Prisoners of War WW2 facts

Discover Prisoner of War WW2 facts and more stories of those taken captive during the Second World War.

WW2 Prisoner of War facts

Image: Canadian prisoners of war are marched through French streets after the failure of the Dieppe Raid in August 1942 (© CO14171)

Around 170-180,000 British and Commonwealth prisoners of war were captured by the forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in World War Two.

They were mostly taken into captivity during the early stages of the war when Great Britain and her empire were very much on the back foot. Defeats in France, Greece, and North Africa led to vast swathes of Commonwealth servicemen being taken prisoner.

One of the key Prisoner of War WW2 facts to note is that 3.5-4% of British captured British service personnel died in German captivity. This stands in stark contrast with the death rate of Japanese prisoners of war.

The death rate in Japanese camps was some seven to eight times higher than in the German PoW camps.

Approximately 130,000 British and Commonwealth prisoners were taken by the Imperial Japanese, following losses in places like Singapore, Burma (present-day Myanmar), Hong Kong, and Papua New Guinea. This includes over 60,000 British Servicemen, more than 25,000 Indian Army personnel, and more than 21,000 ANZACs.

85,000 were taken prisoner after the Fall of Singapore alone. 

Over 27% of WW2 prisoners of the Japanese were killed in captivity.

The Germans still somewhat obeyed the provisions of the Geneva Convention, governing proper war prisoner treatment, when handling captured western Allied servicemen. 

Western Allied prisoners were treated much better than Soviet POWs, millions of whom died in German prisons and concentration camps. However, massacres and war crimes were perpetrated against surrendering British, Canadian, and US soldiers by SS units.

How are Second World War Prisoners of War commemorated?

Image: The final resting places of many Japanese prisoners of war at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand

Like other Commonwealth servicemen, WW2 Prisoners of War are commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in our war cemeteries and memorials.

Japanese prisoners are buried or commemorated in several sites across Asia. Those who perished on the infamous Burma-Siam Railway, immortalised by the Alec Guinness-starring film The Bridge over the River Kwai, are commemorated at:

• Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand
• Chungkai War Cemetery, Thailand
• Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Myanmar

Sadly, many Japanese POW’s bodies were never found or could not be recovered. Those with no known war grave are commemorated by name on war memorials, such as the Rangoon War Memorial within Taukkyan War Cemetery, Myanmar.

Some prisoners were transported to Japan itself to work in forced labour camps. An interesting Second World War prisoner of war fact is that the ashes of 335 US, Commonwealth, and Dutch POWs are held in the Yokohama Cremation Memorial. Yokohama War Cemetery holds 1,500 burials, many of whom died in captivity.

Image: Poznan Old Cemetery, home to 48 war graves of the Great Escapers, some of the most famous WW2 prisoners of war

WW2 POWs who died in German hands are commemorated in CWGC sites in Europe. For example, in Poznan Old Cemetery, Poznan, Poland, 48 members of the Great Escape are buried together.

Unlike Japanese POWs, those who died in German captivity are not located within specific CWGC cemeteries or memorials. If they died in Germany, for example, their war graves may rest in one of our larger Second World War German cemeteries, such as Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery or Becklingen War Cemetery.

This is because, after the Second World War, Commonwealth casualties who died in Germany during the Allied invasion were brought together from their original burial grounds into CWGC sites. This process was known as concentration.

Find more WW2 prisoner of war books and movies in our blog.

What was life like for Prisoners of War in WW2?

German POWs

Image: British prisoners of war at the infamous Colditz Castle. From left to right, first row - Captain Richard Howe, Captain Patrick R. Reid (Escape Officer), Lt Allan (in kilt). Second row - Captain Berry, Captain Elliott, Lt Col German, Padre Platt. (© The rights holder (HU 54527))

As German authorities generally respected the Geneva Convention in its treatment of Western Allied prisoners, life varied. For those “put in the bag” by German forces, their treatment was comparatively much less harsh than that meted out to Soviet POWs or the Japanese to its captives.

Being taken prisoner was a humiliating experience for Commonwealth military personnel. Those who had once been warriors were now captives.

In fact, many struggled with the psychological aspect of being interred. One Paratrooper at the Battle of Arnhem remarked how he had been prepared to die in combat, but nothing could have prepared him for his capture.

Officers and enlisted men were split up and held in different sites. Officers were mostly held in “Offizierslager” or “Oflag”. The imposing cliffside Colditz Castle was one such example. 

Men of enlisted rank were instead housed in “Kriefsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager”, shorted to “Stalag”. Stalag Luft III, specifically for imprisoned enemy airmen and the site of the Great Escape, was an example of a stalag.
Camps differed from site to site, depending on their location. Colditz, aka Oflag IV-C and Stalag Luft III, are good examples. 

Colditz was a former Renaissance-era castle overlooking the River Elbe, a grand imposing structure; Stalag Luft III was more like a sprawling temporary town, made of wooden huts ringed with barbed wire fences.

Image: Allied POWs tending to a small vegetable garden in a German stalag (© IWM)

Prison camps were scattered all over occupied Europe. POWs captured in North Africa, for instance, were usually transported to Italian sites before being transferred to camps in Germany, occupied Poland or other sites in the greater German Reich.

For the most part, life in an oflag or stalag wasn’t dangerous but boring. POWs were allowed to organise social societies and sports to keep them occupied.

German camp guards allowed this as bored prisoners were dangerous prisoners. They could use their free time to plot escape attempts, so why not let them play football or stage plays?

As we know, many did. It was seen as a British officer’s duty to effect escape, and thousands of plots, attempts, and ruses were made in the name of liberty.

Being a POW was not like being on holiday, however. You were expected to work. Some were assigned to work on farms or factories; others could be sent to toil in mines alongside concentration camp inmates in harsh conditions.
Food was also limited.

Circumstances also depended on your service branch. Merchant seamen, for example, were treated as civilians, thus outside the Geneva Convention. Depending on your nationality, you could be treated exceptionally harshly by your German captors: starved; beaten; murdered.

Towards the end of the war, with Allied armies advancing across Europe and resources dwindling, conditions worsened. Disease heightened, with many Allied POWs suffering from the likes of diarrhoea, dysentery, and diphtheria.

Some 80,000 Allied prisoners of war were forced to march across Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in brutal winter conditions as armies advanced. Disease and hunger were rife, and the large columns of POWs, mistaken for German armies on the move, were often accidentally strafed by Allied aircraft, resulting in injuries and death. 

Around 2,200 Commonwealth prisoners died because of these forced marches.

Commander Bryan Gouthwaite Scurfield

Image: Commander Bryan Gouthwaite Scurfield (Copyright unknown)

Bryan Gouthwaite Scurfield was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, England on 8 August 1902, the eldest of eight children to Harold and Mary Scurfield. His middle name was taken from his paternal grandmother’s maiden name. He was married to Mary and lived in Petersfield.

In June 1942, aboard HMS Bedouin, Commander Scurfield was escorting an eastbound convoy from Gibraltar to Malta.
On 15 June 1942, the convoy was south of Sardinia under constant air and U-Boat attacks when Bedouin was attacked by an Italian SM 79 bomber. A torpedo was launched which hit Bedouin in the engine room causing the ship to sink within 5 minutes After hours in the water 213 survivors were spotted by a German aircraft and rescued by an Italian Red Cross ship.

Bryan was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his actions with H.M.S. Bedouin, the citation read:

“Commander Scurfield was in command of H.M.S. Bedouin in Force “X” in operation Harpoon. From the report in Vice Admiral, Malta’s 0244/18 June, 1942, and from the information I have been able to obtain subsequently, it appears that he led the 11th Destroyer Division in a most gallant manner. His ship was disabled in this attack, and was about to get steam on main engines again while in tow of H.M.S. Partridge when the former was sunk by an aircraft torpedo. Commander Scurfield’s fate is not known, but he was alive after ship had been torpedoed and I hope may have been picked up by Italian destroyers.”

He became a prisoner of War initially in an old monastery south of Naples, Italy. Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, he was moved to Germany to Marlag ‘O’ POW camp near Bremen.

As the Allies advanced into Germany in April 1945, the Germans decided to move the prisoners to Lubeck. 
On 11 April, the second day of the march, the column was attacked by Allied fighters believing them to be German troops. 

Bryan was hit by friendly cannon fire as he ensured the prisoners were dispersing to safety during the attack. He died from his wounds a few hours later.

He was buried at Zeven, Germany and was re-interred at Becklingen War Cemetery.

Prisoners of the Japanese WW2

Image: A trio of emaciated Australian POWs in Japanese captvitiy, showing the stark contrast between the conditions experienced by Japanese and German POWs (© AWM P02569.192)

Imperial Japan had never ratified the 1929 Geneva Convention which governed the treatment of POWs. 

The Allies hoped the Japanese would still abide by the Convention’s provisions but the lack of paperwork confirming who was being held, and where, by the end of 1942, the apex of Japanese conquest in Asia, boded poorly.

Few prisoners were allowed to send any word of their whereabouts to the outside world. For many Commonwealth families at home, their loved ones had simply disappeared.

Those who fell into Japanese hands were treated incredibly harshly. Some Allied soldiers never got the opportunity to be taken prisoner. 

For example, at Laha Airfield, on Ambon in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) in February 1942, about 300 Australian defenders were summarily executed over two weeks after their initial surrender. They were buried in unmarked mass graves.

POWs were first held where they had been captured, usually in former prisons or army barracks. Soon, however, they were sent out to crudely constructed work camps as forced labourers. 

Working while sick, exhausted, and starving, they toiled away loading and unloading cargo, clearing debris for bombing raids, or working on large infrastructure projects like railways and airfields.

Unlike in Europe, escape attempts were rare. Work and prison camps were often located in isolated, rugged areas, such as highland clearings, deep valleys, or dense jungles. Terrain, disease, and weakness prohibited such endeavours. 

The experiences of those forced to work on the Burma-Siam Railway, aka Death Railway, give us insight into what life was like for captive Allied servicemen under the Japanese.

Beginning in mid-1942, Japanese engineers forced thousands of POWs and forced labourers to construct a 250-mile rail line through the mountainous jungles of Thailand and Burma (present-day Myanmar).

Hazardous terrain, an inhospitable climate, a punishing timetable, and savage overseers awaited the Allied prisoners.

Image: POWs toil away constructing a bridge on the Burma-Siam Railway (© AWM 118879)

At the height of activity in mid-1943, over 60,000 Prisoners of War worked on the railway. More than 250,000 Asian labourers, known as “rōmusha” joined the POWs in their suffering and labour.

Inch by inch, the prisoners, using primitive tools and human endeavour, raised embankments, carved cuttings, and built bridges from forest materials. All the time, they were plagued with disease, malnutrition, fatigue, and brutal mistreatment.

They lived and worked in appalling conditions. What medical facilities existed were basic and crude. Red Cross relief parcels holding food and medicine were withheld. 

Their captors created a deadly environment for the POWs and local labourers. Around 16,000 prisoners are estimated to have died working on the Burma-Siam Railway. Rōmusha casualties may have been seven times this.

By the time the first locomotive travelled along the Burma-Siam Railway in October 1943, it’s estimated a third of those who worked on its construction had perished.

Lieutenant Adrian Anthony Huxtable

Image: Lieutenant Adrian Anthony Huxtable

The son of a rubber planter and former serviceman, Adrian Huxtable was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 10 February 1920. He had a younger brother who also served during the Second World War. Their father was a First World War veteran and a member of the Territorial Army.

He was educated in the UK, attending Sherborne School in Dorset. At Sherborne, Adrian was a house prefect. He also joined the Officer Training Corps, reaching the rank of Lance Corporal.

Contemporaries noted Adrian had a keen sense of humour and a real zest for life. After school, he joined the territorial Royal Artillery, serving with the 88th Field Regiment.

On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the Huxtables heeded the call. Adrian’s father donned his uniform once more while the younger Huxtable enlisted with the Royal Navy.

Adrian was sent to France with his regiment and was evacuated at Dunkirk in May 1940. 

In late 1941, Adrian was posted to Singapore, joining the 9th Indian Division and Kuala Lumpur. The Japanese invaded four weeks later. Subsequently, Adrian fought in the Malaya campaign in present-day Malaysia, as well as the defence and the Fall of Singapore, where he was taken into captivity. 

Following the defeat at Singapore, Adrian was taken into captivity. He was one of the 60,000 Allied and Dutch soldiers put to work on the Burma-Siam railway. Sadly, Adrian contracted dysentery and died on 5 July 1943, aged 23.

Adrian’s obituary, published in the 8 September 1945 edition of The Times, reads: “Adrian’s life was gloriously clean, unselfish, and honest. He loved life and the simple things, and the way of peace, and to endure great hardships after the fall of Singapore.

“Those who knew him… will never forget his happy, charming personality and his dauntless courage to the end.”

In Dorset, his family set up a market next to the spot where his parents would be buried “In happy memory” of Adrian. Adrian, however, lies half the world away alongside his comrades in the Commonwealth War Grave Commission’s Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.

Hell Ships

Prisoners of War were sent to work all over Southeast Asia and the Japanese home islands. Those transported by sea were packed into holds of cargo ships more accustomed to carrying freight than humans.

Under the baking tropical sun, hundreds of men were crammed into cargo holds with little room to sit or lie down. Ventilation was often exceptionally limited. 

Lucky small POW groups might take turns on deck but more often than not, prisoners were kept in the hold for their entire voyages, some of which could take weeks.

Food, water, sanitation, and medical care were essentially non-existent. Wounds festered, the sick got sicker, and death from asphyxiation was a very real risk in the cramped confines of a hell ship.

If the conditions weren’t hard enough to endure, hell ships carried no identifying POW or hospital markers, making them fair game for Allied submarines prowling the Pacific. The great tragedy is that thousands of Allied prisoners of war were inadvertently killed by their own side in in attacks on hell ships.

The first hell ship to be sunk by Allied subs was the Montevideo Maru, torpedoed by a US submarine on 1 July 1942.

Exact casualty figures were never published by the Japanese authorities, but it’s believed some 850 Australian prisoners of war were killed when the Montevideo Maru went down, alongside 200 civilian internees. Most were still locked inside the hold as the ship sank.

A sobering WW2 Prisoner of War fact is that an estimated 19,000 POWs were killed via Allied hell ship sinkings.

Flight Lieutenant Grahame Prebble “Tiny” White

Image: Flight Lieutenant Grahame Prebble White (Copyright unknown)

24-year-old Grahame White, known as “Tiny” to his squadron mates, was the only New Zealander among the 540 British and Dutch prisoners of war aboard the Suez Maru when it left Ambon for Java.

Before the war, Grahame worked as a commercial artist in Wellington. He enlisted in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and saw service in the skies over Malaysia, Singapore, and Java. He was captured in Java in March 1942.

Ironically, the captive pilot was one of a group of prisoners sent to build an airfield on Ambon, the site of the notorious massacre at Laha, in March 1942. 

By November, Grahame and his comrades were too sick to continue work. They were packed aboard the Suez Maru for transportation back to Java. With them were 200 sick and wounded Japanese soldiers.

As it made its way between the Indonesian islands, the cargo-come-transporter fell into the crosshairs of a US submarine and was torpedoed. 

Around half of the prisoners were trapped below deck and drowned. The rest managed to escape into the ocean.

Four hours later, a Japanese navy ship arrived and picked up the surviving Japanese. soldiers with rifles and machine guns opened fire on the stricken prisoners of war bobbing in the water. None survived.

As Grahame and his comrades have no known grave but the sea, they are commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Singapore Memorial.

Sandakan Death Marches

Image: The AIF section of a POW cemetery in Sandakan, October 1945 (© AWM 120491)

After the loss of Singapore, several thousand British and Australian POWs were sent to camps in the Sandakan area of North Borneo’s eastern coast. They had been ordered to build an air strip for Japanese war planes.

As ever, the men were kept in appalling conditions, where the overworked prisoners were subjected to starvation and savage beatings.

By February 1945, the tide of the war had decisively turned in the Pacific and Asian theatres. Japanese commanders anticipating an invasion of North Borneo decided to move their captive charges some 160 miles inland to Ranau.

So began the Sandakan Death Marches.

Already exhausted, malnourished and suffering from illness, the prisoners were forced to march into dense jungle. Prisoners who fell on the journey were killed. Those who survived the ordeal were immediately put to work on starvation rations.

Out of the 2,000 men who had left Sandakan, only 260 arrived at Ranau. Come July 1945, the majority had died.

Only six escaped, avoiding recapture and execution with the help of local peoples who hid them until liberating troops arrived.

What happened to WW2 Prisoners of War?

With the surrender of Nazi Germany on 8 May 1945, and the surrender of Imperial Japan on 15 August 1845, work began on liberating POW camps and repatriating Allied prisoners.

In Europe, Operation Exodus was launched by the Royal Air Force to bring British and Commonwealth personnel back to the UK.

Between 3 April and 31 May 1945, 75,000 POWs were repatriated to the UK aboard specially modified Lancaster bombers. Approximately 3,500 flights were launched.

British and Commonwealth prisoners liberated from camps in the Soviet zone of occupation, covering Eastern Europe, were repatriated through the Black Sea port of Odessa (present-day Odesa). 

They were treated poorly by their temporary Soviet guards. Rings, watches, and other similar items were often confiscated. 

The Soviet authorities didn’t make the transition easy, cancelling and rescheduling journeys at the last minute, and insisting on clearance from Moscow for every former prisoner. 

All told around 2,600 British POWs were repatriated via Odessa. 

In the Far East, Prisoners held in remote work camps had to wait until discovery. Sadly, this could be a death sentence. The remote locations with the lack of medical care and food left prisoners vulnerable to the elements.

In some cases, even after the surrender of their government and armed forces, Japanese guards murdered their charges and fled, rather than face imprisonment and possible execution for war crimes.

Japanese prisoners of war were often severely malnourished, some losing half their body weight or higher, becoming little more than weak, walking skeletons. The psychological trauma they felt as a result of their experiences was often sadly proved a lifelong affliction too.

What were the most famous Prisoner of War camps?

Oflag IV-C (Colditz Castle)

Image: Colditz Castle, home to Oflag IV-C POW camp (© IWM (HU 20517))

For a certain generation, Colditz, aka Oflag IV-C, is the most famous German POW camp of the Second World War.

Colditz Castle is an imposing structure, perched atop a steep hill overlooking the Mulde River, some 30 miles from Leipzig. 

Its internal buildings sat 250 feet above the surrounding hills and were enclosed by steep, 7-foot-thick walls. Located 400 miles from friendly territory, Colditz was considered inescapable. This didn’t stop its occupants from trying.

Colditz began to hold WW2 prisoners of war in 1939. Soon, it began to hold officers of all ranks, including multiple French generals, of many nations. Brits, Poles, Dutch, and French officers, among others, were held there.

Through ingenious tunnelling, various ruses, including the construction of a rudimentary glider, over 130 escape attempts were made by Colditz’s internees. 32 prisoners managed to escape without recapture before Oflag IV-C was liberated by US troops in April 1945.

Stalag Luft III

Image: Stalag Luft III: POW camp & site of the Great Escape (© IWM)

Built in Sagan, modern-day Poland, in 1942, Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prison camp housing Allied airmen. At its height, Stalag Luft III held 11,000 Commonwealth and American airmen.

The camp was made up of multiple compounds. Each compound held fifteen single-story huts, housing 15 men who slept in bunk beds. Stalag Luft III covered a 60-acre site with an 800-strong guard force.

Stalag Luft III was one of the more comfortable prisoner camps holding Allied personnel. Each compound had its own sports field, for instance. The camp had a well-stocked library and even a Prisoner of War orchestra.

Particularly unusually, prisoners held at Stalag Luft III were allowed to bury their comrades who died in captivity with Germans providing honour guards.

Despite the comparative comfort levels, Stalag Luft III was also built to make escape as difficult as possible. It was built on especially sandy soil to discourage tunnelling, and each hut was raised off the ground, making tunnelling attempts easily visible.

Because of its anti-escape measures, prisoners who already made escape attempts from other camps were sent to Stalag Luft III.

Putting men together who were already experienced at attempting breakouts seemed like it would encourage further escape attempts.

This certainly proved the case at Stalag Luft III on the night of 24 March 1944. On that night, 76 POWs made a break for freedom in the largest Allied prison break of the war. Known as the Great Escape, their escapades were immortalised in the 1963 film of the same name starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough.

In reality, 50 of the escapees were captured. Rather than being returned to POW camps, they were instead murdered by their German captors. Today, they are commemorated by Commonwealth War Graves.

Who was the longest held POW in WW2?

The longest-held Commonwealth Prisoner of War of the Second World War was Squadron Leader Alfie Fripp.

Alfie’s Bristol Blenheim reconnaissance aircraft was forced to land in Germany in October 1939. From then on, Alfie spent the rest of the war in captivity, being moved between 12 different POW camps.

He was even present at Stalag Luft III during the planning of the Great Escape but was transferred to another site two months before the breakout took place.

Alfie managed to survive The March after being forced with his comrades to walk from Poland to Germany in the face of the advancing Soviet Red Army.

Miraculously, Alfie survived the war. He died at the age of 98 in Bournemouth, Devon on 3 January 2013.

Who was the youngest Prisoner of War?

Cabin Boy John Giles Hipkin was just 14 years old when he fell into German hands. 

The Newcastle-born merchant seaman was taken into captivity when his ship, the oil tanker SS Lustrous, was targeted and sunk by Kriegsmarine battleships. John and the crew managed to escape but were captured and taken to Stalag XB in Sandbostel near Bremen in northern Germany.

Sandbostel was specifically for merchant seaman. As such, they were treated as civilian internees, rather than POWs. Nationalities were split and some, such as Russian prisoners, were treated very poorly.

At 15, John witnessed the murder of a Yugoslavian prisoner by a German guard. 

"Conditions were horrific," John told the Guardian. "It was a dumping ground for concentration camp victims, a dumping ground for all the defeated countries of Europe."

John was kept in captivity until 29 April 1945. That day, coincidentally John’s birthday, a British tank breached the wire around the camp and the prisoners were liberated. 

John returned home on VE Day, 8 May 1945. Post-war, he left the Merchant Navy and worked as a teacher in his native Newcastle. John passed away, aged 90, in 2016. 

Who was the only German POW to escape WW2?

The only German to escape from British captivity in the Second World War was Hauptmann Franz von Werra.

A Luftwaffe pilot, Franz was initially captured in September 1940 during the Battle of Britain when his craft was shot down over Kent.

Franz was first held at No 1 POW Camp (Officers) at Grizedale Hall in Furness, northern England but managed to escape before being recaptured. He was then sent to a camp in Derbyshire where he escaped again.

Finally, Franz was shipped to Canada where he was interred in a camp north of Lake Superior, Ontario. On 21 January, while aboard a prison train bound for Montreal, Franz and seven other prisoners escaped by jumping out a window. The rest of the escapees were captured but Franz eluded pursuers.

He made his way to the still-neutral United States, where he turned himself over to police. The local German consul paid his bail. 

While Canada and the US were negotiating for Franz’s release, the German fugitive was helped over the Mexican border by the German consulate. From there, he escaped home via Brazil, Spain and Italy before reaching Nazi Germany on 18 April 1941.

He became an instant national hero, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross and given a new role as an interrogator of captured Allied airmen. Allegedly, Franz’s reports of his treatment at the hands of the British positively influenced how German authorities treated Western Allied POWs.

Franz was killed when his plane crashed during a practice flight over the North Sea on 25 October 1941. His body was never found.

Author acknowledgements

Alec Malloy is a CWGC Digital Content Executive. He has worked at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for over three years. During that time, he has written extensively about the World Wars, including major battles, casualty stories, and the Commission's work commemorating 1.7 million war dead worldwide.