Originally Posted by
goudie
I too was surprised at the 35,000 estimate of escaped POW's looks like one '0' too many
The Wikipedia article on
Christopher Clayton Hutton contains the following footnote on the 35 000 estimate:
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Foot & Langley (1979) include a Statistical Summary, pp.309-316. Their conclusion is that 35,190 escaped or evaded. However this total includes a large number (around 23,000) who were in the Army and many of these escaped from the Western Mediterranean theatre. These personnel were less likely to carry silk maps.
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That seems a bit more reasonable, perhaps?