Air Force Museum
The U.S. Escape and Evasion Experts
Modeled on the British escape branch M.I.9, the top secret MIS-X (Military Intelligence Service-X) organization gave U.S. service personnel formal training and special tools for escape and evasion. Their efforts helped those airmen who were evading and those who had become POWs.
In depth
History & service
MIS-X craftsmen modified common items found in POW aid packages to conceal hidden maps, radios, saws, compasses,and money, among other things. MIS-X also employed the help of several companies, which inserted material as part of the manufacturing process. To avoid compromising genuine aid societies, MIS-X sent these items to POWs in parcels shipped under the cover of fictitious aid organizations.
MIS-X aided several of the 737 U.S. military members who successfully escaped from German POW camps during WWII. Perhaps more importantly, MIS-X maintained contact with U.S. POWs at 64 German camps, both giving and receiving useful and timely information from the so-called "barbed wire front."
At the end of the war, the War Department disbanded MIS-X and most of the material related to this highly secret organization was destroyed.
The mission was to bring someone home
Rescue and medical evacuation changed the meaning of aviation's reach. Speed could shorten the time between an injury and treatment. Aircraft could cross terrain that made a ground journey slow or impossible. But the ability to reach a person did not guarantee the ability to recover them. Weather, enemy fire, limited landing space, weight, and the patient's condition shaped every decision.
Rescue depended on a chain of people and equipment. Someone had to locate the survivor, communicate the position, assess the danger, provide protection where necessary, and bring a recovery aircraft to the right place. Medical personnel then worked in an environment that could be noisy, cramped, and poorly suited to care. The aircraft's range and payload mattered, but so did preparation, coordination, and judgment.
The personal equipment in these galleries makes that work concrete. A radio could turn a search into a precise approach. Protective clothing could keep a survivor alive long enough to be found. A helicopter could lift someone from a place with no runway. A transport could carry casualties toward a hospital. These connections span civil and military aviation and link the museums through a shared purpose. Heroism here often means accepting risk in order to reduce another person's danger, while relying on a carefully organized team to make the attempt possible.
