On the night of December 23, 1944, twenty-five Germans tunneled out of Camp Papago Park, near Phoenix, Arizona, and fled into the surrounding desert.

[1][4] Many of the men in the officers' compound were U-boat sailors, including the commander, Captain Jürgen Wattenberg, who was the highest-ranking German prisoner at the camp.

Wattenberg was not alone though: The American commander of the camp made the mistake of putting all of the most troublesome and escape-prone inmates in the officers' compound together, instead of dispersing them.

"[1][3][6][7] Wattenberg began planning an escape as soon as he arrived at the camp, and he chose the blind spot to be the site of the tunnel's entrance.

To hide the entrance of the tunnel, the Germans removed part of the wooden wall inside the bathhouse and placed a large box full of coal in front of it.

Wattenberg asked the Americans to give his men tools, such as shovels, ostensibly for work in their gardens and the construction of a volleyball field, but really for use in the tunnel.

At first, the Germans flushed the dirt down the toilets, hid it in the attics, or dropped it down their pant legs into the gardens, but after the tunnel started getting long they began spreading it out on the volleyball field.

When the Germans completed their tunnel on December 20, it measured 178 feet (54 m) long, from the bathhouse east to the Cross Cut Canal, with a 6-foot (1.8 m) vertical entrance shaft.

Wattenberg managed to secure new clothing and fake documents for his men, including contact information for people in Mexico who would help them get back to Germany.

He also rationed food in order to save some for the escape, and made arrangements to have other prisoners who were staying behind to create a distraction with loud celebrations on the night of December 23.

The American commander did not accept this and put the entire compound on a restricted diet for every day the officers refused to appear.

Soon after, several hundred soldiers, FBI agents, and Papago Indian scouts were mobilized for what the Phoenix Gazette called "the greatest manhunt in Arizona history."

Günther, Clarus, and Utzolino, were caught on January 8 after the latter decided that a canal near the town of Gila Bend would be a good place to wash his underwear.

Instead of heading south, Wattenberg and two of his subordinates, Walter Kozur and Johann Kremer, made shelter in a cave in the mountains north of Phoenix.

None of the American guards were seriously punished, but the FBI launched an investigation into lax security at Arizona's prisoner of war camps.

The Arizona Military Museum, located on the base, features a display describing the camp and the story of the escape.