during world war ii a total of 425 871 prisons of war were held in the united
states this included three hundred seventy one thousand six hundred eighty three germans fifty
thousand two hundred seventy three italians and three thousand nine hundred fifteen japanese in
two hundred and ninety four prison camps in forty five of the then existing 48 states
how did almost half a million enemy combatants become prisoners of war in american prison camps
during world war ii how did 25 german pows escape at american prison camp during world war ii did
any of them make it to freedom hello i'm colin heaton former soldier marine corps scout sniper
history professor historian and book author and we will answer these questions and other
issues on this segment of forgotten history the prisons of war making escapes have always
captured the public imagination there were many escapes from american camps but most prisoners
were recaptured one german lieutenant court france rosmeisel escaped from the prisoner of war camp at
camp buettner north carolina on august 4 1945. he surrendered to the fbi only in 1959 after living
under the name of frank ellis living and working in chicago lieutenant franz von vera escaped
captivity in england twice and was recaptured the second time climbing into a british fighter
sent to canada he then escaped again and after almost two years made it back to germany
he was the only german held in north america to make it back home however the largest german
escape took place at camp papago park near phoenix arizona on the night of december 23rd and 24th
1944 papago was originally built to house u.s soldiers undergoing desert combat training
but after the massive surrender of the africa corps in may 1943
an influx of 200 000 prisoners of war ex forced expansion of such locations to place them in
italian prisoners were held there before being transferred to camps in california
the first german pows arrived at papago in january of 1944 many of them were previous escape artists
from other camps eventually the number of pows would total just over 3 100 mostly german u-boat
crews and a few africa corps soldiers these were some of the most successful intelligent
and highly decorated u-boat commanders and crews in allied captivity all the men actively devised
a daring escape plan it was a challenge and an adventure recalled yubo captain fritz gugenberger
who had personally been decorated by adolf hitler with the oak leaves to his knight's cross
the tunnel became a kind of all-consuming sport we lived aged slept talked whispered dreamed
tunnel and thought of little else for weeks on end american army captain cecil partial
the provost marshal or warden was an ex-police detective and decorated world war one veteran who
among other colorful exploits had even pulled off a bank heist while serving as a general
in the mexican army partial pointed out a blind spot in the camp later he said those germans were
a fine bunch of men smart as hell and it made no sense to put the smartest of them in compound one
i knew they would discover that blind spot but due to the ground of being considered
too hard to dig a tunnel and with the watchtowers giving a perfect view of anyone climbing the
tall fence that problem was never addressed u-boat commanders jurgen bottenberg of u-162
friedrich fritz googenberger of u-513 august maus of u185 and hans werner krauss of u-199 along with
jurgen kwade fasslum of u-595 decided to escape and on february 12 1944 they managed to leave
the camp krauss dressed as an american soldier guarding the camp crate fastlam had escaped by
hiding in a truck loaded with plywood he crossed the border and made it more than 30 miles into
mexico before being recaptured moss and gunga burger were captured in tucson boarding a bus
after rendering an improper salute to a superior officer and not having proper identification they
would not make the same mistake again the previous failed escape attempt but rising tensions in the
camp were due to the murder of a fellow pow named werner dressler at the hand of his fellow
prisoners which shocked the men the murdered trial that followed and subsequent executions of
the guilty parties were the great catalysts for another escape germans in the camp did not know
who they could trust and vottenberg knew he had to plan a mass escape to get the men's minds off
of the turmoil in the camp the decision was made to tunnel but some of the men were concerned about
the sandy desert soil beneath the hard top they could not get enough wood to shore up the ceiling
also the german officers did not know who they could trust within their own ranks
as the senior ranking officer in the prison camp vottenberg organized various escape teams
english-speaking prisoners held classes teaching others those who already spoke english reasonably
well perfected the various dialects copying the various accents from their american guards
american photographers took photos of the prisoners for them to ship home to
germany in order to show how well the pows were being treated in the united states
those pictures were used in making fake passports and other papers another group stole scraps of
clothing and american uniforms yet another group were in the compass and map making business
yet another group was working on obtaining american currency
hoping to forge u.s dollars to have spending money for trains and buses
the site selected for the beginning of the tunnel was in the blind spot between the nearest guard
towers that partial had warned about the entry shaft was three and a half feet from a bathhouse
which was the structure closest to the outer fence surrounding papago park three groups of three men
each worked 90-minute shifts during the night one man digging with a cold shovel and small pick
the second lifting the soil in a bucket to the third man topside who served as the lookout
a fourth group of men distributed and excavated the soil the next day they flushed it down
toilets stored it in attics or let it slip through holes in their pockets onto the new flower beds
the soil piled up at such an alarming rate that a new means for getting rid of it had to be found
captain jurgen kwad came up with the idea shouldn't we have a sports area in this
compound he asked i think they are supposed to encourage sports this is where the idea
of a volleyball court originated built on rough ground that would need to be leveled
the prisoners went to work spreading soil taken from the tunnel with the help of shovels and rakes
provided by the americans in late 1944 a colonel from a visiting team of inspectors declared
that the camp need never worry about prisoners digging out due to the ground being too hard he
was standing right on top of the concealed tunnel entrance and the prisoners below heard him over
time they dug a tunnel 176 feet long 3 feet high and 18 inches wide without being detected
the digger is intended to tunnel under two fences and a patrol road that encircled the camp
just beyond the road stood an electric light pole and a clump of bushes by triangulating on paper
with basic mathematics that calculated the tunnel needed to be 178 feet long from the bathhouse to
the pole but someone wanted to double check that distance so we attached a small weight to a string
and late one night hurled it into the undergrowth near the pole suddenly a jeep with two american
soldiers came along the patrol road captain heinz verner krauss skipper of u-199 watched in horror
he said that string caught one of them right across the neck fortunately they were moving
very slowly so he simply brushed it aside and said nothing and the vehicle disappeared into the night
the germans created a diversion as their brothers entered the tunnel by singing christmas carols and
having a party loud enough to mask the escapade each escaped artist carried almost 100 pounds of
gear clothing dried food bread coffee and cigarettes the officers led the breakout
going first in three-man teams gugenberger climbed the exit ladder and lifted the cover cautiously
it was raining as he and his companions emerged into a clump of bushes and dashed down into the
waste deep icy cold water of the nearby crosscut canal by 0-30 hours all 25 prisoners 12 officers
and 13 enlisted men had exited the tunnel into a hard rain outside the wire of the camp
their prisoners who stayed behind closed up the tunnels at both ends upon discovering the mission
and the missing men mar partial telephoned the fbi to report names and descriptions of the escapees
while he was still on that call another phone rang it was the sheriff in phoenix
reporting he had captured and escaped pow that pow herbert fuchs a 22 year old u-boat crewman had
quickly grown tired of being wet cold and hungry and hitchhiked to ride to the sheriff's office
soon thereafter a tempeh woman called to say the two escapees had knocked on her door and
surrendered the phone rang again and a tempe man reported that two hungry and cold pows
had turned themselves into him one more call came that christmas see from someone at the
tempe railroad station saying yet another escapee had been arrested this was helmut guger a swiss
national who had been drafted into the german navy who revealed the existence of the tunnel
with half a dozen escapees already in custody authorities launched what the phoenix gazette
trumpeted as the greatest manhunt in arizona history soldiers fbi agents sheriff's deputies
police border patrol and papago indian scouts as well as custom agents all joined the search for
the 19 germans still at large ranchers and indian scouts all drawn by the 25 reward potion for the
capture of each escapee carried the newspaper clippings bearing mug shots of their quarry
later guggenberg said we didn't think we were that important gurgenberger traveled with jurgen
kuwait fastlane as both spoke fluent english without an accent and managed to make it to within
10 miles of the mexican border before they were recaptured on january 6 1945 the other germans
captured dined with a local customs official at his house later nearby residents came to see the
escapees in person after the story appeared in the news they brought in this crippled boy
who didn't know anyone who could play chess with him and he wanted to know
if we knew how to play i told reinhardt in german to let the kid win because i thought we might win
favor with our captors and this kid didn't look like he had long to live so why not let him beat
the great captured war prisoners he could he could tell his friends about it later the following day
kuwait fasolam and guggenburger were awakened by a group of indian scouts
as captain kwait faslam asked one of the scouts did you have a good sleep quaint fastlane was
astonished to see that it was one of the same men who had captured him in mexico 11 months earlier
with the capture of yet another pair of germans two days later on january 8th
only a half dozen pows remained at large after christmas most of the remaining 19 prisoners hiked
south each night as far as they could capture was a possibility at any moment and they were also
alert to very real physical danger because during the war no fewer than 56 escaped german pows were
shot to death the great majority by authorities but some at the hands of trigger-happy civilians
on january 1st 1945 captain krause and his second watch officer on u199
lieutenant helmuth drescher had been covering up to 10 miles a night on foot the drescher now had a
swollen foot and hobbled along using a stick as a crutch in the morning they approached an isolated
ranch house and knocked when a 12 year old boy with two younger siblings answered the door
krause told him who he and dresher were and said they wanted to surrender to local police
the boy informed the germans that his parents were away but should be home very soon
so the germans made themselves at home they brewed coffee shared their remaining chocolate
with the children and then regaled the kids with stories about life on a german u-boat
when the parents came home around 11 that morning they found everyone sitting in the kitchen
that same day a papa go indian scout discovered two more prisoners sleeping 30 miles from the
mexican border then four days later the indians caught another pair asleep in the same area
and another army patrol from the pow camp at florence captured three more
one of these teams consisted of clarus gunther and utzolino who used the canvas
boat on their first day as they were sleeping under the boat to stay dry
over the following two nights they succeeded in floating for only a few short parts of the river
finally they abandoned the boat when it ran dry and started walking a week later near gila bend
some cowboys spotted one of them washing his clothing on the bank of an irrigation canal
called the police for the next fortnight or so the whereabouts of the two remaining trio escapees
remained a mystery the team consisted of captain jurgen vottenberg and his two crewmen from u162
walter kozer and johan cramer bottenberg delayed heading south and explored the area kozer and
kramer even went into phoenix visiting a bowling alley and enjoyed a few beers they all stayed in
a shallow cave in the mountains north of papago from there kramer did the craziest thing of all
every few days he joined up with one of the work details sent outside papago he traded places with
a friend who spent the night in the cave while kramer re-entered the camp with the work detail
there he gathered the news and food he would then join the other work detail again leaving the camp
to send food and information out with a member of the detail
as he remained to the barracks on january 23rd a month after the escape a surprise
inspection revealed kramer's presence in the camp they believed he had escaped and was gone
the following evening kozer left the cave and made his way down to an isolated area found an
abandoned car where friends on work details had staff provisions for the trio well instead of food
he found three american gis with rifles pointed at his head only watenberg was now still at large
four days later on january 27th 1945 vottenberg ate his last piece of food shaved
put on a clean shirt and hiked into phoenix he had 75 cents in his pocket
most of which he spent on a restaurant meal he slept in a chair in a hotel lobby and then walking
the streets during the night asked for directions from the foreman of a street cleaning crew
as to where he could find a policeman by nine that morning bottom brick was back at papago
park afterwards guggenberger was transferred to camp shanks new york in february of 1946
and then returned to germany he was held in a compound in the british zone near minster
before being released in august of 1946 despite the escape no americans were court-martialed
for some of the escapees getting out the escapees themselves in many cases expected
to be shot since rumor had it that germany had executed allied pows for a large escape
and another mass killing was in retaliation for the bombing of dresden the germans at papago
were merely put on bread and water for every day one of them had been absent from the camp
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