I posted this a year ago. We have many new members who may not know about this World War II event right here in Scottsdale in December of 1944. Here is the story again: A CHRISTMAS STORY…This happened in Scottsdale 70 years ago: Are you familiar with the “Great Escape” in 1944 from the Papapo Park POW camp? As a boy in the 1960’s my friends and I would explore the area west of 64th St. between Oak St. and McDowell Rd. where part of the camp had been. This area had been abandoned years before and was completely open and accessible. There were no ball fields then but evidence of the former camp lay all about. On the night of December 23, 1944 a group 25 German navy POW’s slipped out through a tunnel they had dug through the caliche soil that had its exit by the canal. This night was chosen because the POW’s assumed that their American guards would be distracted by their own Christmas parties. They were correct about that. Their objective was to get to Mexico and hopefully back to the Fatherland. Ironically, despite the camp’s location in a desert, it was raining that night. Within hours a few prisoners, cold and wet, had turned themselves in. Others and fashioned a collapsible boat that they smuggled out that night and made their way to the banks of the nearby Salt River. They knew the river was there but did not know that it was normally dry by that time. All of the POW’s were recaptured or had surrendered within about a month. Some made to within 10 miles of the Mexican border south of Tucson. The last one picked up was the senior officer of the group, Capt. Jürgen Wattenberg, an accomplished U-boat commander. He was arrested in Phoenix on Jan. 28, 1945. By the mid 1960’s all of the original buildings were gone. On the east side of 64th Street lay a subdivision over a portion of the old camp. West of 64th Street we boys found evidence of the structures. Not far from the intersection of 64th Street and McDowell Rd. there were four concrete pads that looked like they might have been footings for a guard tower. The map shown here (lower left with the overlay of the camp) shows a guard tower in that location. We found the crumbling foundations of long gone buildings and a shallow sewer system where the ball parks are now. By comparing old maps and maps from the present day it is possible to trace the approximate location the 178 ft. (54m) tunnel. It appears that it started where home is located today near the intersection of Sheridan St. and 66th St. just west of the canal. My boyhood home was near 68th Street and Monte Vista close to Tonalea Elementary. I recall my father saying that he had heard that occasionally, even in the 1960’s, portions of old tunnel were still collapsing into small sinkholes in homeowners yards. I don’t know if that was true. A very good book about the escape is “The Faustball Tunnel” by John Hammond Moore.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 18:09:44 +0000
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