We have all heard the saying: “It is a soldier’s duty to escape”.
I have no problem with the fact that a soldier wouldn’t want to be captured in the first place; or having been captured, there are lots of very practical reasons why he/she would want to escape.
But I don’t understand why is it his/her “*duty *to escape”?
After copious quantities of beer and peanuts, the best explanation we could come up with was that it had something to do with Feudalism.
During that period in history, people were considered the property of the local Lord of the Manor. He was obliged to provide a certain number of warm bodies to the King whenever a war broke out.
So, if one of his warm bodies were captured, this would represent a loss of property for the Lord of the Manor. He would want to recover his property.
Consequently, it was the “duty” of the warm body to escape and return to his owner.
Does our beer fueled theory have any basis, or is it just highly imaginative BS?
First, ask yourself why a soldier has a duty to do anything. Then, compare that to the duty to escape, and see if the reason you already came up with doesn’t apply.
Well, my duty was usually based on doing things that would prevent the Chief from kicking my ass. So that wouldn’t really apply to escaping…
…actually, on second thought, I totally wouldn’t have put it past my Chief to have gotten himself captured solely for the purpose of kicking my ass for not escaping and then escaping himself “since * was obviously too fucking stupid to figure it out for [my]self.”
A soldier’s duty is to fight the enemy. Thus, if he’s taken out of the fight he has a duty to try to return to it. And simply escaping is detrimental to the enemy, since the enemy must expend resources to recapture or kill him that could be used elsewhere.
It also provides a soldier with a plausible excuse to try to escape, ‘I was just following orders.’ Sure, lots of captors have just executed troublesome POWs, but escaping isn’t the soldiers choice, it’s a duty, thus it’s not like assaulting a guard, or killing another prisoner, it’s ‘legal’ to try to escape.
If they don’t escape, the enemy can use them to get information, as propaganda, human shield, skin him alive and hang him where his buddies will find him and make them all want to go home, etc. As long as he is in their hands, they can use him to harm the other side’s war effort and help theirs.
Preserve, protect, and defend. Can’t do that while you are a prisoner. So, you have to escape. You can, at the very least make sure the enemy knows that some of their useful combatants are gonna have to hang around the prison making sure you don’t escape. Your comrads in arms are not going to have to worry about those guys.
US soldiers are obliged never to accept parole, never surrender information or, in fact, never surrender unless evasion is completely impossible and the soldier is unable to inflict meaningful casualties on the enemy. And continuously try to effect escape.
This is pretty standard fare for most militaries. The Geneva Conventions specifically recognize that POWs may be law-bound to attempt to escape captivity and expressly forbids executing prisoners caught attempting to escape. (IIRC, other punishments are not forbidden.)
Having enemy POWs is a valuable tool. Very occasionally, information may be gleaned from them. They can be coerced to participate in propaganda broadcasts. They’re a very demoralizing force against civilians. They can be used for leverage in negotiations. Etc.
Plus – and most importantly - once the word gets out that you’re taking prisoners and treating them decently, other enemy troops might feel more inclined to surrender.
Yes, the US code specifically and explicitly formalizes details of the expected behavior of US forces personnel, and the practical considerations leading to the need for the code; I would imagine that most countries have similar codes.
The US code was formalized in 1955, I believe in response to the experience of UN personnel captured by the communists in Korea.
However, the encyclopaedia of beer and peanuts suggests that the issue of “it is a soldier’s duty to escape” predates not only these formalized codes, but extends back to at least the middle ages.
Not only that, but there appear to have been different rules for different participants in a battle/war.
For example, the officers (knights) were largely aristocrats. In the event they were captured alive, they were usually held for ransom by their captor.
There does not seem to have been any obligation for a captured aristocrat to do anything except enjoy the hospitality of his captor while awaiting the conclusion of the ransom transaction.
However, the “normal” procedures with respect to the general treatment and obligations with respect to the average foot soldier of the time are obscure.
However, what does seem to be clear is that, even then, they did have “the duty to escape”.
Ie: there seem to have been one set of rules for the aristocracy, and another for the peasantry.
It was this line of thought that led us to the Feudalism conclusion, noted upstream.
Are there situations where POWs are commanded not to try to escape? I somehow had the impression that during WWII, Churchill and other war leaders actually would have preferred that POWs in the German camps would stay put and not escape. I’m not sure where I heard that, but it seemed to be explained in terms of somehow causing more problems to their own side than being of any help. Not that that makes any sense, but 'tis what I remember.
I’d always heard that it was to force the enemy to devote manpower and other resources to guarding prisoners that would be otherwise involved in actual fighting. As was said upthread, it’s the only way prisoners can contribute to the war effort.
With the caveat that these policies get updated occasionally and its been a few years since I was in:
Medical personnel and chaplains who are captured are exempt from the duty to escape. The assumption that supports this is that they would be able to serve their fellow prisoners if they remain. I’m not sure if there is a rule for them if they are not being allowed to function in their trained role.
FWIW, there’s a memorable scene in the Great Escape in which one of the allied troops says, “Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they cannot escape, then it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them, and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.”
That seems much more practical than the idea that the Lord wants his serfs to return to the manor.
ETA: there’s also this bit from the same movie: “Come on, Roger. We all know the score here, at least… most of us do. Your idea of this escape is to… start another front, to foul up the Germans behind the lines. All right, that’s fine, that’s fine. But once we get passed that barbed wire, once we have them looking all over Germany for us, that mission is accomplished. Afterwards, we have some ideas of our own.”
ISTR hearing about POWs being kept in a castle in Germany. I don’t know if they were told not to escape, but IIRC there was a group whose job it was to help others escape and to generally annoy the Germans. I think they had ‘ghosts’ who would hide in various places to make the Germans expend resources looking for them; i.e., making the Germans think they’d escaped and have to go looking for them.