A prisoner of war (POW, PoW, PW, P/W, WP, PsW, enemy prisoner of war (EPW) or "Missing-Captured") is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase is dated 1660.
Captor states hold captured combatants and non-combatants in continuing custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons. They are held to isolate them from combatants still in the field, to release and repatriate them in an orderly manner after hostilities, to demonstrate military victory, to punish them, to prosecute them for war crimes, to exploit them for their labor, to recruit or even conscript them as their own combatants, to collect military and political intelligence from them, and to indoctrinate them in new political or religious beliefs.
Read more about Prisoner Of War: Ancient Times, Middle Ages and Renaissance, Modern Times, World War I, World War II, Post-World War II, Numbers of POWs
Famous quotes containing the words prisoner of, prisoner and/or war:
“I am prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, where all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)
“That there is also freedom in captivity, only a prisoner can claim. Coming from a prison guard, this statement would be blasphemy.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)