Our research and operational missions include coordination with hundreds of countries and municipalities around the world. As this map shows, at present, more than 81,500 Americans remain missing from WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Gulf Wars/other conflicts.
STATUS OF THE POW/MIA ISSUE: September 17 , 2022
1,582 Americans are still listed by DoD as missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: Vietnam - 1,242 (VN-442, VS-802); Laos–285; Cambodia-48; Peoples Republic of China territorial waters–7.
While the Committee has some evidence suggesting the possibility a POW may have survived to the present, and while some information remains yet to be investigated, there is, at this time, no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.
World War II Accounting
At the end of the war, there were approximately 79,000 Americans unaccounted for. This number included those buried with honor as unknowns, officially buried at sea, lost at sea, and missing in action. Today, more than 73,000 of those lost Americans remain totally unaccounted for from WWII.
There are no known living POWs left in Vietnam from the American War. Many veterans and survivors of those terrible years have returned to the country to visit and pay respects to their peers left behind. A few have even returned to live there.
Floyd J. Thompson, who endured nearly nine years of torture, disease and starvation in Vietnam as the longest-held prisoner of war in American history, has died. He was 69.
And when it did finally end it wasn't because Australia had won. In the early '70s the US and Australia decided to pull out as public opinion turned against the war. And by 1975, the North had claimed victory over the South. Afterwards many Australian troops returned home to criticism from those who opposed the war.
Often cited as the last verified American POW from the Vietnam War, Garwood was taken to North Vietnam in 1969, and reportedly was released in 1973 along with the other U.S. POWs as part of the Paris Peace Accords. However, he did not return to the United States until March 22, 1979.
Second World War: fatalities per country 1939-1945. Estimates for the total death count of the Second World War generally range somewhere between 70 and 85 million people. The Soviet Union suffered the highest number of fatalities of any single nation, with estimates mostly falling between 22 and 27 million deaths.
While the war was underway, the U.S. military banned the return of any overseas war dead. Money was to go toward fighting rather than shipping bodies back home. Instead, soldiers buried their comrades in temporary military cemeteries throughout the European and Pacific theaters.
Captive or POW Pay and Allowance Entitlements: Soldiers are entitled to all pay and allowances that were authorized prior to the POW period. Soldiers who are in a POW status are authorized payment of 50% of the worldwide average per diem rate for each day held in captive status.
From Florena Budwin, a Civil War woman who disguised herself as a man to join Union troops and was held in a Confederate prison camp, to the 67 Army nurses who were taken captive by the Japanese in World War II, there have been less than 100 military women held as POWs throughout American history.
2551 Article 42 limits the use of weapons against prisoners of war to extreme cases. Nevertheless, if prisoners succeed in escaping, they become targetable again under the rules on the conduct of hostilities, and the limits imposed by Article 42 no longer apply.
Yielding to the inalterable process of aging, the men and women who fought and won the great conflict are now in their 90s or older. They are dying quickly—according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 167,284 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive in 2022.
The Government of Ukraine established a camp in April 2022, where a number of POWs are held. That camp meets most of the standards required by IHL, as verified by OHCHR during a visit in June 2022. OHCHR believed that the two POWs and private military contractors were killed during the attack.
The mass escape of 76 Allied airmen from a Nazi POW camp in March 1944 remains one of history's most famous prison breaks. Although the German Luftwaffe designed the Stalag Luft III camp to be escape-proof, the audacious, real-life prison break immortalized in the 1963 movie The Great Escape proved otherwise.
Australia lost 34,000 service personnel during World War II. Total battle casualties were 72,814. Over 31,000 Australian became prisoners-of-war.
Human fossils, an amber room and a Raphael masterpiece all went missing during WWII. Human fossils, an amber room and a Raphael masterpiece all went missing during WWII. War has always brought chaos, and with it an opportunity for pillage and plunder.
Joseph Alexander became a POW at 15. He was a military and civilian worker at Kelly AFB. Joseph Alexander never got to enjoy his youth. At just 14 years old, and with his grandmother by his side, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and is said to have been the youngest American prisoner of war.
William (Bill) Robinson who is the longest-held enlisted prisoner of war in American history was released from the infamous Hanoi Hilton on Feb. 12, 1973, over seven years after the Kaman HH43B "Huskie" helicopter he served on was shot out of the sky by the enemy.
And the German learned to fear Australians, because they were reckless, ruthless - and revengeful. During the Third Battle of Ypres, autumn 1917, the ANZAC's (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) met the Germans on high ground, in front of Polygon Wood.
An Australian anti-war movement gathered momentum and by 1970-71 hundreds of thousands of people were attending Moratorium marches across Australia. Protestors, conscientious objectors, and draft-resisters were fined or gaoled. Soldiers returning to Australia met a hostile reception.
Many Australians saw the war in Vietnam as a way to meet the threat of the Viet Cong. They thought that communism needed to be stopped from taking over South East Asian countries. Australian media organisations reported on the fierce fighting in Vietnam.