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| British Prisoners of War |
Military records of British Prisoners of War (PoWs) during the Great War period are often incomplete, difficult to find, and hard to access. However, The National Archives has a substantial collection of British and Commonwealth Prisoners of War records from WWII, most of which can be found at the War Office, Air Ministry, Admiralty or Foreign Office.
Over 100,000 soldiers of the British armed forces were captured during the Second World War and placed in one of the different types of prisoner of war camps run by the Germans. Oflag was a prisoner of war camp for officers, Stalag was for enlisted personnel, and there were separate camps for navy, aircrews and civilians. All PoWs were allegedly protected by rules for the treatment of prisoners of war which had been established in the Geneva Convention of 1929.
The War Office records are very comprehensive, listing more than 107,000 British Army WW2 and Merchant Navy prisoners held in Germany or German-occupied territory; in Italy; in Japan, or in Japanese-occupied territory. These military personnel records do not cover the entire period of the war, but were frequently updated until final publication in May 1945 (now available to search service records online).
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