A Play: Flight from Phoenix (Papago Park)

In 2001, The Phoenix New Times covered the release of a play called Escape from Papago Park.

The play retells the story of "the greatest breakout from a United States compound by prisoners of war during World War II."

During WWII, Papago Park in Phoenix, AZ housed 3,100 German POWs. Just before Christmas in 1944, 25 German soldiers escaped through a 178 foot tunnel. All were later recaptured.

One of those POWs, Heinrich Palmer said:

People think we were anxious to leave, some great group of prisoners storming back to the battlefront. But we were just young and bored. Or maybe it was this: The Americans put a bunch of German comrades from the same navy in the same compound. These men had great engineering talent. The Americans took away their freedom, called them troublemakers and told them they could never escape. So maybe it became our duty to prove them wrong. And it was very, very easy to prove them wrong.

Check out the photo gallery that goes with the article.