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The Not-So-Great Escape: German POWs in the U.S. during WWIIBy Ronald H. Bailey | World War II | 16 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post The site selected for the beginning of the tunnel was in the blind spot between the nearest guard towers that Parshall had warned about. The entrance shaft was three and a half feet from a bathhouse, which was the structure closest to the outer fence surrounding Papago Park. Diggers loosened a board on the side of the bathhouse to create a passageway and positioned a large coal box nearby to conceal the shaft. They would walk into the bathhouse, ostensibly to shower or wash clothes, then exit and slip down into the tunnel’s six-foot-deep vertical entrance shaft. Three groups of three men worked ninety-minute shifts during the night, one man digging with a coal shovel and small pick, the second lifting soil in a bucket to the third man topside, who also served as the lookout. Subscribe Today
A fourth group of men distributed the excavated 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. As the tunnel progressed, a small cart was fashioned out of a shower stall base to haul the dirt back to the entrance. Soil piled up at such an alarming rate that a new means for getting rid of it had to be found. Capt. Jürgen Quaet-Faslem, a cocky Prussian who had commanded U-595, came up with an idea. “Shouldn’t we have a sports area in this compound?” he asked. “I think they are supposed to ‘encourage’ sports.” Thus was born the notion of a volleyball court—on rough ground that would need to be leveled. This the prisoners proceeded to do daily, spreading soil taken from the tunnel with the help of shovels and rakes provided by the Americans. Guards got used to seeing a mound of dirt there; they assumed it was the same old pile and not a fresh supply unearthed from the tunnel. The tunnel moved forward at up to three feet on a good night. In late November a colonel from a visiting team of inspectors declared that the camp need never worry about prisoners digging out: the soil, he proclaimed, was hard as a rock. He was standing right atop the concealed tunnel entrance at that moment; prisoners who heard him smiled as if in agreement. The diggers intended to tunnel under two fences and a patrol road that encircled the camp. Just beyond the road stood an electric light pole in a clump of bushes. By triangulating on paper they calculated that the tunnel needed to be 178 feet long from the bathhouse to the pole. But someone wanted to double-check the distance. So he 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. Capt. Hans Werner Kraus, skipper of U-199, watched in horror. “That string caught one of them right across the neck,” he said. “Fortunately they were moving very slowly. He simply brushed it aside, said nothing, and the vehicle disappeared into the night. But the line broke and was still hanging on the far fence weeks later. Several times the Americans walked by, stared at the string, wondered how it got there and why.” Back in February, Quaet-Faslem had escaped by hiding on a truck loaded with plywood. He crossed the border and made it more than thirty miles into Mexico before being recaptured. From that experience he knew that stocking enough food was vital. Though German prisoners disliked commercial American white bread—“nothing but air,” someone remarked, “you can squeeze it into nothing”—they decided the basic item in the getaway packs should be bread toasted and pulverized into crumbs. It was packed tightly in waxed paper envelopes saved from individual breakfast cereal boxes. Mixing the crumbs with milk or water “would make sort of a mush that might be monotonous but it would be nourishing and easy to carry,” said Kraus. Escapees also needed some kind of credentials. American photographers had taken snapshots for the prisoners to ship home to Germany in order to show how well POWs were treated in the United States, and the pictures proved useful for fake passports and other papers. The forged papers were imprinted with official-looking stamps, fashioned from scraps of leather and rubber, which would allow the escapees to pose as foreign sailors trying to get to California or the Gulf Coast. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II
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16 Comments to “The Not-So-Great Escape: German POWs in the U.S. during WWII”
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of a little-known incident. I’d like to find out more about German POWs interred in the states. Of course, this story greatly benefits from the bad guys getting caught!
By Steve on Jun 26, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Very much enjoyed this story. It was also interesting due to the fact that I never really heard about POW camps in the US even though I heard bits and pieces about them.
By Pegasus053 on Jul 5, 2008 at 1:17 am
This story brought back memories of my Mother, a former WAC from Pennsylvania who passed away in 2000. She was stationed at a bomber base in Texas where German POW’s did manual labor. She said that where she worked she could see POW’s working in a warehouse that was attached to her office. One day she saw a crate about to fall on a POW’s head, and yelled a warning to him in Pennsylvania Dutch, which saved him from harm. Weeks later, one of the guards asked her if she would accept a gift from that POW in gratitude. It was a carved rendition of a chalet, which unfortunately has not survived the years.
By Rick on Jul 8, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Hi out there.
This storry was published in about 1972 in the book “The Faustball-Tunnel”. My grandfather told us many times of this adventure….
I like this short article. Thank’s Ronald.
By Utzolino on Aug 2, 2008 at 3:49 pm
My good friend, Steve Hoza, a WWII historian and expert on German POW camps in Arizona in WWII, self-published a book about the twenty-six POW camps in Arizona. There is a chapter in his book about the “harrowing” Camp Papago escape. Steve speaks fulent German and is still in touch with several of the POWs’ families in Germany.
By C. Sachs on Aug 12, 2008 at 9:31 pm
ww11 Luftaffe only prison camp in Arizona.
I had a gun shop in phoenix and Scottsdale for about 15 years. I had a lot of ww11 artifacts displayed and some one brought in a aluminum propeller for a WW L 5 plane I could tell this had been repaired and shortened, most likely it was discarded and no longer airworthy. it was mounted on a wood plac, it had a brass plac that said presented to ?? comander of the luftaffe prisoners of ww11 maney thanks from the prisoners date??
the brass plac disapered no idea who took it or when but i have been donating all my ww11 stufff to a aviators rest home and a museum in colorado. this included a pick up truck full of items from Joe Foss arizona
i would like to replace the brass plac on the prop but i need to know what camp and who was the comander and when they released the prisoners. I know it would not be original but it will get the storey told and preserve the unit for all
By snap lemon on Oct 16, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Does anyone know of a WW2 camp in OHIO? I have a friend whose
Grandfather Theodore Diesslin who told him as a child of his
experience as POW in Ohio. He was a captured soldier of the
German Army.
By Paul Baker on Nov 5, 2008 at 7:02 pm
My dad was first generation German-American, born in Ohio. During the war Dad served in the Army at a German POW camp in the midwest–possibly Michigan (?). He taught the Germans to speak English, and said the POWs were pleasant company. The one remark that will stay with me forever was that Dad liked serving in the Army post-Depression because it was the first time in his life that he had gotten enough to eat.
My dad was the first in his family to have only three “American” names: first, middle, and last. All others had the traditional four German names: first, middle, middle, last. I was told that after WWI, Germans in America distanced themselves from German traditions by naming their children with Anglicized names–more specifically by giving them a Biblical or Christian middle name as my father had.
By Second Generation on Nov 23, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Enjoyed the story. My grandfather was a german conscript who was captured in France. He then was sent to England to a POW camp for a short time, then was transferred to one in Maine. He escaped once and went and saw Niagara Falls before he was recaptured. He said a 10 year old american girl would come to the camp and pass them potatoes through the barbed wire fence.
By Yvonne Toole on Nov 24, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I cant believe how unmotivated most of the escapers were-giving themselves up???
Obviously the camp was too comfortable and few of the germans really believed in the war.
What a contrast to allied escapes in europe and the far east.
I have read before of black servicemen riding in trains disbeleiving of german prisoners in transit in the best carriages and eating the best food at diners on route.
By humphrey on Jan 20, 2009 at 4:31 am
That story was awesome! Thanks so much, I laughed and grinned through most of the escapee’s exploits! Nice to hear they were not desperate killers when on the loose. I don’t think Al Queda escapees would be so nice to those kids but I could be wrong.
By Ralph In Kuwait on Mar 27, 2009 at 1:30 am
There was a POW camp at Camp Perry, near Sandusky OH.
By David on Apr 11, 2009 at 12:35 am
Are there any movies out about the German pows in Arisona and the “not-so great escape”"
By cindy peters on May 17, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I just came across this site after reading about Monopoly helping American prisoners in Germany. My genealogy group just addressed this subject in our county, and it is interesting to see any other stories about escape attempts in the U.S. I don’t think many people know about the POW camps, or are not interested.
By Katie on Sep 18, 2009 at 5:53 pm