The history of Monopoly has been a long one, but the game also helped change history through its participation in providing hidden maps and tools to help British POWs during WWII.
posted by NoraCharles on Sep 19, 2009 - 36 comments

Construction of Radio Equipment in a Japanese POW Camp: A tale of human ingenuity.
posted by pharm on Mar 15, 2009 - 13 comments

"This watch costs to-day in Switzerland Frs. 250 – but you must not even think of settlement during the war." Rolex's remarkable offer to British P.O.W.s in Nazi camps during WWII. [more inside]
posted by ikkyu2 on Aug 1, 2008 - 34 comments

John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account. Originally appeared in the May 14, 1973, issue of U.S.News & World Report. "My six years of hell" is a February 2008 extract from McCain's book Faith of My Fathers.
posted by kirkaracha on Jul 5, 2008 - 82 comments

They Chose China is a documentary about the 22 western POWs who chose to defect to China after the Korean War armistice.
posted by bunnytricks on May 18, 2008 - 13 comments

Kiuchi Nobuo - a Japanese airman in World War II, was captured and sent to a prison camp in the Ukraine. He tells his story with drawings.
posted by tellurian on Feb 5, 2008 - 23 comments

One man: one plan, one stove, hundreds of accomplices, 200 tonnes of sand, 4,000 bed boards, 600 feet of rope.

76 men: 50 murdered, 23 recaptured, only three got away.

The real story behind the Great Escape.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Sep 26, 2006 - 24 comments

A POW takes a Rolex on credit: an amazing story told by the original documents.
posted by exogenous on Sep 25, 2006 - 61 comments

I didn't know there were POW camps in the US during World War II, let alone so many of them. The list of camps is extensive, but not on any list I've seen so far is the former Wright Field (currently Wright-Patterson Air Force Base). The base is preserving the walls of the former mess hall where German POWs left a cool set of freaky demonic murals filled with old germanic folklore. The story behind them is a interesting read.
posted by Dome-O-Rama on Jul 21, 2005 - 24 comments

"I am Colonel Tom C. McKenney, You must know how to reach Bobby Garwood. I directed an official mission to assassinate him behind enemy lines, because I believed what they told me. Would you tell him that I will crawl on my hands and knees to beg his forgiveness?"
posted by drakepool on May 30, 2005 - 22 comments

Torture and Truth and The Logic of Torture--Mark Danner writes about Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade (The Taguba Report) and Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation in the former and concludes thusly in the latter:

Behind the exotic brutality so painstakingly recorded in Abu Ghraib, and the multiple tangled plotlines that will be teased out in the coming weeks and months about responsibility, knowledge, and culpability, lies a simple truth, well known but not yet publicly admitted in Washington: that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States, at various locations around the world, from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo in Cuba to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, have been torturing prisoners.     (More Within)
posted by y2karl on Jun 4, 2004 - 16 comments

The last World War Two Japanese soldier surrendered in the Philippines in 1980, ending a stream of holdouts. This is their story.
posted by ewagoner on Aug 5, 2003 - 10 comments

The CBS News American Idol Power Hour. Viacom, owner of networks CBS and MTV among many others, is aggresively pushing lucrative bribes offers for Private Jessica Lynch to get her on CBS News, including the possibility of her own video-hosting program on MTV and special editions of TRL. Corporate consolidation the way it is, are we in an era where synergy allows news-media-owning companies to offer not just material profit but flat-out media iconization in exchange for a good story? To put it another way: have we gone beyond using the news to promote entertainment owned by the same company to using entertainment as the currency to flat-out buy the news?
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Jun 16, 2003 - 12 comments

Since what is and is not a violation of the Geneva Conventions is a subject of some discussion as a result of today's news, this collection of the complete texts of the Geneva Conventions (as well as other treaties) should be a useful reference. Of particular relevance is the Third Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
posted by mcwetboy on Mar 23, 2003 - 5 comments

MIA Facts Site

Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW-MIA Myth in America.

Let's Sell The Bones : The Marketing of America's Missing In Action              (More Inside)
posted by y2karl on Mar 15, 2003 - 37 comments

US demands information on long forgotten downed pilot while insisting they not release the names or allow legal counsel to "enemy combatants" held within the US?
posted by specialk420 on Aug 23, 2002 - 15 comments

fate of detainees hangs on U.S. wording Articoe discusses why the U.S. refuses to call prisoners sent to Cuba POWs instead of detainees...what a difference a word makes.
posted by Postroad on Jan 17, 2002 - 6 comments

Kuwaitis Still Missing 11 Years After Invasion "They go on about the suffering of the Iraqi people under sanctions and say we are doing this just to keep the embargo in place."
posted by semmi on Oct 3, 2001 - 2 comments