[1][2] Fort Stanton, located about seven miles northeast of Capitan, was an old United States Army post from the Wild West days, but when World War II began, a camp was built at the site for German and Japanese internees.

The Germans built four barracks, a kitchen, a mess hall, a laundry room, lavatories and washrooms, shops, an officer's quarters, and a medical dispensary.

[2] There were a few escape attempts before and after the incident in November 1942; the Germans "climbed fences, walked off work details, or dug tunnels," but all of the escapees were caught and returned to the camp.

[1][2] On the night of November 1, 1942, Bruno Dathe, Willy Michel, Hermann Runne, and Johannes Grantz managed to sneak out of the camp, using the darkness as cover, and make their way south towards the border.

[1][4][5] The following was reported in the November 3, 1942 edition of the Tucson Daily Citizen: German seamen prisoners in a federal detention camp at Fort Stanton were trapped by armed possemen in the mountains west of here today [fol]lowing their escape Sunday night[.]

Armed men at once departed for the scene only a few miles from Fort [Stan]ton Given The [F]ederal Bureau of [Investiga]tion gave the names... Bruno Dathe Willy Michel Hermanne Runne and Johannes Grantz[.]

They are among some 400 [men] interned by the government at Fort Stanton after they scuttled their ship, the German liner [Col]lumbus in the Atlantic at the out-break of the war in Europe They were brought to the central New Mexico mountains here from San Francisco[.]

(sic)[4]The following appeared in the November 4, 1942, edition of the Montreal Gazette: A mounted, gun-toting posse of ranchers and cattlemen rounded up and corralled four escaped German prisoners from the federal internment camp at Fort Stanton today.

On[e] prisoner was wounded slightly in a brief exchange of gunfire as the posse surprised the sleeping Germans on a hillside in the Lincoln National Forest about 14 miles from Fort Stanton.