Tens of thousands of Allied civilians, including children, were caught in the crossfire of World War II in the Pacific and interned in camps such as Santo Tomas in the Philippines.

On June 6, 1944, news of the Normandy invasion spread through German prisoner-of-war camps like wildfire, igniting hope in Allied POWs. 

On January 31, 1945, American prisoners of war from Stalag III-C were caught, tragically, in a firefight between German guards and Soviet troops.

Allied intelligence believed that most captured American officers were being held at the Hammelburg prisoner of war camp, Oflag XIII-B. This population likely included Patton’s son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John Waters, but there was no way to be sure.

The largest of the ghettos where Eastern European Jews were first confined and, later, deported to extermination camps by the Nazis was set up in Warsaw, Poland.

As General Douglas MacArthur’s campaign on Luzon was underway, news of the Palawan massacre produced a call to action to save thousands of Allied POWs and civilian internees from a similar fate. With the extraordinary assistance of Filipino guerrillas, four daring raids were launched behind Japanese lines to liberate those camps.

Incredibly, a handful of American POWs managed to survive the Palawan massacre and with the aid of Filipino guerrillas reached safety.

As the Allied liberation of the Philippines was underway, Japanese commanders acted on orders to annihilate American POWs rather than allow them to assist enemy efforts, and in December 1944 cruelly executed 139 American POWs on Palawan.

The “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor,” 77 American military nurses taken prisoner in the Philippines, provided lifesaving care to the civilian POWs in the Santo Tomas and Los Banos Internment Camps where they were held from 1942-1945.

POWs were a major focus of the war crimes trials in the Pacific. Former POWs like Sgt. Peter Dzimba were called on to speak for those who could no longer speak for themselves.

More than 120,000 Americans were held prisoner by the enemy during World War II. In order to pass the time and to make life easier, POWs used the scarce resources available to design and build practical and artistic pieces.

At the end of the war, more than 12,000 American POWs were scattered in camps across the Pacific in desperate shape. From August 30-September 20, 1945, in Operation Swift Mercy, B-17s and B-29s flew 1,000 missions and dropped 4,500 tons of supplies to American troops no longer prisoner, but still trapped.