5

POWs Convince Their Captors The Middle Finger Means Good Luck

In 1968, North Korean forces captured the USS Pueblo and held its crew for nearly a year. They still have that ship, in fact, and use it as a tourist attraction (there isn't a lot to do for fun in North Korea). The Pueblo crew was tortured -- one had his tonsils removed without anesthesia -- until they all signed confessions. That last bit is the bonus side of bullshit you get with being a POW: Winding up being part of your captors' propaganda. The Koreans photographed the soldiers to show off how well they were treating their very cooperative captives. The captives, in turn, gave Pyongyang the Jersey salute across various photos.

4

A Prisoner Of The Nazis Hid "Fuck Hitler" In A Stitch

Held captive by the Nazis during World War II, British Major Alexis Casdagli started doing needlework to pass the time, and his captors loved it. So much that the work he produced was actually put on display at four different prison camps where he was held. At each one, he made them look like fools.

3

A Vietnam POW Blinked A Message With His Eyelids

Jeremiah Denton is one of the most famous POWs in American history, and he barely had to move a muscle to accomplish it. During the Vietnam War, Denton was held in Hanoi, and like the Korean captives above, he was used for propaganda purposes by his captors. He was a POW for seven long, grueling years. At one point, he was cleaned up to be put on TV as an example of how the Vietnamese were not in fact torturing Americans.

But as Denton explained how he had adequate food and clothing, he could be seen blinking in an awkward and dramatic fashion. The Vietnamese missed the significance, but Naval intelligence did not, and they deciphered the blinks as Morse code for "torture." He risked his life on one shot to get the word out, and it worked.

2

POWs Risked Execution By Creating A Makeshift American Flag

A prison camp where getting caught with contraband could get you tortured or killed raises a powerful question: What exactly would you risk losing your life for? Aside from the obvious, like an invisibility cloak or a makeshift Iron Man suit.

While being held in the Japanese Omori Prison Camp in WWII, a handful of U.S. soldiers took it upon themselves to start pilfering bed sheets and colored pencils ... just so they could spend days carefully creating their own American flag. Amidst torture and mock executions, four men led by Denny Landrum felt they needed some kind of symbol which represented them while at the same time giving a metaphorical ball kick to their captors.

This was such a perilous task that even their own fellow captives were against it. The men's superiors in the camp threatened them with court martial if they continued, worried that it was a risk even to those who weren't involved. But they did it anyway.

It's not like Landrum was unaware of what awaited him if he was caught. Already he had been starved, badly beaten (including having his jaw broken), had his abdomen sliced open with a bayonet, plus a whole lot of other horrible shit. Yet according to the diaries he kept, when English-speaking officers arrived at his camp, one of the Japanese officers asked Landrum how they should be greeted. He taught his captor to say, "Good morning, you son of a bitch." They beat him for it, as he surely knew they would.

1

The Colditz Piss Escapade

You need to take this story with a grain of salt or two, because sources for it are a bit conflicted, and scholarly articles on who pissed where during armed conflicts are hard to come by. I wasn't there, so all I can do is share it.

According to the story, in 1940, there were 30 British soldiers being held in Colditz Castle, a Nazi stronghold used as a prison. When no other escape attempts worked, they decided to get down and dirty by digging a tunnel. The problem was that they misjudged and accidentally spent nine months digging into the wine cellar. What do 30 soldiers do in a Nazi wine cellar? They drink over 100 bottles of wine between them ... and proceed to refill each and every one with piss.