Instituted on 20 October 1947, this bronze medal was awarded to all those that had been made a prisoner of war by the Axis forces.
Thin round bronze bars are slipped on the ribbon to denote the length of the recipient's captivity, each bar representing 12 months.
The obverse shows a cross within a circle of barbed wire. On the horizontal cross arms are the years "1940" and "1945", while the vertical cross arms are mostly covered by a large sword, point downward. The reverse depicts a guard tower and a fence withing a circular chain.
