28 Brutal Facts About Prisoners of Wars Few People Know

Japanese Prisoners of War were tortured by forcing uncooked rice down their throats and pumping water in; forcing the rice to expand and cause internal bleeding.

The last World War 2 POW to be repatriated was a Hungarian soldier (Andras Toma) who sat in a Russian mental hospital for 53 years before a linguist realized that he wasn't actually talking gibberish.

A Nazi POW named Franz Von Werra was transferred to Canada to deter his multiple escapes and recaptures. He escaped again in less than a month, traveling through the US, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, and Italy to become the only Western held POW to return to combat.

An American POW named Glenn D. Frazier in Osaka narrowly avoided execution by uttering the words "He can kill me, but he will not kill my spirit, and my spirit will lodge inside him and haunt him for the rest of his life.". The Japanese officer backed off.

A German POW named Georg Gärtner escaped his American prison camp near the end of World War 2, and lived in the US for 40 years under a fake name, before finally admitting the fraud on the Today Show.

Some World War 2 POWs in Japan, would keep their morale up and defy guards by holding in their farts until they were made to bow to a portrait of Emperor Hirohito. At the lowest point of their bow, they would let loose.

Admiral James Stockdale was a POW in Vietnam who beat himself in the face with a stool to keep from being put on Vietnamese propaganda videos.

An English POW for the Nazis named Horace Greasley escaped and returned back to his camp over 200 times, to secretly meet with his German love interest who worked as an interpreter there.

A British World War 1 Prisoner of War named Captain Robert Campbell was released by the Germans so that he could visit his dying mother, and then he returned as he had made a promise to the Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Of the 2,345 Allied prisoners of war held captive by Japan in the Sandakan POW Camp during World War 2, only 6 Australians survived, all of whom had escaped the forced death marches.