It was 1944, and World War 2 was raging across Europe and the Pacific.
By then, both Allied and Axis forces had captured many enemy soldiers thanks to their various
military operations across the globe. The significant increase in the number
of prisoners of war led the U.S. military to establish incarceration facilities in the most
inhospitable places inside the U.S. mainland to secure the prisoners and avoid escapes.
Camp Papago Park, built in the middle of the Arizona desert on top of some of the
country's hardest and most compact soils, was one of such facilities.
These conditions, in addition to a fearsome system of barbed wire fences and watchtowers,
made an escape attempt highly unlikely. Still, U.S. officials were not counting
on the wit and determination of Nazi Commander Captain Jürgen Wattenberg,
who, after arriving at Papago Park, started orchestrating what would later be known
as the Greatest P.O.W. Escape in American Soil during World War 2.
After three months of arduous planning, the scheme resulted in 25 prisoners of war
escaping into the Arizonian desert through a 178-foot log dirt tunnel. The feat led
to what the Phoenix Gazette called: (QUOTE) "The greatest manhunt in Arizona history."
The U.S. now had to deal with a feared “Super Nazi” loose within its own borders...
Profile of a "Super Nazi" The man with the plan
was no stranger to strategic feats and risky operations. Commander Captain Jürgen
Wattenberg had a short but successful career while serving under the Third Riech's Navy.
Already a decorated naval officer by the time the Nazis rose to power,
Wattenberg was immediately assigned to the Admiral Graf Spee heavy cruiser, one of three so-called
"pocket battleships" by the British Royal Navy. Once onboard, Wattenberg took part in the Battle
of the River Plate, where the armored ship faced off against three British cruisers on its own
and still managed to impair one of them while also damaging the other two and keeping them at bay.
In hot pursuit, Admiral Graf Spee fled into the neutral waters of Uruguay to conduct the
repairs it urgently needed. The pursuing ships waited three miles off the coast for the "pocket
battleship" to return from the neutral zone. However, this would never happen,
as the commanding officer decided to scuttle the ship before taking his life.
Wattenberg and the rest of the crew were captured and sent to a P.O.W. camp in Uruguay.
But imprisonment couldn't stop him for long, and soon he hatched a plan to
escape his captors along with other crew members. After the escape, some of Wattenberg’s crewmates
stayed in Uruguay or fled to Argentina, but he sneaked out of the country and returned to Germany
in May of 1940 to continue serving the Führer. Back in the German Navy, Wattenberg took command
of the U-162 submarine, making him the oldest U-boat commander in the entire Kriegsmarine.
The captain proved to be a natural leader, accomplishing numerous victories and sinking
14 enemy ships before British battleships finally sank his submarine on September 3, 1942.
Wattenberg was then captured and sent to several prisoner camps across Europe.
Eventually, the British decided to turn him over to the American authorities. They considered he
was much less likely to escape from a camp deep inside the U.S. mainland than in a base in Europe.
Wattenberg was then sent to several different centers, as no one wanted him under their
jurisdiction. Author Cecil Owen would say: (QUOTE) "Wattenberg was shuffled from one camp to another,
for nobody wanted to keep him. He was considered a 'Super Nazi'
because he caused trouble everywhere he was sent." Finally, Captain Jürgen Wattenberg ended up in the
middle of the Arizonian desert imprisoned in Camp Papago Park. Unsurprisingly,
it didn't take long for him to start thinking about his subsequent escape.
Scheming a Plan Wattenberg began to
devise a plan of escape as soon as he arrived at Papago Camp and quickly realized that the American
security detail in charge of the camp had made a few grave mistakes that could be exploited.
First, the guards were overconfident because the camp was set up on top of granite soil,
making for some of the most rigid surfaces in the country. Thus,
the authorities were confident that a tunnel escape would be impossible.
Second, the guards knew that the area around the camp was an inhospitable desert,
and they were certain that the prisoners were unfamiliar with the area.
In their minds, a breakout was a futile endeavor. These two fatal assumptions paved the way
for a third: the overconfident guards ran a careless operation.
There were no patrols inside the camp as they were deemed unnecessary.
And to make things worse, there was a known blind spot close to the camp's bathhouse
where none of the watchtowers had a direct view. Topping everything off, the prisoners were
separated according to rank, which meant the most capable and dangerous officers were imprisoned
together in one section of the camp. That happened to be the section where the blind spot was.
Being the strategist he was, Wattenberg carefully noted all these weaknesses and decided the best
course of action was to dig a tunnel inside the bathhouse. As he was being held in the officer's
camp, he had no trouble recruiting intelligent and resourceful men to aid him in his mission.
Still, the hardness of the soil beneath them continued to be a serious problem. But luckily
for the prisoners, the camp was in the midst of constructing a new volleyball court. The plotters
then used the project to convince the guards to lend them several tools, like shovels and picks.
The volleyball court also became a perfect cover to tackle the issue of what to do with all the
dirt they were digging out. The schemers were able to pile all the dirt around the construction site,
and the guards were none the wiser. The men then came up with a schedule
to dig consistently while arousing the slightest suspicion possible. They also organized themselves
into groups of three, and each group was assigned to work for 90-minute shifts during the night.
According to their plans, one man would use a shovel and a pick to expand the tunnel's walls.
The second man would collect the dirt in a pail, and the third one would take
the dirt out of the shaft while also making sure no guards were onto them.
During the day, the prisoners would cover the shaft with a piece of wood taken from
one of the bathhouse walls. And to ensure nobody noticed the part of the wall missing,
Wattenberg and his men placed a large box filled with coal in front of the spot.
The operation lasted for more than three months, during which, astoundingly,
the rogue prisoners were never discovered. The Escape
The 178-foot long tunnel was completed on December 20. By then, Wattenberg and his men had stolen a
map of the area and had planned to divide into several groups once outside the camp.
Their idea was to use the rivers in Arizona to move quickly across the state
and make their way into Mexico, where Wattenberg had allies waiting for them.
By 9:00pm on December 23, Captain Wattenberg and 24 other prisoners began to make their way through
the tunnel. The space was dark and narrow, and it took them over 5 hours to come out the other side.
By 2:30am, the Germans broke into their designated groups and began their escape through the desert.
The largest group headed south to the Salt River. On the way, they built a makeshift raft out of
wood and pieces of rubber. The objective was to travel down the Salt River into the Gila River,
then into the Colorado River, and eventually reach the Gulf of California.
Meanwhile, as the prisoners scattered through the desert, the authorities inside Papago Camp
didn't suspect anything wrong. It wasn't until 7:30am that some guards
inside the camp noticed that several prisoners were missing. The guards sounded the alarm,
and the search for the escapees began. The Manhunt
Having a group of Nazi war soldiers at large inside the U.S. mainland was a nightmare scenario
for the American government. Consequently, they rushed to deploy hundreds of soldiers,
F.B.I. agents, and even Papago Indian scouts to recapture the fugitives as soon as possible.
Unfortunately for the German fugitives, the numerous forces hunting for them weren't the only
problem they faced. When the largest group reached the Salt River, they encountered a dry riverbed,
and their hopes of floating down the stream on a raft quickly vanished.
Being forced to wander under the merciless Arizonian sun proved to be much more than
what the escapees had bargained for, and most of them were successfully recaptured within a
few days of their escape. The authorities found them exhausted, dehydrated, and in
some cases even eager to be returned to camp. Other fleeing Germans lasted longer. Papago
Scouts apprehended a couple fugitives less than thirty miles from the Mexican border, while a
group of particularly high-ranking officers was captured within ten miles of reaching Mexico.
Another group was also caught after some locals spotted them near a stream and called
the authorities. It appeared as though one of the fugitives, Officer Utzolino, decided
the stream was the perfect place to stop and wash his underwear.
The last prisoner to be recaptured was Captain Wattenberg, who, along with two other German
soldiers, managed to avoid the authorities for over a month as they traveled north
instead of south like the others. While on the run, the three of them
found shelter in a cave near Phoenix and even visited certain towns to gather supplies.
The men would also regularly switch places with Camp Papago prisoners working outside the camp.
They would stay the night inside the facility, collect food and water, and then switch back with
the original prisoners to return to their cave. Their charade finally came to an end when one of
the fugitive soldiers was discovered inside the camp and was forced to reveal the location of
the other two. However, when the authorities tried to find them, they only encountered one of them.
Wattenberg was nowhere to be found. It turns out that Captain Wattenberg had gone into
town, where he used his last 75 cents to buy a hot meal in a restaurant and then take a nap on a
hotel bench. That night, Wattenberg stopped to ask directions to some street cleaners who found his
accent peculiar and decided to call the police. Wattenberg was finally apprehended on January 28,
1945, making him the final escapee from the Great Papago Escape to be captured.
After being taken back to Camp Papago, some prisoners feared they would be made an example.
They expected a severe punishment; after all, they knew that Hitler had ordered the execution
of 50 Allied soldiers who had escaped from a German P.O.W. camp months earlier in what came
to be known as the "The Great Escape" of 1944. But the American authorities proved much more
merciful than their German counterparts, and the only punishment handed to the prisoners
was to be put on bread and water rations for the same number of days as they had been at large...
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