PRISONERS OF WAR

Prisoners of War (POW, PoW, or PW) are combatants who are imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict.

Ancient times Prisoners of War:
For most of human history, depending on the temperament of the victors, combatants of the losing side in a battle could expect to be either slaughtered, to eliminate them as a future threat, or enslaved, bringing economic and social benefits to the victorious side and its soldiers. Typically, little distinction was made between combatants and civilians.

Middle Ages Prisoners of War:
During the Middle Ages, a number of religious wars were particularly ferocious. In Christian Europe, the extermination of the heretics or "non-believers" was considered desirable. Examples include the 13th-century Albigensian Crusade and the Northern Crusades. Likewise the inhabitants of conquered cities were frequently massacred during the Crusades against the Muslims in the 11th and 12th centuries, or during Turkish incursions in Europe. Rulers and army commanders were frequently used to extract tribute by granting their freedom in exchange for a significant ransom in treasury or land. In pre-Islamic Arabia, upon capture, those captives not executed, were made to beg for their subsistence. During the early reforms under Islam, Muhammad changed this custom and made it the responsibility of the Islamic government to provide food and clothing, on a reasonable basis, to captives, regardless of their religion. If the prisoners were in the custody of a person, then the responsibility was on the individual. He established the rule that prisoners of war must be guarded and not ill-treated, and that after the fighting was over, the prisoners were expected to be either released or ransomed. The freeing of prisoners in particular was highly recommended as a charitable act. 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.

Modern times Prisoners of War:
During the nineteenth century, efforts increased to improve the treatment and processing of prisoners. The extensive period of conflict during the Revolutionary 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. 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. Later, as 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 are required to be treated humanely and diplomatically.

Hague and Geneva Conventions Prisoners of War:
Specifically, Chapter II of the Annex to the 1907 Hague Convention covered the treatment of prisoners of war in detail. These were further expanded in the Third Geneva Convention of 1929, and its revision of 1949. Article 4 of the 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). However, nations vary in their dedication to following these laws.

The United States Military Code of Conduct Prisoners of War:
The United States Military Code of Conduct, Articles III through V, are guidelines for United States servicemembers who have been taken prisoner. They were created in response to the breakdown of leadership which can happen in an atypical environment such as a POW situation, specifically when US forces were POWs during the Korean War. When a person is taken prisoner, the Code of Conduct reminds the servicemember that the chain of command is still in effect (the highest ranking servicemember, regardless of armed service branch, is in command), and that the servicemember cannot receive special favors or parole from their captors, lest this undermine the servicemember's chain of command.

Qualifications Prisoners of War:
To be entitled to prisoner of war status, the captured service member must have conducted operations according to the laws and customs of war: be part of a chain of command and wear a uniform and bear arms openly. Thus, francs-tireurs, terrorists, saboteurs, mercenaries and spies may be excluded. In practice, these criteria are not always interpreted strictly. Guerrillas, for example, may not wear a uniform or carry arms openly yet are sometimes granted POW status if captured (although Additional Protocol 1 may give them POW status in some circumstances). However, guerrillas or any other combatant may not be granted the status if they try to use both the civilian and the military status. Thus, uniforms and/or badges are important in determining prisoner of war status.

World War I Prisoners of War:
About 8 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. 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); for Austria 32%, for Italy 26%, for France 12%, for Germany 9%; for Britain 7%. Prisoners from the Allied armies totaled about 1.4 million (not including Russia, which lost between 2.5 and 3.5 million men as prisoners.) From the Central Powers about 3.3 million men became prisoners. Germany 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. The US held 48,000. The most dangerous moment was the act of surrender, when helpless soldiers were sometimes gunned down. Once prisoners reached a camp in general conditions were satisfactory (and much better than in World War II), thanks in part to the efforts of the International Red Cross and inspections by neutral nations. Conditions were terrible in Russia, starvation was common for prisoners and civilians alike; about 15-20% of the prisoners in Russia died. In Germany food was short but only 5% died. The Ottoman Empire often treated prisoners of war poorly. Some 11,800 British soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the five-month Siege of Kut, in Mesopotamia, in April 1916. Many were weak and starved when they surrendered and 4,250 died in captivity. The most curious case came in Russia where the Czech Legion of Czech prisoners (from the Austro-Hungarian army), were released in 1917, armed themselves, and briefly became a military and diplomatic force during the Russian Civil War.

Release of prisoners Prisoners of War:
At the end of the war there were believed to be 140,000 British prisoners of war in Germany, including 3,000 held in Switzerland. The first British prisoners were released and reached Calais on 15 November. 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. A very large number of these has been released en masse and sent across Allied lines without any food or shelter. This had created difficulties for the receiving Allies and many had 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 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.

World War II Prisoners of War:
Germany and Italy generally treated prisoners from the British Commonwealth, France, the U.S. and other western allies, in accordance with the Geneva Convention (1929), which had been signed by these countries. Nazi Germany did not extend this level of treatment to non-Western prisoners, such as the Soviets, who suffered harsh captivities and died in large numbers while in captivity. The Empire of Japan also did not treat prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention. When soldiers of lower rank were made to work, they were compensated, and officers (e.g. in Colditz Castle) were not required to work. The main complaint of British, British Commonwealth, U.S. and French prisoners of war in German Army POW camps, especially during the last two years of the war, was the poor quality and miserly quantities of food provided, a fate German soldiers and civilians were also suffering due to the blockade conditions. Fortunately for the prisoners, food packages provided by the International Red Cross supplemented the food rations, until the last few months when allied air raids prevented shipments from arriving. The other main complaint was the harsh treatment during forced marches in the last months, resulting from German attempts to keep prisoners away from the advancing allied forces. In contrast, Germany treated the Soviet Red Army troops that had been taken prisoner with neglect and deliberate, organized brutality. The first eight months of the German campaign on their Eastern Front were by far the worst phase, with up to 2.4 of 3.1 million POWs dying. Soviet POWs were held under conditions that resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands from starvation and disease. Most prisoners were also subjected to forced labour under conditions that resulted in further deaths. An official justification used by the Germans for this policy was that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention; this was not legally justifiable, however, as under article 82 of the Geneva Convention (1929), signatory countries had to give POWs of all signatory and non-signatory countries the rights assigned by the convention. A month after the German invasion in 1941 an offer was made by the USSR for a reciprocal adherence to the Hague conventions. This 'note' was left unanswered by Third Reich officials. According to some sources, between 1941 and 1945, the Axis powers took approximately 5.7 million Soviet prisoners. Approximately 1 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; 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. According to Russian military historian General G. Krivoshhev, 4.6 million Soviet prisoners were taken by the Axis powers, of which 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. In comparison, 8,348 British or American prisoners died in German camps in 1939-45 (3.5% of the 232,000 total). On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and the United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the USSR. The interpretation of this Agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviets regardless of their wishes. The forced repatriation operations took place in 1945-1947. Many Soviet POWs and forced laborers transported to Nazi Germany were on their return to the USSR treated as traitors and sent to the gulag. In the Pacific War, the Empire of Japan had never signed the Third Geneva Convention of 1929. The Empire however violated international agreements signed by Japan, including provisions of the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), which protect prisoners of war (POWs). Prisoners of war from China, the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Netherlands and New Zealand held by the Japanese armed forces were subject to murder, beatings, summary punishments, brutal treatment, forced labor, medical experimentation, starvation rations, and poor medical treatment. No access to the POWs was provided to the International Red Cross. Escapes were almost impossible because of the difficulty of men of European descent hiding in Asiatic societies. According to the findings of the Tokyo tribunal, the death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1% (American POWs died at a rate of 37%), seven times that of POW's under the Germans and Italians. The death rate of Chinese was much larger as, according to the directive ratified on 5 August 1937 by Hirohito, the constraints of international law were removed on those prisoners. Thus, if 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from Netherlands and 14,473 from USA were released after the surrender of Japan, the number for the Chinese was only 56.

Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War: An Oral History of Korean War POWs

Geneva Conventions:
Original document:
Development of the Geneva Conventions from 1864 to 1949.The Geneva Conventions consist of four treaties formulated in Geneva, Switzerland, that set the standards for international law for humanitarian concerns. They chiefly concern the treatment of non-combatants and prisoners of war. They do not affect the use of weapons in war, which are covered by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the Geneva Protocol on the use of gas and biological weapons of 1925. The Conventions were the results of efforts by Henry Dunant, who was motivated by the horrors of war he witnessed at the Battle of Solferino in 1859. In 1977 and 2005 three separate amendments were made part of the Geneva Conventions. The adoption of the First Convention followed the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863. The text is given the title Resolutions of the Geneva International Conference, Geneva, 26-29 October 1863. As of 2 August 2006, when the Republic of Montenegro adopted the four conventions, they have been ratified by 194 countries. As per article 49, 50, 129 and 146 of the Geneva Conventions I, II, III and IV, respectively, all signatory states are required to enact sufficient national laws that make grave violations of the Geneva Conventions a punishable criminal offense.

POW: Allied Prisoners in Europe, 1939-45

Prisoner-of-war camp:
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of enemy combatants captured by the enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. Some non-combatant enemy personnel, such as merchant mariners and civil aircrews, were also considered prisoners of war. World War I The first international convention on prisoners of war was signed at the Hague Peace Conference of 1899. It was widened by the Hague Convention of 1907. These rules proved insufficient in World War I, and the International Red Cross proposed a more complete code. World War II The Third Geneva Convention (1929) established the certain provisions relative to the treatment of Prisoners of War. One requirement was that POW camps were to be open to inspection by authorised representatives of a neutral power.

Article 10 required that POWs should be lodged in adequately heated and lighted buildings where conditions were the same as their own troops. Articles 27-32 detailed the conditions of labour. Enlisted ranks were required to perform whatever labour they were asked and able to do, so long as it was not dangerous and did not support the captor's war effort. Senior Non-commissioned officers (sergeants and above) were required to work only in a supervisory role. Commissioned officers were not required to work, although they could volunteer. The work performed was largely agricultural or industrial, ranging from coal or potash mining, stone quarrying, or work in saw mills, breweries, factories, railway yards, and forests. POWs hired out to military and civilian contractors were supposed to receive pay. The workers were also supposed to get at least one day per week of rest. Article 76 ensured that PoWs who died in captivity were honourably buried in marked graves. The Cowra breakout, on August 5, 1944, is believed to be the largest escape of POWs in recorded history and possibly the largest prison breakout ever. At least 545 Japanese POWs attempted to escape from a camp near Cowra, Australia. Most sources say that 234 POWs were killed or committed suicide. The remainder were recaptured.

Prisoners of the Japanese : Pows of World War II in the Pacific

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