Military History

The Blue Division was a unit of Spanish soldiers that fought alongside German forces on the Eastern Front during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, the Soviet Union captured just over 300 Spaniards on the Eastern Front.

Little Switch and Big Switch were the code-names for the large exchange of prisoners of war during the Korean War in 1953. It was preceded by Operation Little Switch, which involved the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners.

One of several Japanese POW camps on Java during World War II, Bicycle Camp was in Koenigs Plein (Kings Place), a suburb of Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia), and occupied an area of approximately 700 by 900 feet (215 m by 250 m). Named by the POWs, it was formerly the home of the 10th Battalion of the Dutch colonial army (Netherlands East Indies...

The Ardeatine Caves massacre was the first major atrocity committed by German forces in Italy during World War II as a reprisal for partisan actions. On the afternoon of 23 March 1944, in Rome's Via Rasella, a group of 16 urban partisans of the Patriotic Action Group ambushed and bombed a German police unit that was part of the German occupation...

The prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, Georgia, was operational for only 15 months, but it was by far the largest and most notorious such facility operated by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Over 41,000 Union captives were interned there, and almost one third of that number died while confined within its walls.

On the 16th of February 1940, a boarding party from the British Royal Navy seized the German supply ship Altmark in the territorial waters of then-neutral Norway and freed several British POWs. This incident contributed to Nazi Germany's plan to invade Denmark and Norway.

Detaining powers face many challenges when handling prisoners of war and civilian internees, not the least of which is the need to provide accommodation or living quarters for captives. In some conflicts, belligerents are able to make advance preparations, but more often, arrangements must be made much more hastily. As a result, prisoners have u...

Dulag Luft, the German prison camp through which tens of thousands of Allied airmen captured in western Europe passed, was the most efficient interrogation center of World War II. Dulag Luft (the word is a corruption of the German “Durchsgangslager Luftwaffe”, or air force transit camp) was near the town of Oberursel, about 10 miles (16 km) nort...