This list of prisoner-of-war escapes includes successful and unsuccessful attempts in chronological order, where possible.
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (July 2020) |
Of the hundreds of thousands of POWs shipped to the U.S., only 2,222 tried to escape.[15] There were about 600 escape attempts from Canada during the war,[16] including at least two mass escapes through tunnels. Four German POWs were killed attempting to escape from Canadian prison camps. Three others were wounded. Most escapees tried to reach the United States when it was still neutral, though Karl Heinz-Grund and Horst Liebeck made it as far as Medicine Hat, Alberta, before being apprehended by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The two men had planned to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, and leave Canada courtesy of the Japanese merchant marine. Only one person ever succeeded in returning to the Axis - Franz von Werra - though a couple of others settled in the United States under false identities.
The Angler breakout was the single largest escape attempt orchestrated by German POWs (28) in North America during the war. The December 23, 1944, breakout of 25 Kriegsmarine and merchant seamen from Papago Park, Arizona, was the second largest. In both instances, all escapees were recaptured or killed.
Police and soldiers are continuing their search today for a German prisoner of war who escaped from the Medalta Potteries at Medicine Hat, where he was working on Thursday afternoon. The man is believed to be Max Weidauer.