The USU Archives has a number of items relating to Prisoners of War (POW) and Missing in Action (MIA) in the manuscript and rare book collections. The LRC general and history collections also have a number of related materials. 

Many former POWs have written memoirs or other works about their experiences. The LRC History Collection contains a number of such works, as well as books relating more general studies of POWs and MIAs. A list of selected materials are linked below. Additional material on this topic can be located by searching the LRC Catalog.  

LRC History Collection

• Broken soldiers

• Prisoner of war : six years in Hanoi

• Surviving Bataan and beyond : Colonel Irvin Alexander's odyssey as a Japanese prisoner of war

• Prisoner of war

• Long-term health outcomes and medical effects of torture among U.S. Navy prisoners of war in Vietnam

• All this hell : U.S. nurses imprisoned by the Japanese

• Captured : my experiences as a ambulance driver and as a prisoner of the Nazis

• The Doctor Goes to War

• Reminiscences of Dr. W.H. Waterous pertinent to World War II in the Philippines

• War in the wards : Korea's unknown battle in a prisoner-of-war hospital camp

• Hospital days : reminiscence of a Civil War nurse

• The war diaries of Weary Dunlop : Java and the Burma-Thailand railway, 1942-1945

• Journey through hell : memoir of a World War II American Navy medic captured in the Philippines and imprisoned by the Japanese

• The cellars of Marcelcave : a Yank doctor in the BEF

The USU Archives’ Rare Book and Military Medical History collections contain items that relate to Prisoners of War during and after the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Some of our materials include U.S. Government publications, a memoir by Dr. John R. Bumgarner, and publications by the United States Sanitary Commission.

Rare Books

The links below are a selection of the material on this topic that have been scanned by the Archives or are a part of the Rare Book Collection. The Rare Book Collection can be searched via the LRC Catalog and the Archives' online materials can be searched on the Archives' website. 

• The Sanitary Reporter, February 1, 1865.

• Parade of the dead : a U.S. Army physician's memoir of imprisonment by the Japanese, 1942-1945

• Narrative of privations and suffering of United States officers and soldiers while prisoners of war in the hands of the Rebel authorities

• Two Souls Indivisible

• I have your wounded : the Army Medical Department in Vietnam

• Guest of the Emperor

• The Edith Cavell nurse from Massachusetts : a record of one year's personal service with the British Expeditionary Force in France, Boulogne--the Somme, 1916-1917 : with an account of the imprisonment, trial, and death of Edith Cavell.

Archival Collections

• The Sanitary Reporter, February 1, 1865.

Personal Narrative Collections

The USU Archives collections include books, interview transcripts, and manuscripts produced by or relating to Everett Alvarez, Jr. and Jack Comstock, POWs of the Vietnam War and World War II, respectively. 

Everett Alvarez, Jr. (1937-)

Everett Alvarez, Jr. was shot down over Vietnam in 1964, being held as a Prisoner of War for over eight years. He was released in 1973. From 1988 to 2008 he served on the USUHS Board of Regents and was Chairman of same from 2001-2008. 

• Chained eagle : the heroic story of the first American shot down over North Vietnam

• An audio interview with Commander Alvarez is currently being transcribed and edited and will soon be part of the collection.

Jack Comstock (1914-1996)

A military doctor, Jack Comstock was taken prisoner by Japanese forces on April 9, 1942. He would remain a prisoner of war for 34 months, treating his fellow prisoners and keeping a daily diary. Comstock was rescued on February 5, 1945. His handwritten diary and typed transcription is in the collection of the USU Archives. 

• Finding Aid for the Comstock Collection
• Jack A. Comstock World War II Diary--Handwritten
• Jack A. Comstock World War II Diary--Transcription