List of Prisoners of War

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.
  • Everett Alvarez, Jr. Navy Commander who endured one of the longest periods as a prisoner of war (POW) in American history. Alvarez was the first American pilot to be shot down and held as a POW in North Vietnam. He spent over 8 years in captivity, making him the second longest-held POW in American history.
  • Bowe Bergdahl — U.S. Army Private First Class soldier captured by the Taliban on June 30, 2009.
  • 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. lived 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.
  • Heinrich Harrer — 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.
  • 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
  • George Kenner — 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 — 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.
  • 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 5 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
  • James Robinson Risner — USAF Brigadier General. First living recipient of the Air Force Cross.
  • 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 was released in a prisoner exchange on October 18, 2011.
  • 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 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.
  • Jakow Trachtenberg — A Russian Jewish mathematician who developed the mental calculation techniques called the Trachtenberg system.
  • 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

Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, prisoners and/or war:

    Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)

    I made a list of things I have
    to remember and a list
    of things I want to forget,
    but I see they are the same list.
    Linda Pastan (b. 1932)

    We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers’ wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.
    John Donne (c. 1572–1631)

    There’s no telling what might have happened to our defense budget if Saddam Hussein hadn’t invaded Kuwait that August and set everyone gearing up for World War II½. Can we count on Saddam Hussein to come along every year and resolve our defense-policy debates? Given the history of the Middle East, it’s possible.
    —P.J. (Patrick Jake)