Freedom Village (Panmunjom), April 20, 1953: A convoy of ambulances carrying sick and wounded prisoners of war cross the Freedom Gate bridge, on their way to freedom and home. Two groups of 50 Allied POW each were released April 20, 1953 in exchange for 500 sick and wounded communist fighters. There were 14 Americans in the first group, 16 in the second.

Pictured here is a scan of the original 1953 print created by Stars and Stripes Pacific’s photo department to run in the print newspaper. The red marks indicate the crop lines. Only the part of the image inside of the marks would appear in the newspaper. As all pre-1964 Stars and Stripes Pacific negatives and slides were unwittingly destroyed by poor temporary storage in 1963, the prints developed from the late 1940s through 1963 are the only images left of Stripes’ news photography from those decades. Stars and Stripes’ archives team is scanning these prints to ensure their preservation.

Looking for Stars and Stripes’ coverage of the Korean War? Subscribe to Stars and Stripes’ historic newspaper archive! We have digitized our 1948-1999 European and Pacific editions, as well as several of our WWII editions and made them available online through https://starsandstripes.newspaperarchive.com/