‘Greatest Escapes With Arturo Castro’ Episode 14: The Volleyball Escape

Mental Floss is partnering with FilmNation and iHeartPodcasts to bring you the transcripts for Greatest Escapes, a podcast hosted by Arturo Castro about some of the wildest escape stories across history. In this episode, Ophira Eisenberg (comedian and host of Parenting is a Joke podcast) partners with Arturo as they head back to World War II and recap the biggest escape to ever occur from an American POW camp. (Spoiler Alert: The good guys still come out victorious!) Read all the transcripts here.

1. Ophira’s Escape
2. CHAPTER 1: Shifting Rocks
3. CHAPTER 2: Trucked
4. CHAPTER 3: Blind Spots
5. CHAPTER 4: The Devil’s Playground
6. CHAPTER 5: Hi Ho, Hi Ho
7. CHAPTER 7: Capturing the Fugitives, Ending the War
8. Outro
9. Credits

Arturo Castro: This is Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories. Now today we’re heading back to World War II and the biggest escape from an American prisoner of war camp. I’m Arturo Castro, and today I’m joined by the comedian, Canadian, and public radio sensation Ophira Eisenberg.

Hi, Ophira. Thank you so much for doing this.

Ophira Eisenberg: Hi!

Arturo: I’m so happy to see you. Uh, we’ve met once before when you were hosting Ask Me Another.

Ophira: Live on stage!

Arturo: Yes. And Topher Grace was on that podcast with me and he wiped the floor with me, uh, because it was a bunch of cereal questions, but I had a f***ing blast. And you were so good.

Ophira: It was a trivia show. Don’t make—don’t make people think it was a cereal podcast. It was a trivia show.

Arturo: Yeah, we were talking about kidnapping and suddenly he just started—he started asking him questions about cereal.

Ophira: It was super weird.

Ophira’s Escape

Arturo: Let me ask you something. What—what do you consider to be your greatest escape?

Ophira: You have a little bit of an idea of this. So I was living in Toronto–

Arturo: Right.

Ophira: –and I decided that I wanted to live in New York. Every standup comic and actor that I saw leave Toronto would do this thing where they would throw a goodbye party for themselves and then they would be like, “see you later, I’m going to pilot season in LA” or “see you later, like, I’m gonna go make it.”

Arturo: My heart breaks.

Ophira:  And yeah. And then some of them never moved back and many of them did.

Arturo: Oh man, like—it’s about having to come back with a tail between your legs, because I think most people, when they move for an artistic reason, every—you got everybody saying like, “OK, like, f***ing see you in about a month.”

Ophira: Right?

So I concocted this plan. I go to get this rental car the next day, and I started driving towards the border just being like–

Arturo: “You’ll never see me again!”

Ophira: “I’m going to America. I’m gonna make it in New York City, baby.” And, uh, I got to the border to apply for this visa and the guy said, “what are you applying for?” I said, “graphic designer.” He goes, “where’s the evidence of your work?”

And I was like, “ev–evidence of my work?” And he goes, “well, did you go to school in graphic design, or … ?” I was like, “no, no. I went to school in cultural anthropology.”

And he was like, “But it’s OK. Just go back home to Toronto and just get the stuff together and bring it back. Like you can bring it back later today, you could bring it back tomorrow.”

Arturo: What’d you do?

Ophira: Well, the line was really, really long to get back to go to Canada. And then I just saw a sign that said Buffalo Airport, 40 miles. And so I just gunned it and looked in my rear view mirror the whole time going, like, “this can’t be happening. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening. Did I just blow through a border?” And, uh, I was shaking the whole time and I dropped off the car at the Buffalo Airport rental car. Did you know you could do that? You could drop a rental car off anywhere for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

Arturo: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna—I was gonna say. for a fee and a small child, uh, your firstborn. And you got away with it!?

Ophira: I seem to have gotten away with it as I sit here right now.

Arturo: Oh my God. But what—like, what a stroke of luck that after all that, you’re suddenly in New York waiting to make it, baby.

Ophira: He’s like, “now I’m gonna learn how to do graphic design.”

CHAPTER 1: Shifting Rocks

Arturo: And now let me tell you about the story of our greatest escape. Are you ready?

Ophira: I want to hear it.

Arturo: Let’s do it.

So for our story, we’re headed down to America’s southern border to a sweep of land that covers 1500 acres outside Phoenix, Arizona.

Today, it’s called “Papago Park,” and it’s a beautiful area covered with large jagged rock formations that rise up out of the red soil.

Now, why did the American government take that land, besides because it was filled with beautiful buttes? It was to—to build weird sh*t, of course. Like a strange white pyramid tomb for Arizona’s first governor George Hunt.

Ophira: He’s like being a king. He’s like, “I want all the buttes!”

Arturo: “All the buttes around me.”

Ophira: “All the buttes of Arizona, mine!”

Arturo: So the government put an Army base in Papago Park, but eventually, that base became a prison. And part of the reason that they made that switch is that when they were building they had trouble digging in the rocky ground, so they even had to like, blast it with dynamite to get through. So they thought that it was, uh, escape proof. You know, they’re like, “we’re not gonna give them dynamite. We’re not that stupid, right?”

Ophira: “Every prisoner just gets one stick.”

Arturo: “And it was a coyote pushing that thing down. It was so wild.”

Ophira: Oh, it’s my favorite cartoon.

Arturo: So in 1944, the prison was used to hold German prisoners of war, right?

Ophira: Ahh.

Arturo: When they arrived at Papago Park in January that year, they were put to work doing manual labor. In the spring, they were digging canals, and in the summer, they were hired by local farmers to do things like pick potatoes, and pack antelope, and bail hay and of course entertain them by doing the patented German “untz untz” dance …

Ophira: Did you say antelopes, by the way? Did you say pack–

Arturo: Yeah, they—they kept packing antelopes into these massive surfaces. Um, they were like–

Ophira: I was like “the antelopes would’ve, uh, grooved out to those tunes.”

Arturo: Life in the prison was fairly routine for these soldiers, right? And despite the fact that they were enemy combatants, security was uh, somewhat lax. Pretty lax, I’d say. Prisoners were always moving in and out for work, and the prison guards were confident that no real escapes were possible. OK, this is foreshadowing a little bit, but the show is about escapes, right? So also, what the f***, man? How do you let these sociopaths out of—like, to go pack antelopes? Like, that’s unacceptable on so many levels.

Ophira: No. And also, is Arizona not a prison in itself? Do they actually need another thing?

Arturo: That’s it. Exactly. So which brings us to the fall of 1944 when the prison plumber responsible for maintaining the sewage plant noticed something weird.

[Plumbing sounds]

The person—oh, is that sound of a f***ing—oh, that is nasty. The prison–

[More plumbing sounds]

So, yeah. Yeah. I think that’s good. Thank you.

Ophira: It’s so funny why that’s such an innocuous noise and we’re both just totally creeped out by it.

Arturo: Oh my God. It’s just, I don’t know, because it’s like … once you say sewage and you hear that, you just think poop. I do.

Ophira: Brown and bubbly.

Arturo: Yeah. So the prison sewage pipes kept getting clogged. He would open them up, clear them out, and find that they were blocked with packed dirt and rocks. He was maybe like, slightly annoyed, but he wasn’t gonna replace the whole prison sewage system just to fix where dirt was getting in, which is what he thought was happening. But actually, though, what the plumber was seeing was the first sign of a massive attempt to escape. It was a breakout scheduled for Christmas 1944.

CHAPTER 2: Trucked

Arturo: Actually, there had already been an escape attempt at Papago Park. Within the first month of arriving, five Germans hid in an army truck and tried to sneak out of the prison so they could head for the southern border. They were hoping they could catch a ship back to Germany from the Mexican port. It’s like these guys really wanted to get back into the fight, y’know? It kinda tells us, like, who was being kept in this place.

Ophira: What kind of person! Yeah. Like, also there—there … wasn’t there one guy that was just like, “I don’t know. Why don’t we just wait it out for a second?”

Arturo: I love that they’re being like, honor system about this. “Like, um, yeah, actually, yeah. No, they’re—they’ll come back. I know they, they love antelopes. They love cantaloupe. Cause they love the buttes.”

Ophira: “They love them all. Yeah. The—yeah. The buttes are nice. Do you know what they had before? Did they have buttes? Have you seen the sky in Arizona?”

Arturo: Um, so two of them were arrested in Tucson, but the others made it all the way to Mexico before they were stopped. When they were returned to the prison, the guards hadn’t even realized that they were gone. Can you f***ing believe?

Ophira: Those were the top notch guards.

Arturo: They’re like, “oh, I don’t—that’s awkward. I, I thought I just tucked you in, well, silly, silly. Come back in … ”

Ophira: Oh my god.

Arturo: So word got out to the local papers, inspections around the prison found just how free and easy things were. Roll call wasn’t taken seriously, and prison gates were left unlocked and some of the German prisoners of war were allowed to drive trucks. Ugh. So they could go in and outta the prison regularly as part of their work.

Ophira: This is the best prison ever.

Arturo: Don’t you think that like, when you’re guarding literal Nazis, you’d be a little more f***ing eye on the ball kid, you know?

Ophira: It sounds a little bit like summer camp.

Arturo: Yeah. And so they also had crocheting, um–

Ophira: Yeah, exactly. They got to swim.

Arturo: They got to swim, they made friends. Um, so the lackadaisical attitude towards security was especially f***ing nuts, right, because the prison held German naval officers and in particular the commanders of German submarines called U-boats.

Ophira: Mm-hmm.

Arturo: German U-boats commanders were hardcore, and they were the most ruthless and most fanatical officers in the German Navy. They had to be the kind of men able to live in a metal tube underwater for days and weeks at a time, and they had to be fanatical and Nazis willing to sink civilian ships without mercy. Some real evil sh*t. And they had to also be highly trained engineers who were capable of fixing broken-down systems underwater without any help from—from the outside.

Ophira: And they still found these guys with those three insane criteria.

Arturo: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t think I could be in a tube underwater. Do you think you could ever survive like, in a submarine or sign up for that? That kind of duty?

Ophira: I think in the beginning you would go crazy and then as time went on, you’d be like, “you know what? Tube’s looking nice today.”

Arturo: Yeah. To the—from the inside you’re like, “wow, this—this turquoise was really brings out your eyes.”

Ophira: But I just think—I really do think, like, the weirdest thing is that humans are unbelievably flexible, and that if some—if you just go like 20 more, 20 more days in a tube, like … I would need to do some hash marks on the wall.

Arturo: Oh yeah, that’s what—that’s what you would—in a prison too? That’s what you would do. That’s–

Ophira: Yeah. But I would also do it in the tube. It would be a … a different form of prison.

Arturo: Glad that we know how you would spend your days inside a submarine.

Ophira: And I’d be like, “you know what? I can meditate in the morning.” Like, I’d find the upsides.

Arturo: Nobody’s asking you to do sh*t, like—so in this submarine, in this scenario, nobody wants you to do anything around the submarine. You’re just kinda like there and like, having like … just like, working on yourself, you know, working on–

Ophira: It’s me time. It’s me time, baby.

Arturo: It’s me time underwater.

These U-boats, right, because they’re filled with f***ing psychopaths—they’re filled with guys like Jurgen Wattenberg and he was a naval officer who already had one prison escape under his belt. Also, I’d like to think that he only responded to his name when it was like, yodeled at him, like “Jurgen. Hi, I’m Jurgen.” Like, it’s just like hard to find somebody scared like, “hi, I’m Juhurgen. Hi, I’m Johurgen.” Um–

Ophira: He seems so nice, so gentle.

Arturo: “Uh, look, he’s—he’s stroking the antelope in such a beautiful way.”

So at the beginning of the war, Jurgen was one—was on the crew of a German battleship. His crew lost a fight off the coast of Uruguay, and Wattenberg navigated his damaged ship to land, but was captured. He escaped from a prison there and made his way back to Germany where he was treated like a f***ing hero–

Ophira: Oh, yeah.

Arturo: –and then trained to command a German submarine, right?

Jurgen’s U-boat sank 14 ships in 1942, including a lot of civilian cargo ships. He was finally captured northeast of Trinidad and sent to the desert with the first batch of German soldiers in 1944. So when people like Wattenberg were slipping out of the American prison, and riding around in trucks, it did actually ruffle some feathers in the Army ranks. They made some changes to the security of Papago Park—for instance, the most uncooperative of the prisoners were all put together into a single area of the prison: Compound 1A.

Ophira: That’s what I would do. Take all the baddies and put ’em together so they can scheme.

Arturo: Stupid f***ing idea, huh?

Ophira: Yes!

Arturo: They’re like, “nah, they’re, they’re, they’re all the worst. Yeah. Put ’em there together. They’ll learn from each other.”

Ophira: I mean, that is–

Arturo: “They’ll be real scared.”

Ophira: Yeah, right. They’re—right, exactly. So they can all chat and be like, “who’s got the best idea? Perfect. You.”

Arturo: So the American prison guards continued to underestimate the prisoners. And that was a mistake with serious consequences.

CHAPTER 3: Blind Spots

Arturo: When German prisoners were captured by the Americans during World War II, the first stop was Fort Hunt in Virginia, where they would be questioned thoroughly. When it came to German submarine officers, the U.S. Navy would take the first crack at questioning them. So they’re hoping to learn everything from submarine technology to fleet movements, secret codes and training methods, and astrology signs, stuff like that. So what do you think the U.S. military was doing to make German prisoners talk during World War II?

Ophira: I guess you could go two tactics. It could be torture. That would be the—that would be like, one tactic just to torture them. And the other tactic would be, like, uh, butter them up, make ’em your friends so they would give you all the information.

Arturo: That’s exactly what [they] did. They, in order to get ’em to talk, the Navy interrogators made them super comfortable.

They housed them in cozy rooms where they had plenty of food and books and magazines at their disposal. They had a swimming pool, playing cards, cigarettes, and liquor. This is not a joke. Can you f***ing believe?

Ophira: Oh. Yep.

Arturo: So this was during wartime rationing too. So imagine how you would’ve felt if you were a New Yorker at the time and you heard that this is what they were getting when everybody else had to like tighten their belts, you know?

Ophira: Right, back then all the New Yorkers had to eat the garbage food of the time, which was oysters.

Arturo: Oysters. Yeah. They were all feasting on lobsters and oysters and we’re like, “what the f***? They—they get meatloaf?” Also, you know, not to go on a full tangent, but, uh, I don’t think people talk a lot about how instrumental the Canadian Army and Canadian military was in winning World War II.

Ophira: Yeah, thank you.

Arturo: My grandfather or my grand—or my step grandfather I guess, was—fought, and so did all of his brothers from Owen Sound. And it’s incredible what they did on D-Day. And I don’t think in movies—I mean, in movies, they’re barely mentioned, but I … I just don’t think it’s in the general psyche.

Ophira: Because Canada, if you think about right now, we don’t think of a Canadian military presence or even a lot of money put towards military, or that even being talked about. I have been asked before, you know, like, “well, what–”

Arturo: “Canadian ar—army. What?”

Ophira: Yeah. “What?” And sometimes I just say, “yeah, we have a cannon in one of our museums.”

Arturo: Another thing that they used to, to butter these guys up is that one American Navy guy, uh, let sex workers in to entertain some of their German prisoners

Ophira: Well, listen, I would’ve—I would’ve chopped, like, forget about the pool. Just do sex workers and cigarettes. Like why? Why are you spending your money on the rest of it?

Arturo: Yeah, so when things inside the prison felt like they were actually turning peaceful in the fall of 1944, the guards really should have known that they were being lulled into a false sense of security. They even ignored this big sign that said “ve vant to escape.” It didn’t seem to like really register with them. They’re like, “that’s weird.”

Ophira: “We are escaping.” It just—crossed out, all the time.

Arturo: “It’s happening soon,” and they’re like, “oh my God, their, their arts and crafts have really improved, you guys!”

Ophira: “That’s true. I like all these signs. I feel like it’s like word art.”

Arturo: They seem like, you know, Amy—Amy Poehler and Mean Girls where she’s like, “I’m cool mom.” Like, they’re like, “I’m just like, cool. I’m just like here to support.”

Ophira: “I love that they have positive affirmations. You know what? We’re all escaping!”

Arturo: “You are seen, you are loved.”

One American officer in charge of security at Papago Park would later say that he had a bad feeling about Compound 1A. Oh yeah.

Ophira: Oh, a bad feeling!

Arturo: Oh, a bad feeling. Good for you, champ. You hero, go on.

Ophira: That is a what? That’s a number-one attribute I’m looking for in a guard. “Hey, do you—do you ever have bad feelings about things?”

Arturo: “I’m not gonna go check, but man, I feel kind of uneasy about it, might be the oysters that they keep shipping down from New York.”

Ophira: “Does anyone else feel queasy?”

Arturo: Mostly because there was a place in the middle—he felt bad because there was a place in the middle that—of it that couldn’t be seen from any of the guard towers. So in other words, it was a blind spot.

Ophira: That was known, a known blind spot.

Arturo: And they’re like, “guys, that doesn’t seem like a good idea, but I’m not gonna go look in there.”

Ophira: “Let’s ignore the blind spot. How about you?”

Arturo: So—so the security officer later said that he knew that the Germans were too smart not to notice a blind spot, and he thought it didn’t make any sense to put all the smartest prisoners right next to it.

Ophira: Oh my—this is the comedy of errors in prison style.

Arturo: This should tell you something about this guy. He also said that the Nazis were a bunch of fine men, so f*** that guy.

Ophira: Well we know, we—I see what’s happening here.

Arturo: You don’t understand what they’re getting. I feel like they were enamored. There’s enamorment by these prison guards.

Ophira: Whose side were they on? Where’s the mole?

Arturo: Where’s the mole? Oh my God, I love that reality TV series. Don’t get me started.

Ophira: Oh, it was great.

Arturo: So good. So they really should have known better than putting all the most angry, most troublesome, the most dedicated Nazis together in one compound. But for some reason, that’s exactly what they f***ing did.

CHAPTER 4: The Devil’s Playground

Arturo: The first thing that the German captains did in Compound 1A was a little landscaping. They started plotting out flower beds and generally working on a plan to beautify the place or so it seemed. The other part of the routine was whining. That’s true. The guards started getting regular complaints from Jurgen Wattenberg. He whined about the food, he whined about the work. He mostly whined that he was a high-ranking officer and he didn’t think it was fair that he was being treated like a prisoner. He especially didn’t like it when low-ranking guards were telling him what to do. And just, uh, God. Can you believe?

Ophira: Wow. So what did they do to make him feel better? I know they were on it. I know they were like, “we have a problem, everybody.”

Arturo: I love that you’re like, “I know that that they didn’t let him—they did not let this one man go through such suffering.”

Ophira: Anything I know about this story is they were like, “I—everyone, meet—emergency meeting!”

Arturo: They were like, “oh my God, we’re so, so, so embarrassed.”

Ophira: “Jurgen is sad.”

Arturo: Jurgen is [laughs]—“you guys, you guys, sorry. Yeah.” “Is it a report about the war?” “No, no, no. It’s worse. Jurgen.”

Ophira: “Jurgen’s sad. He doesn’t wanna plant daffodils today.”

Arturo: So it wasn’t a surprise when one day Jurgen approached the camp commander and asked for some shovels, for the—for the flower bed, you know?

Ophira: And of course they were like, “we will give you the biggest, heaviest shovels.”

Arturo: “Oh my God. Do you need a tractor? Because I—I have one. This, it’s all–”

Ophira: “We have these guns that look like shovels. Do you want those?”

Arturo: Oh my God. So for somehow oddball reason, the Army guards decided that they should f***ing agree. And yes, the gardening tools were supposed to be under close watch, but still–

Ophira: Nothing is! How can the gardening–

Arturo: Nothing is!

Ophira: How can the gardening–

Arturo: None of them happened to notice when a pickax went missing and the gardens were popping up all over the–

Ophira: Wait a second. It’s not like in the—like a classic movie where you look at the shed and there’s a shadow of where the pickax was supposed to go–

Arturo: Like—yeah, exactly.

Ophira: –on the wall, and you’re like, “ah.”

Arturo: And they’re like “what is this? Oh, well, it must be what an interesting design the—the shed maker, uh, created here.”

So the—they were popping out everywhere with the gardens. There’s gardens everywhere. So that’s when the Germans came up with the next idea. They asked the guards if they could have a sports field in their compound. They needed more digging tools and also rakes that they could use to smooth out the dirt into a nice level playing field.

Ophira: Oh, and what are they playing exactly?

Arturo: Oh, oh, well, take a guess, what do you think they’re playing?

Ophira: Uh, I think they’re playing, uh … hide all of the tools and maybe killing, uh, the guards so they can escape.

Arturo: They started creating a volleyball court in the middle of Compound 1A.

Ophira: Volleyball, yeah.

Arturo: And at least that’s what it looked like to the guards. I mean, they’re like, yeah. But they called it the “volleyball-courten.” And behind their backs, the German U-boat crews were actually working on a different project—surprise, surprise. They were actually working furiously to dig a tunnel under the prison fence.

Ophira: Yes!

Arturo: Do you know where it started?

Ophira: Um–

Arturo: In the blind spot.

Ophira: Yeah, of course. I—I was just gonna say the compound where all the smarty pants are.

Arturo: A hundred and fifty percent.

Ophira: Evil, evil, smarty pants dudes.

Arturo: Yeah, and it was right next to the bathhouse. So to get easy access, the prisoners loosened the boards in the bathhouse wall. Anytime they were going into their tunnel, they would walk in the door of their bathhouse, sneak out to the back wall, and then get to work. And when they were done, it was back into the bathhouse and out the door again. Imagine if you’re a guard and, you’re just like, thinking that the Germans are showering for like, three hours at a time.

Ophira: I think we have established these guards are not thinking.

Arturo: No.

Ophira: They’re not thinking at all.

Arturo: They’re like, “man, guys get really clean.”

Ophira: Are you sure the sex workers weren’t hanging out with the guards? Because these guards seem oblivious to their job.

Arturo: They are just completely distracted. They were playing—the guards were playing volleyball this entire time. They were just–

Ophira: Like, “we love playing with them. They’re very good at volleyball.”

Arturo: So the biggest challenge for the digging Nazis was what to do with the dirt as they made progress on the tunnel.

Ophira: Oh.

Arturo: And at first they tried flushing it down the toilets in the bathhouse–

Ophira: Yeah.

Arturo: –but as you know, it clogged the pipes–

[Toilet burble sound]

Ophira: Simple mistake.

Arturo: –and risked their plans. Don’t—don’t do that sound again, please. I will f***ing die. Stop. Oh my god.

Ben: It’s a real sh*tty sound. Sorry, dude.

Arturo: Oh my God. So what’s … what—I’m … listen: this is not a question of mine, but my producers want me to do it. So what is your best/worst clogged toilet experience?

Ophira: Oh my God.

Arturo: My God.

Ophira: OK. I have one. It’s very female-centric. I’m not embarrassed by it, but I bet you will be.

Arturo: I’m not. Three sisters. Go. Shoot.

Ophira: That’s true. OK. So I’m a, uh, a budding young teen. And, uh, I have a period like—like young teens do, and I’m still getting used to how, uh, how everything works with the products.

Arturo: Right.

Ophira: And basically, you know, we lived in a house that had a very, um, ancient sewer system that you were not–

Arturo: It was one of those, you had to pull the chain, like, it was like, the Godfather type.

Ophira: Yeah, right. It was a sleeve on a pipe. Uh, but no, it was always like, you know, don’t even like, put the good toilet paper down it kind of thing. But, you know, I’m a—I’m a young teenage girl. I’m on the run and I’m self-obsessed with me. And I had my own room in the basement and there was a toilet there. And anyways, it got clogged up. It was overflowing. Basically, um, flooded the entire basement, but it wasn’t … nothing could be seen. What—it was just water. And so my mother had to, you know, hire a plumber. They went into another room in the basement, took apart these ancient pipes that hadn’t been taken apart in hundreds of years. Yeah, there was like lead poisoning warnings, and then they pulled out one super tampon.

Arturo: Holy smokes.

Ophira: It was, uh, it was rinsed clean, so it was just white in case you–

Arturo: I mean, I don’t care what it was, I—I’m just surprised by the f***ing expansion–

Ophira: It was basically like a—a cotton umbrella had opened up inside of that pipe.

Arturo: Were you dying as a teenage girl when you found this out?

Ophira: I was like, I—full denial. Full denial. “Oh, I—I don’t use those.”

Arturo: “That was Dad, that was f***ing Dad … and we need to talk about what the f*** he’s doing in those bathrooms.” Also, it didn’t help with the plumbers were all shirtless and incredibly hot. Like, so wild.

Ophira: Yeah, there was men as far as the eye could see in every direction.

Arturo: The clog[ged] pipes bring us to the flower beds in the volleyball court. Once those projects had been approved, the German prisoners started smuggling dirt out in the open. Right—raking it evenly across the volleyball court and mixing it into the planting soil. Once the guards got used to seeing piles of dirt scattered around, they didn’t really think much of it. Even when the piles seemed to never get any smaller, they’re like, “ah, that’s f***ing weird.” The digging prisoners took it in turns to work through October, November, and into December. Outside the fence, there was a drainage ditch they had to get past, which meant that the tunnel had to go even deeper underground. Now to light the tunnel, the Germans used a single bulb on the bare wire that connected back through the tunnel into a socket in the bathhouse.

Ophira: Are you kidding me? They had like a—they—well, I guess engineers and all this working together.

Arturo: Of course the water and bare wiring meant that the wire shocked them as they work[ed], which makes me f***ing laugh. Now, digging the tunnel was only one part of the preparations. The Germans had also started storing food, maps, and other supplies for the journey. They forged papers by making U.S. government stamps that they could use to approve documents. Looking at the map–

Ophira: I’m sorry, did you say they made them?

Arturo: Yes, they forged papers by making government stamps.

Ophira: They’re—this is not just flower beds and … what is happening in these rocks? What kind of–

Arturo: I know. It’s just like, you know—they have that military mentality and like sort of like, f***ing–

Ophira: You know, and every day they’re just asking for more materials. They’re like, “we’re gonna need some, uh, paper. We’re–”

Arturo: “It’s not related, but we’re gonna need a swimsuit. Uh, we’re gonna need, uh, we’re gonna need a … do you guys have a vacuum cleaner up here?”

Ophira: “Do you have a printing press? We—we’re gonna need a printing press.”

Arturo: It was the beginning of 3D printing. Not a lot of people know this.

So looking at the map, three of the Germans even decided that they were gonna build a boat. They saw that the Gila River ran south into Mexico. So they plan to carry a raft through the tunnel and use it to float to freedom. God.

Ophira: Wow.

Arturo: So, OK, this is crazy. They tested out each part of their boat in the prison bathtub before disassembling it to be carried through the tunnel.

Ophira: What kind of beautiful, large-size bathtub—first of all, prisons don’t have bathtubs.

Arturo: It was claw foot. It was just always just, like, palm trees around.

Ophira: Fantastic.

Arturo: So one of the craziest things the Germans engineered was a makeshift radio receiver. They used wire, razor blades, and other salvaged pieces of equipment, and they tapped into the prison’s barbed wire fence to use it as an antenna. The radio receiver was so effective that they were able to pick up Nazi radio broadcasts from the German propaganda ministry. It allowed them to follow the news of the war from the Nazi perspective. Can you believe?

Ophira: I—how—I mean, again, why did they have to do all of this? They could have just said, “we need a radio and a transmitter.”

Arturo: They’re like—they’re going—you’re right. Why didn’t they just ask?

Ophira: They just—they’re getting everything else. Like, “I need it for … I need to—I like to talk to people when I—I’m bathing.”

Arturo: Yeah. Like, “Hey Sandy, how—how is it going? How is little Jurgen?”

Ophira: Oh my God.

Arturo: Also, like, I don’t know, you know, not—not because of the story, but it’s just in general. I have some friends that are so handy at building sh*t outta nothing, and I just realized how ill-equipped I would be for the apocalypse, you know what I’m saying? I’d just like be wandering around, [being] like, “does anybody need acting?”

Ophira: Oh dude, trust me. I have thought about this a million times. I’d be like, “I’m gonna lighten the mood.”

Arturo: So because they had a radio when the Nazi Army launched the Battle of the Bulge in Europe in December 1944, the prisoners in Compound 1A were able to follow along and celebrate the advance of the German tanks across Belgium. Which in and of itself, the Battle of the Bulge was a f***ing insane plan by a drug-addicted Hitler. And I don’t know how—how much you know about it, but–

Ophira: I don’t. Matter of fact, when you said “Battle of the Bulge,” I was like, “that’s where we got it from?”

Arturo: Yeah, I hope not.

Ophira: Because I was just like, “I’ve only heard this in context of like, dumb weight loss, but obviously it’s–”

Arturo: Oh really? I have never heard the term outside of the—outside of the battle. Basically, he knew he was losing the war, he was losing in the east and now he had gotten invaded in D-Day in the west. So f***ing absolute meth head that he was, he decided to throw everything, everything he had–

Ophira: Full court press.

Arturo: Full court press so that they could make it to the port, but they were all the way backed out to Germany, I believe. And it worked at first, which is the crazy thing. They threw all their tanks, every available tank commanders over to the Allies. And then in the Ardennes Forest was when they finally stopped because nobody sent them with extra fuel. They just had to calculate that they have enough fuel to get to a port and then capture the fuel supplies. But if it didn’t work, there’s just no point to this f***ing advance, because if they had no fuel, it would get f***ed.

Ophira: Yeah, just done.

Arturo: Number one. And number two, they didn’t have enough troops to hold any of this territory. So it was literally just an insane f***ing–

Ophira: Suicide for all these people.

Arturo: It was just scary kind of to the Allies because you’re getting attacked outta another. You’re just like, “you can’t f***ing win this. Why are we fighting?” And it just goes to show you how fanatical people were in listening to every order, even if it made no sense, and it meant their death. So now that, you know, I—I love this. Some World War II historians are gonna fact check the sh*t outta me.

Ophira: If anyone writes in to fact check you on anything, just realize you’ve made their day, giving them a reason.

Arturo: That is it. That’s it. They’ve spent 24 hours.

Ophira: They’re so happy right now.

Arturo: “Actually veh veh veh…”

So back in the German camp, well, five days before Christmas, the tunnel was complete. Both ends were disguised with boards and brush, and it was time to put the rest of their escape plan into action.

CHAPTER 5: Hi Ho, Hi Ho

On the night of December 23, 1944, the German prisoners threw a party next door in compound 1B. The guards tried to shut them down a few times, so they were busy going in and out of compound 1B all night.

Ophira: A few times! How about one? Here’s how it works at a prison: one!

Arturo: “Guys, stop so, so loud.”

Ophira: “All right. It’s fun. It’s fun. I get it.”

Arturo: So the quiet—the quiet compound 1A got no attention. Just before 9 p.m. the escape plan began.

The 25 soldiers organized into small three-man flight groups and started dropping down into the tunnel. The tunnel was almost 200 feet long, and it crossed under two lines of fences, and even the perimeter road that went around the park. It took more than half an hour for each group to crawl through to the other side. Prisoners who stayed behind in Papago Park closed up the tunnel once they were through.

What would you think if you were just one of the dudes that was left behind, like, “but you are coming back, right? Like, I just went here.”

Ophira: Well, this looks like they’re like, “you guys threw a party while we escape.” I’d be like, “That–No, no. Wait a second. No, no.”

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re like, “oh you guys escaped? That was what the party was for?” Like, people that were oblivious to it were like, “wait, what the—I was having a f***ing great time.”

Ophira: Yeah. With just, like, a blower. Just like, “whoa, hey. Oh.”

Arturo: Uh, the far end of the tunnel opened into a clump of bushes on the bank of a nearby canal. As the men started to emerge, they found that it was raining super hard. It was a cold December desert rain, but all the same, it would help screen their escape.

Ophira: So they even got lucky with the weather. That never happens.

Arturo: For—just for a little while. As each flight group had made it through the passage, they slid down into the canal where the water was about 3 feet deep. If they stayed low, the escapees could then wade quietly forward, and the canal banks would keep them out of sight for—from any prison guards looking their way.

How the f*** the Army thought that this was inescapable when there’s like an escape highway right outside? I, I will never know.

Ophira: Also like when—when you’re building a tunnel, don’t you think like when you get to the end, like, you wouldn’t just be like, “OK, now I’m gonna go back and wait for the plan.” Wouldn’t you just go, “well, see ya.”

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re like–

Ophira: Just pop out.

Arturo: I don’t—I wouldn’t have the wherewithal to be like—I’m like, “f*** those guys. They’re having a party. I’m just like, I’m—I’m just gonna pelt it out.”

Ophira: “Outta here.”

Arturo: “I’m just gonna run fast and make a lot of noise. I think that’s how you escape.”

So once the Germans moved far enough to be out of sight of the prison, the flight groups went their separate ways. They all look for places to lay low. The three men carrying the pieces of the boat marched west towards Phoenix. They found a public school that was unlocked and they went inside, where they prepared for their journey down the Gila River, which they would reach the very next day. Captain Jurgen Wattenberg took the other two men and marched northwest into the hills around Phoenix. They found a cave where they would hide out and plot their next move. And with that, 25 German Navy men had achieved the largest mass escape from any American prison camp in World War II.

Ophira: Dun dun dun.

Arturo: But for some of these escapees, the journey did not last long. One 22-year-old soldier only lasted one day because after being pounded by cold rain—here we go—drenched in the cold canal and trying to eat a meal of dried bread crumbs that he had packed for himself in his pockets—which is so f***ing stupid and makes me laugh.

Ophira: That’s like ridiculous. One of them was dumb.

Arturo: One of them was incredibly dumb. He was the guy that was like, “I thought we were going back to the party. I don’t know what we were doing out here.”

So he hitchhiked directly to the local sheriff and asked to be brought back to the prison. The sheriff called Papago Park just as prison officials were discovering the missing men the next day. Also, the desert gets really f***ing cold at night. So I’m just thinking particularly in winter, you get rain, you’re uh, f***ed.

Ophira: Can you imagine how great your life is at that prison if you escape and with the taste of freedom, you go, “this is hard. I should go back.”

Arturo: “I’m going back with the sex work stuff and like … yeah, they have baths, they have clawfoot baths, like–”

Ophira: Like no one—no one does that. No one’s like, “I’m a prisoner of war in another country. I escaped and it’s like, feels hard and I’m hungry.”

Arturo: A hundred and fifty percent. You are so f***ing right. Like, there is no prison where you—exactly, where you’re like, where you suddenly don’t have a f***ing five-course meal, and you’re like, “actually I don’t. I—I’m not—it’s not for me.”

Ophira: “This freedom thing. Yeah.”

Arturo: “Not for me.”

Ophira: “I liked it—I liked it when I had friends.”

Arturo: What a great point [you] made. So other flight groups have been less lucky in trying to find spots to hide. So instead of empty schools and farms, at least two of them went directly into a farmhouse and knocked on the door on Christmas Eve asking for food and shelter. They were quickly turned in.

Ophira: Finally!

Arturo:  They’re like, “no, no, no. Not on Christmas.” They’re like, “well, not Christmas. Any other day, yes, we would have you picking cantaloupe.” The Army jumped in–

Ophira: “But today it’s family.”

Arturo: Yeah, that’s right. “Today’s about family,” and it was Vin Diesel actually at the time, catching all of ’em. So they—they called in the FBI, the Border Patrol, and every other agency that would lend a hand. A reward was offered of $25 for each German POW captured. That’s like $400 of today’s money, but I don’t know, man.

Ophira: Yeah. No, not  enough.

Arturo: It doesn’t seem like they were trying very hard, right?

Ophira: No, no. Like I—how much do you get when you win The Voice?

Arturo: They’re like, “I don’t know. We got $20 and a bus pass. Anybody, um, any takers?”

Ophira: Yeah. It should be equivalent to $1 million.

Arturo: A hundred percent. So ranchers, farmers, and local trackers all started combing the desert. Once they found the prisoner’s tracks, it was actually pretty easy. Most of the flight groups were caught as they tried to cross the desert on foot, but deep V shapes had been cut into the soles of the prisoner’s shoes. So their tracks easily stood out. They’re like, “it’s either here or there’s like some mighty offensive ostriches walking around.”

Ophira: Oh, that’s hilarious. No one ever thought to do that, to change their shoes or whatever.

Arturo: Change the shoes, no. So each footprint had a little arrow—like, literally, it had a little arrow pointing in the direction that they went. So–

Ophira: “This way! This way.” This is getting more and more Road Runner every single second.

Arturo: Yeah. But what about the three boatmen?

Ophira: Yeah!

Arturo: You know, they might have actually escaped if there wasn’t a major flaw in their nautical plan. Not with the boat, mind you. That worked great because they tried it out in their beautiful claw foot bathtub. But they dragged it 30 miles over the desert, and finally they’d reached the Gila River. And here, my friends, was the flaw. Germans had assumed that if the map showed a river, they would count on a river. But what they didn’t know was that by December, the Gila River was hardly more than a trickle running through puddles of mud. So there was no way they could float–

Ophira: Dry as one could be.

Arturo: –their f***ing boat. Got you, motherf***ers. [Airhorn] Hey man, I can just—I’m so … it just gives me such joy, like imagining … like try to just like, slush through the sh*t. Like, “it’s not working. It’s not working.”

Ophira: Just thick mud and shale, and you’ve spent hours building a boat out of the finest materials in America.

Arturo: A hundred days. Yeah, you could have been been playing volleyball this entire time.

Ophira: Yeah, smelling roses.

Arturo: They tried to find deeper spots to launch, but they could never go down more than a short stretch of the muddy riverbed before they would get stuck again. Eventually, they abandoned the boat and decided to walk. Two days later when they stopped for a breather, two of the men laid down for a nap, and the third decided he would take a bath and wash his underwear. OK. And that’s what he was doing when the cowboys caught up with him. They literally found him with his pants down.

Ophira: Ah.

CHAPTER 7: Capturing the Fugitives, Ending the War

Arturo: How about the rest of the slippery Nazis? Well, one of the escapees ended up breaking down under questioning and telling the prison guards how it all went down. Following his testimony, they finally discovered the hidden tunnel. The other German prisoners had been hoping that if they didn’t give the tunnel away, the guards would never find it and other prisoners could use it again to escape in the future. Another one of the escapees gave up after he had a run in with a cholla cactus. The spines had dug their way into his foot and he didn’t know how to deal with it. It hurt so f***ing bad that they just asked the farmer to drive them back to the station. Apparently the cholla cactus is also the worst kind of sting.

Ophira: Oh yeah.

Arturo: So f***ing haha, you Nazi piece of sh*t. So just like—so, just like the Battle of the Bulge–

Ophira: A little Tarantino, uh, came into this podcast all of a sudden.

Arturo: Yeah. So, ha ha ha. Yeah. “Hey, what I like, what I like is stories. I like stories cause it’s fun because it’s fun, violence, it’s fun.” So that’s my terrible Quentin Tarantino impression.

Ophira: That was pretty good.

Arturo: Uh, I guess I’m not getting cast on his last film. Sh*t. Um, so just like the Battle of the Bulge, the escape was a big Nazi plan that made splashy headlines before ending in complete f***ing failure.

And the last German caught was whiny little Jurgen Wattenberg. He managed to hide out in his cave until the end of January when he tried to make his way to a train in Phoenix. He went to a hotel, had dinner, and then asked a gas station attendant the way to the train station. Now, fortunately, the attendant had recognized Wattenberg. The Arizona Republic had just published a story about him that morning titled “The Big Shot Still at Large.” When the police stopped Wattenberg, he said, “I’m the big shot you are looking for.”

Ophira: Oh my God. The guy had way too much ego for his own good. Ego killed that dude.

Arturo: F*** that guy. Yeah. So in the end, all of the Germans were recaptured in the state of Arizona. People around Phoenix were especially furious when The Arizona Republic reported some of the escapees were caught with milk, gum, tobacco, and slabs of bacon in their f***ing packs. It was clear—just slabs of some just thick cut bacon.

Ophira: Bacon, which by the way, bacon as you may know, is at—and I’m sure at the time—the, the luxury food. That is the luxury food of all of the foods.

Arturo: Oh my God, I would f***in—there’s very little I won’t do for some thick-cut bacon.

Ophira: It was the most expensive. If you raise pigs, it means that you don’t—you’re, like, because pigs are, um, they don’t do anything else.

Arturo: They just exist and they—they cuddle and then they die for you to have some bacon. Yeah.

Ophira: Yeah. Basically, yeah.

Arturo: All of our vegan—all of our vegan listeners are like, “f*** you guys. We know how it works. We’ve been telling you for centuries.” Sorry, guys.

Um, so it was clear that the prisoners had been given things that were scarce at the time, while most of the country was rationing for the war. The papers made sure to point out that the prison at Papago Park held the most ruthless and fanatical Nazis. For instance, like f***ing Jurgen. After, in 1945, he got sent back to Germany. There, he put his prison experience to good use. He became the branch manager of the Bavaria and St. Pauly Brewery in Lübech.

Ophira: Are you kidding me? This guy—talk about failing up. They talk about men failing up in life, but this guy.

Arturo: Oh my God. But like, Nazis f***ing failing up makes me particularly mad.

Ophira: It’s insanity. A brewery. He’s like, “you know–”

Arturo: They’re like, “give him a beer. Give—OK, fine. We will teach him this lesson. Give him a beer. Give him as many beers as he wants.”

Ophira: “Yeah, Jurgen’s got a couple stories.” Oh, really? Does Jurgen have a couple stories?

Arturo: And the brewery has since been demolished. But the legend says that you can still hear his whiny little sh*tty voice on the southwest wind.

[Wind sound]

That’s it. That’s the sound. That’s the sound. Hear it? “I am Wattenberg.”

Outro

Arturo: And that is our story. Thank you so much, Ophira, for coming.

Ophira: You know what Jurgen is the luckiest–

Arturo: Motherf***er.

Ophira: Complain-iest motherf***er I’ve ever heard about.

Arturo: What is—what is the biggest takeaway from this story? What do you think you’re gonna remember from it?

Ophira: You know, if you look at it from the point of view—is that in the beginning, you know, at one point in the story we were talking about how the Germans were coddled, uh, in order for the Americans to get, um, information out of them, that was the tactic. But if you look at this crazy, like … insanity of the lifestyle they were given, how stupid these guards were in Arizona, you just like—I’m amazed that any of this was possible.

Arturo: Listen, I gotta tell you, this has been some of the most fun I’ve had during an episode.

Ophira: Aw. That’s very sweet. I loved—I loved, I learned a little something, so thank you, Arturo.

Arturo: Thank you. Well, I apparently—when they fact checked me, it turns out that none of this was true. But, uh, we learned—we learned together. But the antelope thing was true. When—uh, for our listeners, where—where can they find you?

Ophira: Oh, they can find me in all the socials, @OphiraE, and uh, I play all around. I’m touring all around. You can also listen to my podcast Parenting is a Joke on iHeart, weekly episodes.

Arturo: Thank you so much, Ophira. We’ll see you next time

Ophira: I’ll see you next time.

Arturo: Bruh bruh brow. [airhorn] And here’s some Oompa music to play us out.

Credits

Arturo Castro: Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and FilmNation Entertainment, in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Arturo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from FilmNation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Whitney Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio.

The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chugg, who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who is our other overlord.

Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Ryzack, Sara Joyner, Nicki Stein, Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright.

Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you’re enjoying the show, please leave a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we’ll see you all next week.