history

Papago Park once POW camp that Germans escaped from

U-boat commander hid in Paradise Valley cave for month

Italian prisoners of war work on the Arizona Canal north of the Salt River in December 1943.

National Park Service

The entrance to the escape tunnel used by German prisoners at Camp Papago Park, Arizona, in 1944.

United States Army

The largest prisoner of war escape from an American compound during World War II happened right here in Phoenix.

Papago Park was once a POW camp with 1,700 prisoners from 1943-46.

Now referred to as “The Great Escape” for its scale and ingenuity, 25 German Navy officers and enlisted men spent over three months digging a tunnel to the Arizona Cross-Cut Canal in hopes to make it to Mexico from there. After escaping, three of them hid out for a month in a cave in Paradise Valley.

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