Progressives and Reactionaries among British Prisoners of War at Pyoktong and Chongson, North Korea, 1951–1953

It has often been claimed that British prisoners behaved better than American prisoners during the Korean War (1950–1953). This assertion has tended to be the result of speculative assumption rather than detailed analysis, however, and does not hold up well when examined closely. As a very broad generalization, furthermore, it masks significant variations in the conduct of British prisoners of war themselves. The primary aim of this article is to test various hypotheses to explain why, from the Chinese perspective, the captive British contingent at Chongson (Camp 1) was much more troublesome than its counterpart at Pyoktong (Camp 5).