There was a joke in the German military during World War
II which said, if there is ever a world war, get on the side fighting the United States
and then surrender to them, and you'll be sure to come home alive. While this wasn't a
joke you said to the wrong people, it was generally
accurate.
While POWs in Japan's empire or in the Soviet
Union had to literally fear for their lives, and depending on country of origin,
possibly in Germany too, those captured and actually imprisoned by Britain or the US
were all but guaranteed to survive. The worst that would happen to you is you would be
forced to do agricultural work (the US was short of farmworkers during the war), but
even then, when working on family farms, the family would be required to provide a
meal.
My Mother-in-law was a young child in Kansas dring
the war, and they had a group of five German POWs who regularly worked for their father
in planting and harvest time. Kids were told to stay out of the room when the POWs were
eating lunch, but my Mother-in-law snuck in one time, a German saw her and immediately
burst into tears, no doubt thinking of his own daughter back home, who he was eventually
returned to once the war ended.
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