My mate's dad (MMD) was a 19 year-old Navigator who was shot down in 1940. He spent almost five of the best years of his young life incarcerated in a German POW camp.
When he was 'liberated' in 1945, he was flown back to Blighty, and promptly incarcerated, yet again, in a stately home in Yorkshire. The raison d'etre being that he and his mates had been "institutionalised" for so long, they could not be let out into society. What a crock...
Ironically, alongside them were Italian POWs, who had bicycles, and were allowed to visit the local village. MMD and his mates made it quite clear that if they were not afforded the same privilges as the Italians, their guardians would soon find out what 50 RAF aircrew could do to make their lives a total misery.
They got their bicycles, and, eventually, their freedom.