repatriated...

     – 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
    Mikhail Tukhachevsky
    Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, commander in chief of the Red Army , and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.-Early life:...

     — Soviet military leader and theorist, captured by Germans in World War I
  • Charles Upham
    Charles Upham
    Captain Charles Hazlitt Upham VC and Bar was a New Zealand soldier who earned the Victoria Cross twice during the Second World War: in Crete in May 1941, and at Ruweisat Ridge, Egypt, in July 1942...

     — Most decorated British soldier of World War II. Awarded the Victoria Cross
    Victoria Cross
    The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....

     twice.
  • Laurens van der Post
    Laurens van der Post
    Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, CBE was a 20th century Afrikaner author of many books, farmer, war hero, political adviser to British heads of government, close friend of Prince Charles, godfather of Prince William, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer, and...

     — South Africa
    South Africa
    The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

    n writer and war hero, captured by Japanese 1942
  • Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach
    Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach
    Walther Kurt von Seydlitz-Kurzbach was a German general. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, into the noble Prussian Seydlitz family. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves...

     — German general captured at Stalingrad
  • Kurt Vonnegut
    Kurt Vonnegut
    Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

     — American writer; captured in the Battle of the Bulge
    Battle of the Bulge
    The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...

     and witnessed the Bombing of Dresden in World War II
    Bombing of Dresden in World War II
    The Bombing of Dresden was a military bombing by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force and as part of the Allied forces between 13 February and 15 February 1945 in the Second World War...

  • Jonathan Wainwright — Commanding General U.S. forces in Philippines; captured at Bataan (1942-1945)
  • George Washington
    George Washington
    George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

     — first U.S. President, captured in 1754 by the French during the French and Indian War
    French and Indian War
    The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...

    .
  • D. C. Wimberly — POW in World War II from Springhill
    Springhill, Louisiana
    Springhill is a city in northern Webster Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,439 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Minden Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...

    , Louisiana
    Louisiana
    Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

    ; educator and a past commander of American Ex-Prisoners of War
    American Ex-Prisoners of War
    Prisoners of War is a service organization that aims to assist the surviving U.S. military prisoner of war , particularly those who are elderly and those who have medical problems. Based in Arlington, Texas, the American Ex-Prisoners of War was founded in 1942. It received a congressional charter...

  • Louis Zamperini
    Louis Zamperini
    Louis Silvie Zamperini is a World War II prisoner of war survivor, inspirational speaker, and former American Olympic distance runner.-Early life:...

     — American athlete, member of Olympic team, captured by Japanese 1943
  • Jakow Trachtenberg
    Jakow Trachtenberg
    Jakow Trachtenberg was a Russian Jewish mathematician who developed the mental calculation techniques called the Trachtenberg system. He was born in Odessa, in the Russian Empire . He graduated with highest honors from the Mining Engineering Institute in St. Petersburg and later worked as an...

     — A Russian Jewish mathematician who developed the mental calculation techniques called the Trachtenberg system.
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