Is it true that there were American POWs in Soviet captivity after the Second World War?

Approximately 20,000 were kept by the Soviets after WWII. Our leaders at the time believed it was in the best interests of the peace efforts to sacrifice these service members rather than heat up the problems between the Allies and Soviets. Churchill started the riff with Soviets about exchanging P.O.W. in late 1944. Stalin kept about the same amount of British and other allies following the war.

I caught onto the fact following a lengthy research project on MIA's of WWII in the Pacific. When comparing the number of MIA's, especially of airmen, I was astonished at the MIA numbers from the ET. Researching into lack of returns of U.S. Servicemembers from Eastern European POW camps started to up the red flags for me. After several years of reading and digging the facts began to accumulate. The U.S Government traded these service men away in the name of peace due to the problems the Soviets were having with the returns of their own POWs under western control. German returnees confirmed sightings and contact with thousands of U.S. and Allied forces prisoners during their stay in the gulags and labor camps of Central Asia and Siberia.

The ridiculous amount of MIA's, which these servicemen were counted as, for the European theater skewed the European theaters casualties over the Pacific's numbers for MIA category. Many were 8th Air Force, that if you look at the atrocious losses for that group would come to the conclusion that there weren't many survivors or even planes remaining after the war. Check in with the casualty reports that are available on the internet and you will see for yourself. Look and see how many crews were "lost" over the Adriatic. One would believe it would be full of U.S. bombers and fighters.

Eisenhower and his generals were not happy about this but had to follow orders from Washington. The diplomatic/political machine that took over the prisoner exchange when the war ended was a total failure.

Best read would be "Soldiers of Misfortunes". Written in the 90's it is full of declassified government documents that have been ignored since the end of the Cold War. Many documents are available with National Archives. It is a horror to concieve that they were "left" with Soviets. There was basicly nothing anyone could do as the Soviets were never going to admit they were not releasing these men.

Highly unlikely

First of all, we must ask ourselves who would those American POWs be ? If they were members of US armed forces (no matter the branch), US authorities would certainly notice that they are missing. Consequently, they would be given some legal status (AWOL, MIA, POW ... ) . Usually, if an American soldier was captured by German armed forces, on their arrival to Stalag Red Cross would be notified about his status. Of course, so would other prisoners being in a camp before him. Therefore, technically speaking he could not "disappear" without someone noticing what would happen to him. Japan had different system which was much harsher for US POWs, therefore the line between KIA, MIA and POW was blurred.

In European theater, Soviet and US troops were undoubtedly allies. Despite all the differences, US supplied tons of material to USSR, US ships sailed into Soviet harbors (and vice versa) and occasionally even US planes operated from Soviet airfields. For the Soviet troops capturing certain Stalag while advancing into German-held territory, it would be extremely complicated and unproductive to abduct any US POWs held there . First of all, there would be a question of motivation. Why capturing and holding random G.I. if you have available thousands of Germans and their allies for the workforce ? And even if that person was some kind of valuable specialist (highly unlikely) what to do with rest of POWs who may notice his disappearance ? Same problem would be faced if POW in question is a person with Soviet (Russian, Ukrainian) ancestry . US authorities would certainly find out that such and such person with name and rank was held by USSR. Consequently, they would demand his release trough diplomatic channels, and we would know who he was today.

With the Japan, situation was little bit murkier. Japan didn't care much about Geneva conventions regarding POWs. As a result, US prisoners of war in Japanese hands often had similar fate as Soviet POWs in German hands - no registration, hard work, beatings, starvation and often death. In an area captured by Soviet troops at end of the war (primarily Manchuria) there were few smaller POW camps like for example Hoten Camp. Again, there were no reports of Soviets abducting anyone, in fact they helped with evacuation of US POWs. Again, even if they had some designs, it would be difficult to capture someone and letting others go.

What realistically could have happened ? It is somewhat possible that captured Americans were not POWs at all. Instead, they could have been dropped behind enemy lines, intermingled with local guerillas, possibly be members of OSS. As such, in waning months of the war or even after it, they could start preparations for the new conflict - Cold War. They could have collaborated with local anti-Soviet guerillas like UPA in Ukraine, or Forest Brothers in Lithuania. In any case, if captured, US would not publicly announce their disappearance in order to keep plausible deniability. Negotiations about their possible release would go trough totally different channels, reserved for exchange of spies and other intelligence personnel.

As far as the Our Missing POW's of WWII website's claims, besides general incoherency and and inability to make the case is concerned, may I refer you to an earlier Does the ≈400,000 figure for US soldiers killed in WW2 include the ≈80,000 MIA? where the issue of accounting for the missing and missing in action is addressed. Ultimately there were just 6,058 US Army, including the Army Air Force, missing in action, worldwide, who were unaccounted for in some other category and were thus declared under the requirements of Public Law 490 77th Congress.

Some interesting reading here http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/mr/mr0157.pdf on the subject. While some strenuous complaints about on the scene repatriation obstruction are made, it appears that the majority eventually made it to Odessa where after some Soviet hospitality they were eventually returned to US control. If you open this, scroll to the bottom and read the documents going up, they are in reverse date order, newest on top.

Did the Soviets keep any WW2 US POW's? One might suppose they could, but to what point? And being liberated from a POW camp meant that someone, another prisoner, would know that someone was missing and would say so. Not to mention military folks are notorious records keepers and list makers; the senior POWs in the various liberated camps, not to mention the Germans, knew exactly who was in each camp and their status.

One might note that of the crews of eight USN PV-1 type patrol bombers that fetched on Kamchatka during operations against the Japanese, seven crews were repatriated and one entire crew lost in a crash (wreckage discovered in 1962 and examined by US personnel in 2000 see https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/pv-1/34641.html). Also repatriated were three B-29 crews and one B-25 crew who landed at Vladivostok. While the USN PV pilots and the B-25 pilots probably weren't all that overwhelmingly interesting from an intelligence point of view, it would seem that there should have been at least a modicum of interest, intelligence attraction, for the pilots of the most advanced heavy bomber in the world, or perhaps some USN or USAAF airborne radar operator types, but, no, such interest and they all came home . . . meanwhile the Soviets were busily reverse-engineering the B-29.

The US Army final accounting of casualties notes Captured & interned total = 124,079 Captured & interned, returned to military control = 111,426 Captured & interned, killed in action = 3,102 Captured & interned, died of wounds and injuries = 453 Captured & interned, died of other causes = 9,098

From “U.S. Prisoners of War and Civilian American Citizens Captured and Interned by Japan in World War II” found here https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-prisoners-war-civilian-american-citizens-captured.html#count

“ . . . Charles A. Stenger, formerly with the Veterans Administration (VA), developed a set of figures revised annually since 1976 for POWs and an estimate for current numbers of surviving POWs for the Department of Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee on Former Prisoners of War. According to Dr. Stenger, these figures were compiled in cooperation with the Department of Defense (DOD), the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Archives. They are recognized and used by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and other government agencies. Dr. Stenger lists 27,465 POWs in the Pacific, of whom 11,107 died while in detention. “

11,107 deaths of US military and naval prisoners dying while POWs of the Japanese. The US Army reports, above, 9,098 of its personnel captured or interned as dying while in detention.

The survival rate of prisoners held by the Germans (from which, obviously, those liberated by the Soviets would be drawn) can also be found at the above site: “. . . Dr. Stenger's figures list 93,941 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Germany, of whom 1,121 died . . .” Since only about 15 POWs held by Germany were US Navy personnel, were we to conclude that the 1,121 deaths were US Army, we can subtract that number from the US Army reported deaths of 9,098 and arrive at 7,977. Compare that to the 11,107 total US military and naval POWs deaths while under Japanese control.

This site http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/tfr/ has a plethora of documents, mostly relating post WW2 which address sighting of American service personnel from the Korean War Era and Cold War incidents. There are also long lists of civilians being held, pretty much starting with the post WW2 era. A search of the sub-site U.S.-Russia Joint Commission Documents Database (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/tfrquery.html) using the search phrase “US” yields, for example 26 documents. Admittedly only breezing through the list (which, again, is primarily post WW2 oriented), one of them however, TRF39, is a long listing of downed USAAF aircraft and the disposition of their crew members. Although there are apparently numerous translation errors, a repetitive phrasing of note in the document TFR39 (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/tfrussia/tfrhtml/tfr039.html) is “. . . for transfer to the America Military Mission.” For example, there is “By the order of the Commander of the Third Ukrainian Front, Marshall of the Soviet Union Comrade TOLVUKHINA, I am sending you 76 American and English airmen, who were shot down in the rear of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, FOR TRANSFER TO THE AMERICAN MILITARY MISSION.” A list follows which if you bother to sort through it – spread sheets are handy for that - you will find 75 USAAF B-24 pilots and crew of 8 B-24s and one USAAF P-38 pilot (there are no RAF/Commonwealth types on the list, looks like the Soviets were confused as to the origins of the various missions).

In this same document one finds included those killed or hospitalized as a result of aircraft losses. There was apparently an organized effort to return personnel to US control/authority. This is not really my field, (WW2 US Naval Aviation) so I don’t spend a lot of time on it. Attention is invited.

The difficulty, then, is coming up with a verifiable number, much less the names, of liberated US POWs or recovered US personnel retained by the Soviets at the end of the war. A quick and dirty rule of thumb is that the absence of evidence of XYZ is not evidence of XYZ. So, could the Soviets have retained American service personnel liberated from German POW camps? Maybe, perhaps, but it would be nice to see real evidence rather than that Prisoner A heard from Prisoner B that there were Americans in the Tayshet Gulag.

Certainly to go to the trouble to retain former POWs and deny, deny ad nauseum, said POW ought to have some value besides knowing how to drive a jeep.

Is it true the Soviets deliberately withheld liberated US POWs WW2? Probably not, perhaps more of a boogieman tale from the Cold War.