Alexander, the youngest POW in World War II, gave a brief synopsis of his WWII experience and answered questions by a flight of soon-to-be basic military training graduates before starting to become emotional.
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.
The Navy Department Library. Of the approximately 130,000 American prisoners of war (POWs) in World War II (WWII), 27,000 or more were held by Japan. Of the approximately 19,000 American civilian internees held in WWII, close to 14,000 were captured and interned by Japan.
Members of the German military were interned as prisoners of war in the United States during World War I and World War II. In all, 425,000 German prisoners lived in 700 camps throughout the United States during World War II.
Approximately three million German prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, most of them during the great advances of the Red Army in the last year of the war. The POWs were employed as forced labor in the Soviet wartime economy and post-war reconstruction.
It is based on the real-life story of the youngest soldier in World War II, Sergei Aleshkov, who was only 6 years old.
The BBC reported recently that at 14 years, 152 days, Reginald Earnshaw was the youngest known Commonwealth service member to have died in action during World War II.
The Germans were hardly the genial hosts, whether you were a POW during World War I or World War II. There was severe punishment for escape attempts, there were meager rations and drafty bunkhouses, and there were irregular deliveries of packages from the Red Cross.
NARRATOR: Of the prisoners at Stalingrad only 6,000 survive. The western powers also establish camps for millions of German POWs. By the end of the war, the so-called Rheinwiesen camps were set up by the U.S. Army on German soil. The American are ill prepared for such large numbers of prisoners.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
Death toll
Around 3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody, out of 5.7 million. Estimates range from that provided by Christian Streit of 3.3 million to between 2.8 and 3 million according to Dieter Pohl. The majority of the deaths, around 2 million, took place before January 1942.
Calvin Leon Graham (April 3, 1930 – November 6, 1992) was the youngest U.S. serviceman to serve and fight during World War II and was one of the few known child soldiers to fight on behalf of the United States in the conflict.
Graham was sworn into the Navy on Aug. 15, 1942, at 12 years old, making him the youngest person to enlist during World War II. After training, he was sent to serve in the Pacific as a gunner aboard the USS South Dakota.
Following Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941, Congress amended the act to require all able-bodied men ages 18 to 64 to register with their local draft board for military service for the duration of World War II plus six months after. In practice, however, only men 18 to 45 were drafted.
Jean Thurel finally died in 1807, following a short illness. He was 108. After nine full decades as a soldier, he remained a private throughout, never dropping off the regiment's active duty list.
Feb 06, 2020. MARASESTI, Vrancea County, Romania-- Maria Zaharia (also known as Măriuca Zaharia; born 1905, Pădureni, Mărășești, Romania - died August 6, 1917, Mărășești, Romania), was a Romanian girl of twelve years, heroically fallen in the battles of ... Sidney Lewis.
Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky (Russian: Ива́н Дани́лович Черняхо́вский; 29 June [O.S. 16 June] 1907 – 18 February 1945) was the youngest-ever Soviet General of the army. For his leadership during World War II he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union twice.
To join the Navy, you must: Be a U.S. citizen; or Legal Permanent Resident (Enlisted) Be between the ages of 17 and 41 for Enlisted programs. Age requirements for Officer programs vary.*
You can join the Royal Navy if you're aged 16 to 39, dependent on the role you choose. The shortest Royal Navy career is four years, but you can choose to serve up to 22 years and beyond, depending on the needs of the Service.
Age limits
Army: 17 - 35. Coast Guard: 17 - 31. Marine Corps: 17 - 28. Navy: 17 - 39.
Momčilo Gavrić, in Serbian military from age eight; youngest soldier in World War I in any of the nations which fought in World War I. John Condon, from Waterford, Ireland: incorrectly believed to have been the youngest Allied soldier killed (age 14), but later found to have been age 18 at his death.
1. Calvin Graham. Calvin Graham is the youngest soldier to serve in World War 2! Calvin was 12-years-old when he fought in WW2.
For British and American prisoners, Stalag IX B was one of the worst camps in Germany. Conditions were appalling from the start and continued to deteriorate as the war progressed. The first transport of American prisoners arrived in late December 1944. By January 24, the camp had 4,075 Americans, held in 16 barracks.