Can Internees of Neutral Countries Receive POW Status?
The US Government has several separate entities that award POW Status. One is the military, and the other is the Department of Veterans Affairs. Although the eligibility criteria used by both are more or less the same, having POW Status through one does not guarantee the same for the other. Each branch of the military, as well as each regional VA office often interprets POW eligibility regulations differently (and subjectively), which has not promoted much uniformity in the awarding of POW Status to deserving veterans. In particular, internees of neutral countries are often denied POW Status because the officials in question have preconceived notions about POW Status and do not understand what legally constitutes a POW.
Internees of neutral countries can, and have been awarded POW Status many times through the military and the VA. Public Law 99-145 (10 USC 1128), enacted in 1985, created the POW Medal for the military. This legislation delegated the policy for this medal to the Department of Defense, such that awards of the medal would be standardized among the different military services. Public Law 99-145 contains an exception that specifically authorizes the POW Medal for those soldiers who were not held by an enemy country during a state of war, in the absence of armed conflict. It states: “The Secretary concerned shall issue a prisoner-of-war medal to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the armed forces, was taken prisoner and held captive by foreign armed forces that are hostile to the United States, under circumstances which the Secretary concerned finds to have been comparable to those under which persons have generally been held captive by enemy armed forces during periods of armed conflict.” This clause is repeated in the Department of Defense Awards Manual, DoD 1348.33-M : “Hostages, Detainees and Internees. The POW Medal shall be issued only to those taken prisoner by foreign armed forces that are hostile to the United States, under circumstances which the Secretary concerned finds to have been comparable to those under which persons have generally been held captive by enemy armed forces during periods of armed conflict. For that medal, armed conflicts are defined as "World War I, World War II, Korean Conflict, Vietnam Era and Southwest Asia Conflict." The bottom line is that an internee can receive the POW Medal provided that his captors are hostile toward the US, and that his treatment is comparable to that experienced by POWs of enemy countries.
The VA legislation for POW Status is somewhat less ambiguous on the subject of internees. According to 38 U.S.C. § 101(32)(B), “The term "former prisoner of war " means a person who, while serving in the active military, naval or air service, was forcibly detained or interned in the line of duty by a foreign government or its agents, or a hostile force, under circumstances which the Secretary finds to have been comparable to the circumstances under which persons have generally been forcibly detained or interned by enemy governments during periods of war.” Again, comparable conditions of internment are the burden of proof that a veteran must meet to obtain POW Status. The former director of the VA, Gary Hickman, restated these rules: “The tenet of the decision making process used to establish entitlement to POW status is whether or not the circumstances under which individuals were interned, or forcibly detained, were comparable to those individuals detained by enemy governments during a period of war. In other words, did an individual, interned by a neutral country suffer hardships comparable to POWs held by an enemy country. If the answer to this question is yes, recognition of POW status will be established.”
The military and the VA frequently interpret these regulations any number of ways, and sometimes seem unaware of them altogether. Even if the agency in question understands and follows these regulations, there is still ample room for subjective rulings. The VA regulations clearly include internees of neutral countries, but still call for an unspecified level of comparable treatment. The military services often follow different lower-level POW regulations, which they have created with no authority to do so. If they do follow DoD rules, they frequently assume that the requirement for hostile captors excludes internees of neutral countries, because they believe that a neutral country cannot be hostile. What exactly constitutes hostility? The military regulations contrast a hostile country with an enemy country during armed conflict, but otherwise leave the interpretation open. A neutral country is one that has pledged not to enter into either side of an international conflict. In doing so, it assumes the obligation to intern belligerent forces that enter its borders. It must follow specific rules contained in the Geneva Conventions dealing with treatment of internees, which provide the same guarantees that POWs receive. In theory, internees should be treated better than POWs, since a neutral country has no formal grievance against the warring factions. However, the fact that a country is neutral does not negate hostility toward a belligerent power. Certainly, it is possible for a country to declare neutrality, and then violate such neutrality by taking sides in the conflict at hand. In the opinion of most Swiss Internees, this is exactly what happened in Switzerland during World War II.
Whether or not Switzerland violated its neutrality during World War II is not an easy question to answer. Many prominent historians have been debating this question over the last decade, particularly after the revelation of Switzerland’s connections to Nazi Germany and profiteering from the Holocaust. Most historians are still unaware of the experiences of the American internees, and until recently would likely dismiss this entire segment of history as a complete fabrication. Certainly the Swiss treated many of these veterans with a degree of hostility on an individual basis, particularly when their rights under the Laws of War were violated. The Swiss populace at large was ignorant of the fate of these internees, and the same may be true for much of the Swiss Government. However, the requirement is that the Swiss were hostile toward the US, and hostility toward those who carry out government policy (soldiers) is equivalent to hostility toward the government itself.
As it stands, most Swiss Internees have yet to receive POW Status through the military or the VA. Over a dozen internees of Switzerland have VA POW Status, and this depends largely on where the veteran lives. The Central VA office distributed a white paper in the early 1980s directing regional offices to award POW Status to internees of Straflager Wauwilermoos in Switzerland, but unfortunately this was sporadically enforced. Many internees of other neutral countries during World War II (Sweden, Portugal, and Russia) also have POW Status through the VA. It all depends on which regional office the veteran falls under, and whether the veteran has the records to prove what actually happened to him. The US Government classified the treatment of most internees of neutral countries in World War II, making it extremely difficult to document conditions of internment through the US Archival System. In addition, the National Personnel Records Center lost most World War II military personnel files in a large fire in the 1970s. In almost every case, there are more records on Swiss Internees still on file in the Swiss Federal Archives than there are in the US Archival System.
The military awards POW Status less frequently than the VA, partly because of the previously mentioned differences in their regulations. Most internees have received the POW Medal in blanket awards through the military, such as the internees of neutral Russia during World War II. In the early 1990s, the Air Force awarded 218 POW Medals to USAAF aircrew interned in Russia (neutral with respect to the Pacific Theater), and the Navy awarded 68 POW Medals to the Naval Aviators interned with them. Another case was the capture of the crew of the USS Pueblo. In 1968, the 83 man crew of the USS Pueblo was captured and detained by North Korea in the absence of a war. After nearly a year, they were released back to US control. In 1990, the survivors were all awarded POW Medals by the US Navy. Finally, a Swiss Internee was awarded the POW Medal by the Air Force in 1996 with the help of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, GEN Fogleman.
The jurisdiction for the POW Medal in this situation is debatable; Joint Army Air Force Regulation 1-11-53, Transfer of Functions Pertaining to Decorations and Awards, stipulates that the US Army has retroactive jurisdiction for all awards except the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. However, the regulation also requires representation by a member of the US Air Force on the Army Decorations Board in these cases, a requirement that is not currently met (and likely never was). This issue was clarified in a 1984 memo by MAJ Harrison Lodbell, Chief of the Army Awards Branch, where authority for such awards was formally transferred to the US Air Force. However, most veterans who applied though the Army never had their requests forwarded to the Air Force, simply due to ignorance of the regulations. The burden of proof is clearly still on the veteran to document his own service and conditions of internment in this situation, as well as to determine where to submit decoration requests.
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