The prisoner of war issue was a major stumbling block during the ceasefire talks in Korea, each side accusing the other of atrocities, presenting lists and counter-lists of prisoners and trying to score propaganda points. Wilfred Burchett set out to investigate the veracity of each side's claims and thus, for instance, established that the highest-ranking US POW in Korea, General William Dean, who had been reported dead, was indeed alive and well. He also contrasted the generally good conditions he had observed in North Korean and Chinese-run POW camps with the reportedly appalling conditions and brutality in Allied prisoner of war camps, though in writing about this he indulged in some hyperbolic language he would later regret using.

Koje Island was South Korea's most populous prison camp and became notorious as the scene of riots between Communist and non-Communist POWs over the issue of forced repatriation or ‘screening’. Their actions were brutally suppressed by their American captors, and the story of that suppression is covered here by Burchett with his colleague Alan Winnington. They wrote two books together, Koje Unscreened and Plain Perfidy (see Chapter 8). The contents were based largely on interviews with prisoners who had escaped from Koje Island, and on other eyewitness accounts, rather than Burchett's usual ‘on the spot’ reporting.

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