Escaping America in World War II

The History of Attempted Prison Escapes by Axis Prisoners in the United States

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Steve Knupp

In the first half of the 20th century, war was fought on a global and industrial scale. Millions of men were flung into the grinder of World War I and World War II, leading to commensurately huge numbers of prisoners of war (POWs). Camps were built to hold thousands of captives, with their own barracks blocks, parade grounds, and even farms.

All of this meant that prisoners were taken across the world, and prisoners of war were typically comprised of two classes: officers and other ranks. Officers were often treated well, as there was still a sort of aristocratic courtesy among officers, particularly among the Germans, British, French, and somewhat less so for the Russians and Italians. Concepts such as honor still held considerable currency, and bravery was greatly admired. Enemy officers as a class often had more in common with each other than with the millions of draftees in their armies, so enlisted men as POWs generally were not as well treated.

Regardless of rank though, throughout the war, many of these men did not sit idle. Many spent their time preparing elaborate escape plans in the hopes of returning to their home nations and back to the fight. The wildly popular film The Great Escape (1963), has been a main factor in how the public views prisoners of war, and while that film was based on a book that details a mass escape of British and Allied prisoners from a World War II German prison camp for aviators, Stalag Luft III, a real escape from a German prisoner camp in World War I inspired the 1944 great escape from Stalag Luft III.

The greatest number of successful escapes was made by Allied troops in Europe, including soldiers left behind after the fall of France and airmen shot down in bombing raids, but escapes happened across the world, from Canadian trains to German castles, and from the mountains of Italy to the wilds of Australia. Axis as well as Allied troops made their bids for freedom.

©2024 Charles River Editors (P)2024 Charles River Editors