List of prisoner-of-war escapes

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This list of prisoner-of-war escapes includes successful and unsuccessful attempts in chronological order, where possible.

Contents

Thirty Years' War

American Revolutionary War

American Civil War

Second Boer War

World War I

Polish-Soviet War

Spanish Civil War

World War II

Allied

Axis

Of the hundreds of thousands of POWs shipped to the United States, only 2,222 tried to escape. [17] There were about 600 escape attempts from Canada during the war, [18] including at least two mass escapes through tunnels. The Angler breakout was the single largest escape attempt orchestrated by German POWs (28) in North America during the war. The December 23, 1944, breakout of 25 Kriegsmarine and merchant seamen from Papago Park, Arizona, was the second largest. In both instances, all escapees were recaptured or killed.

Four German POWs were killed attempting to escape from Canadian prison camps. Three others were wounded. Most escapees tried to reach the United States when it was still neutral, though Karl Heinz-Grund and Horst Liebeck, from the Angler breakout, made it as far as Medicine Hat, Alberta, before being apprehended by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The two men had planned to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, and leave Canada courtesy of the Japanese merchant marine. Only one person ever succeeded in returning to the Axis—Franz von Werra, who reached the then-neutral United States from Canada—though a couple of others settled in the United States under false identities.

Korean War

Vietnam War

Dieter Dengler Dieter Dengler 19961201.jpg
Dieter Dengler

Indo-Pakistani war of 1971

See also

References

  1. Wilson 2011, pp. 534–535.
  2. Landmann 1876, p. 575.
  3. Wilson 2011, pp. 602–604.
  4. "Joshua Barney". Naval History and Heritage Command . Retrieved August 16, 2017.
  5. "Winston Churchill's Escape" (PDF). The New York Times . December 28, 1899.
  6. de Bruxelles, Simon (February 11, 2011). "The only one that got away: PoW's great escape from Britain". The Times .
  7. "Captain John Owen Donaldson, 1897 – 1930". South Carolina Technology & Aviation Center. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
  8. "Wartime 44 / Tunnelling to freedom". Australian War Memorial . Retrieved January 23, 2011.
  9. ""Escapes". Episode 2. The great escape from KL Lublin - Majdanek".
  10. "Prisoner mutinies". Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
  11. "Mass escape of the Soviet prisoners of war on November 6th 1942".
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  13. "Vol. 7 No. 36 (8 September 1945)". Trove. Retrieved 2024-11-24.
  14. "Award for elusive author". Newspapers.com. 1965-11-27. Retrieved 2024-11-24.
  15. "Survivors of the revolt - Sobibor Interviews".
  16. "Gordon Thomson Woodroofe". Auckland War Memorial Museum.
  17. J. Malcolm Garcia (September 16, 2009). "German POWs on the American Homefront". Smithsonian.com (a supplement to the Smithsonian magazine). Retrieved January 24, 2011.
  18. 1 2 3 "Homeland Stories: Enemies Within" (PDF). Reading and Remembrance Project 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 6, 2011. Retrieved January 21, 2011.
  19. Doug Mackey (February 15, 2002). "Prisoners of War: Lest we forget" . Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  20. "Posse Recaptures Fugitive Germans: Ranchers and Cattlemen Round Up Quartet from New Mexico Camp". Montreal Gazette . November 4, 1942.
  21. "Mount Kenya: Simon Calder tackles Africa's other summit". The Independent . October 27, 2007.
  22. Kilford, Christopher R. (2004). On the Way!. Trafford Publishing. pp. 124–125. ISBN   9781412031394 . Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  23. "Operation Kiebitz". Naval Museum of Quebec. Retrieved January 23, 2011.[ permanent dead link ]
  24. Magener, Rolf (1954). Prisoner's Bluff (1st ed.). London: Rupert Hart Davis.
  25. "Have You Seen These Men? R.C.M.P. Discloses Details on Seven Escaped Nazis Still at Large". Winnipeg Tribune . March 2, 1946 via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  26. "Push Search For Prisoner". Lethbridge Herald . September 2, 1944. Police and soldiers are continuing their search today for a German prisoner of war who escaped from the Medalta Potteries at Medicine Hat, where he was working on Thursday afternoon. The man is believed to be Max Weidauer.
  27. 1 2 "PoWs: Murder in Medicine Hat on The National TV news show". CBC Digital Archives. November 10, 2003. Retrieved December 5, 2012.
  28. "The Great Escape of Doonfoot: Amazing tale of Italian prisoners of war escaping from Ayr camp during Second World War". Daily Record . December 25, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
  29. Kim Sue-young (June 24, 2008). "POW Escapes From N. Korea After 55 Years". The Korea Times .
  30. "George McKnight – Recipient –". valor.militarytimes.com. Retrieved 31 May 2020.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .

Sources