23 Things You Should Know About POWs (Prisoners of Wars) – Part 2

Floyd Thompson was the longest-held prisoner of war in US history, spending nearly 9 years in captivity in Vietnam. When he returned, his wife was living with another man and of his 3 children, only his eldest child barely remembered him. Within 4 years of rescuing, he attempted suicide.

A Japanese aggressor named Kazuo Sakamaki was captured alive from Pearl Harbor. He was denied his request to commit suicide, and was kept as a Prisoner of War through the remainder of World War 2. He was released back to Japan after their surrender. He then transitioned to a life of pacifism becoming leader of Toyota Motors.

Robert Barany was a prisoner of war when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Prince of Sweden and Red Cross negotiated with Russia for him to attend the ceremony.

Hitler had captured Stalin's son (Yakov Dzhugashvili) as a prisoner of war and offered to exchange him with a German Marshal prisoner. Stalin responded, "I will not trade a Marshal for a Lieutenant."

In World War 2, German POWs in America were shocked by how African Americans were treated. This was due to the prisoners working alongside them in the fields, allowing them to become closer over their shared labor.

Denholm Elliott (AKA Marcus Brody) was a World War 2 gunner whose plane went down in the North Sea in 1942. He and two other survivors became prisoners of war in Silesia, where he got involved in amateur drama.

An American soldier named Joe Kieyoomia was the only prisoner of war to survive both the Bataan death march and an atomic bomb blast. He was also beaten for months by his Japanese captors who believed him to be Japanese-American when he was, in actuality, of Navajo descent.

Walter Frederick Morrison, the inventor of the Frisbee fought in World War 2 as a pilot, got shot down in Italy, and was a prisoner of war for 48 days.

A group of escaped German POWs returned to Camp Ozada in Alberta, Canada voluntarily after encountering a grizzly bear.

250 Union soldiers surrendered to the Confederates, enlisted in the Confederate Army while held as POWS, were recaptured by the Union Army, and then re-enlisted as Union soldiers. They were called Galvanized Yankees.