The Volleyball Escape with Ophira Eisenberg

This is great as Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories. Now, today we're heading back to World War Two and the biggest escape from an American prisoner of war camp. I'm Martora Castro and today I'm joined by the comedian Canadian and public radio sization of Fida Eisenberg. Hi you, Fear, I thank you so much doing this. I'm so happy to see you. We've met once before when you were hosting Ask Me Another Live

Don't make don't make people think it was a serial podcast.

It was a trivia show.

Yeah, we were talking about kidnapping, and suddenly he just started he started asking him questions about Cereal.

It was super weird.

Let me ask you something, what do you consider to be your greatest escape?

You have a little bit of idea of this.

So I was living in Toronto and I decided that I wanted to live in New York. Every stand up comic and actor that I saw leave Toronto would do this thing where they would throw up goodbye party for themselves and then they would be like see later, I'm going to pilot season in La or steal later like make it yeah, And then some of them never moved.

Back, and many of them did, oh man, like it's about having to come back with the table to your legs, because I think most people when they move for an artistic reason. Every you got everybody saying like okay, like fucking see you in about a month, 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, you never see me again, go to America.

I'm gonna make it in New York City, baby, yeah.

And I got to the border to apply for this visa.

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, I have evidence of my work and he goes, well, did you go to school in graphic designer? I was like no, no, I went to school in cultural anthropology. And he was like, but it's okay. 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.

What'd you do? 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 forty 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?

Oh my god?

And I was shaking the whole time.

And I dropped off the car at the Buffalo Airport rental car Did you know you can do that? You can drop a rental car off anywhere for hundreds of Yeah, that's.

Going to say, for a fee and a small child of your firstborn. And you got away with it.

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

Oh my god. But like, what a stroke of luck that, after all that, you're suddenly in New York ready to make it. Baby.

He's like, now I'm going to learn how to do graphic design.

And now let me tell you about the story of our great this escape. Are you ready?

I want to hear it.

Let's do it. So far our story, we're heading down to America's southern border, to a sweep of land that covers fifteen hundred acres outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Today, it's called Papago Park and it's this beautiful area covered with large, jagged rock formations the rice 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 build your shit, of course, like a strange white pyramid tomb.

It's like being a king. He's like, I want all the.

Beauty, all the buttes around me, the beautes of Arizona mine.

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 there was escape proof. You know, They're like, we're not going to give them dynamite. We're not that.

Stupid, right, Every prisoner just gets one stick and.

It was a coyote pushing that thing down.

So well, oh, that's my favorite cartoon.

So in nineteen forty four, the prison was used to hold German prisoners of war. Right when they arrived at Papaco 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 analog and bail hey, and of course entertained them by doing the patient in germanoonstans.

Did you say antelopes? By the way, did you.

Say, yeah? They kept packing antelopes into these massive surfaces.

I was like the antelopes would have grooved out to those tombs.

So life in the prison was fairly routine for these soldiers, right, and despite the fact that they were enemy combatants, security was I mean somewhat lax, pretty lax, I'd say. Prisoners were always moving in and out for work, and the

And also, is it Arizona not a prison in itself? They actually need another thing.

That's it exactly so, which brings us to the fall of nineteen forty four, when the prison plumber responsible for maintaining the sewage plant noticed something weird the prison. Oh is that sound of a fucking Oh? That is nasty the prison. So yeah, yeah, I think that's good. Thank you.

So funny.

Why that's such an innocuous noise and we're both just totally creeped up.

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 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 going to 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 schedule

What kind of person? Yeah?

Like, also, there wasn't there one guy that was just like, I don't know when we just waited out.

I love them. They're being like honor system about this, Like yeah, actually, yeah, no, they'll come back. I know. They love antelopes, they love candelops, they love the Beatles.

I love them all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The buttes are nice. Do you know what they had before? Did they have buttes? Have you seen the sky in Arizona?

Yeah? So two of them were arrested in Tuson, 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 fucking believe.

Those were the top notch guards.

They're like, oh, that's awkwreat I thought I just talked to you in Well, so they sill they come back in. So word got out to the local papers. Inspections around the prison found just how free and easy things were. Roll called wasn't taken seriously, and prison gates were left unlocked and some of the German prisoners of war were allowed to drive trucks so they could go in and out of the prison regularly as part of their work.

This is the best prison ever.

Do you think that, like, when you're guarding literal Nazis, you'd be a little more fucking eye on the ball, kid, you know.

It sounds a little bit like summer camp.

Yeah. And so they also had crocheting, you know, they got to swim, They got to swim, They made friends. So the lackadaisical attitude towards security was especially fucking nuts right because the prison held German naval officers, and in particular the commanders of German submarines called U boats. German U boats commanders were hardcore, and they were the most

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

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

I think in the beginning you would go crazy, and then as time went on you would be like, you know what, tubes looking nice today?

Yeah, from the inside you're like, wow, this this turk was really brings out your eyes.

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 twenty more days in a tube, like I would need to do some hash marks on the wall.

Oh, yeah, that's what you would in prison too. That's what you would do. That's the yeah.

But I would also do it in the tube. It would be a different form.

A prison, but that we know how you would spend your days inside of.

Submarine and I'd be like, you know what, I can meditate in the morning, like I'm trying the upside.

Nobody's asking you to do shit like so in this submarine. In this scenario, nobody wants you to do anything around the submarine. You're just kind of like there and like having like just like working on yourself, you know, working on anytime, anytime underwater. These U boats, right, because they were filled with fucking psychopaths. They're filling guys like Jurgen Wottenburg. And he was a naval officer who was already had one wartime prison escape under his belt. Also, I'd like

He seems so nice, so gentle.

Look he's he's troking 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 Wottenburg navigated his damaged shipped to land, but was captured. He escaped from a prison there and made his way back to Germany, where he was treated like a fucking hero and then trained to command a German submarine. Right Jurgen's U boat sank fourteen ships in nineteen forty two, including

That's what I would do, Take all the batties and put them together so they can scheme.

Stupid fucking idea.

Huh.

They're like, they're all the worst. Yeah, put them there together, they'll learn from each other. They'll be real scared.

Yeah, right right exactly, so they can all chat and be like, who's got the best idea?

Thanks, I got it you. So the American prison guards continued to underestimate the prisoners, and that was a mistake with serious consequences. When German prisoners were captured by the Americans during World War Two, the first stop was Fort Hunt in Virginia, where they would be questioned thoroughly. When it came to German submarine officers, the US Navy would take the first crack at questioning them. So they're hoping to learn everything from submarine technology to fleet movements, secret

I guess you could go two tactics. It could be torture. That would be like one tactic just to torture them, and the other tactic would be like butter them up, making your friends so they would give you all the information.

That's exactly what the army did. They in order to get them to talk. The Navy interrogators made them super comfortable. They house 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 fucking believe? So this

Know, right back then, all the New Yorkers had to eat the garbage food of the time, which was oysters, oysters.

Yeah, they were all feasting on lobsters and oysters, and we're like, what the fuck? They get meat loads also, you know, not to go on a full tangent, but I don't think people talk a lot about how instrumental the Canadian Army and Canadian military was in winning World War Two. Thank my grandfather or my grandma's step grandfather, I guess was fought and so and sold it. All of his brothers from Owen Sound, And it's incredible what they did on D Day. And I don't think in movie.

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 Canadian army? What?

Yeah?

What?

Sometimes I just say, yeah, we have a cannon in one of our museums.

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

Well, listen, I would have chopped, like, forget about the pool, just do sex workers and cigarettes, Like why are you spending your money on the rest of it.

So, when things inside the prison felt like they were actually turning peaceful in the fall of nineteen forty four, 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 vivantu escape. It didn't seem to like really register with them. They're like, we are escaping. It just crossed out all the time. It's happening soon and They're like, oh my god, there arts and crafts really improved, you guys.

I like all these signs. I feel like it's like word art.

They seem like, you know, 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.

I love that they have positive affirmations, you know, escape.

You are seeing, you are loved. One American officer in charge of security at Public Park would later say that he had a bad feeling about Compound one. A oh yeah, bad fat feel good for you, champ, you hero, go on?

That is that what? That's a number one attribut I'm looking for in a guard.

Hey do you do? You have bad feelings?

So that's like, go check. But man, I feel kind of uneasy about it. Might be the oysters that they keep shipping down from New York.

Does anyone else feel queasy?

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

Was known a known blind spot.

And they're like, guys, that doesn't seem like a good idea, but I'm not going to go look in there.

Let's ignore the blind spot, how about you.

So so the security officer later said that he knew that the Germans were too smart not to know what is a blind spot, and he thought it didn't make any sense to put all their smartest prisoners right next to it.

Oh my, this is the comedy of errors in prison style.

Is this should tell you something about this guy. He also said that the Nazis were a bunch of fine men, So fuck that guy.

Well, we know, I see what's happening.

You understand what they're getting. I feel like they were enamored. There's an enamorment by these prison guards.

Who side were they on? Where's the mole?

Yeah?

Where's the mole? Oh my god, I love that reality TV series? Don't get me right? So good? Yeah, 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 fucking did. The first thing that the German captains did in Compound one A was a little landscaping. They started plotting out flower beds and generally working on a plant

Believe they do to make him feel better. I know they were on it. I know they were like you.

I know that they didn't let him. They did not let this one man go through such suffering. Anything I know.

About this story is they were like I everyone meet, emergency meeting.

They were like, oh my god, we're so so, so so embarrassed.

Urget is sad.

But you guys, you guys sorry. Is it reported by the war No? No, no, no, Get's sad. He doesn't want to plant daffodils today. So it wasn't a surprise. One day you're going to approach the camp commander and ask for some shovels for the flower bit You know, and.

Of course they were like, we will give you the biggest.

Heaviest shovel.

Oh my god, do you need a tractor because I have one.

The guns that look like shovels, do you want those?

Oh my god. So for some of all about reason, the army guards decided that they should fucking agree. And yes, the gardening tools were supposed to be under close watch, but still none of them happens. Nothing is none of them having to notice when a pickaxe went missing and the gardens were popping up all over.

It's not like in the like a classic movie where you look at the shed and there's a shadow of where the pickaxe was supposed to go.

Yeah, exactly, like what is this? Must be? What an interesting design the shed maker created here? So they 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 then 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.

Oh and what are they playing?

Oh?

Oh well, thank you guys. What are you think they're playing.

I think they're playing hide all of the tools and maybe killing the guards so they can escape.

They started creating a volleyball court in the middle of the compound. One volley and at least that's what it looked like to the guards. I mean they're like, yeah, but they called it the volleyball Kurten. And behind their backs, the German U boat crews were actually working on a different project. Surprise, Rice. They were actually working furiously to dig a tunnel under the prison fence. Yes, you know where it started in the blind spot.

Yeah, of course.

I was just gonna say the compound where all the smarty pants are one hundred evil smarty pants dudes.

Yeah, And it was right next to the bathhouse. So to get to ease the access, the prisoners losing the boards in the bathhouse wall. Anytime they were going into the tunnel, they would walk in the door of their bath house, sneak out through the back wall, and then get to work. And when then when they were done, it was back into the bathhouse and out the door again. Imagine, if you're a garden you're just like think thinking that the Germans are showering for like three hours at a time.

You know, we have established these guards are not thinking no, so they're.

Like, really, guys, get really clean.

Are you sure the sex workers weren't hanging out with the guards because these guards seem oblivious.

They're distracted. They were playing. The guards were playing volleyball this entire time.

They're just like, wait, we're just playing with them. They're very good at volleyball.

So the biggest challenge for the digging Nazis was what to do with the dirt as they made progress on the tunnel. And at first they tried flushing it down the toilets in the bathhouse, but as you know, it caught them and risk their plans. Don't don't do that sound again? Pleased? I will fucking die. Stop. Oh my god, that's a real shitty sound. Sorry, Oh my god. So what's what I'm just listen. This is not a question of mine, but my producers want me to do it.

Oh my gosh, oh my god.

Okay, I have one. It's very female centric. I'm not embarrassed by it, but I bet you will be.

That's true.

Okay, So I've a budding young teen and I have a period like like young teens do, and I'm still getting used to how everything works with the products right, And basically, you know, we lived in a house that had a very ancient sewer system that you were not.

To pull the chain like it was like the right, it.

Was a sleeve on a pipe.

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 teenager 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 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 a hundreds of years.

Yeah, there was like lead poisoning warnings. And then they.

Pulled out one super tampon holy smoked and it was it was rinsed clean, so it was just white in case.

I mean, I don't care, I'm just surprised by the fucking expansion.

It was basically like a cotton umbrel.

Were you dying as a teenage girl when you found it out.

It was like a full denial now, and we need to talk about what the fuck he's doing in those battoms.

Also, I didn't help. The diplumbers were all shirtless and incredibly hot like so there.

Was men as far as the eye could see in every direction.

The clogpipes bring us to the flower beds in the volleyball court. Once those projects had been approved, that German prisoners started smuggling dirt out in the open right, raking evenly across 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 and

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.

Are you kidding me?

They had like a they well, I guess engineers and all this working together.

Of course, the water and bear wiring met that the wire shocked them as they work, which makes me fucking laugh. Yeah. Now, digging the tunnel was only one part of the preparations. The Germans also started storing food, maps, and other supplies for the journey. They forged papers by making US government stamps that they could use to approve documents. Looking at the map, time, do you say they made them? Yes, the fors papers by making government stamps.

There are This is not just flower beds and.

No, no, no in these rocks. I know, I know. It's just like, you know, they have that military mentality and like sort of like fucking you.

Know, and every day they're just asking for more materials. They're like, we're gonna need some.

That's not related, but we're gonna need a swimsuit. Uh, we're gonna need We're gonna need a Do you guys have a vacuum cleaner up here in.

The printing press. We're gonna need a printing press.

It was the beginning of three D printing. Not a lot of people know this. So looking at the map, three of the Germans even decided that they were going to build a boat. They saw that the Hilo River ran south into Mexico, so they plan to carry raft through the tunnel and use it to float to freedom. God so, okay, this is crazy. They tested out each part of their boat in the prison bathtub before disassembling it to be carried through the tunnel.

What kind of beautiful, large sized bathtub. First of all, prisons don't have bathtubs.

There was clawfoot. It was just like palm trees are out.

It fantastic.

So one of the craziest things that the Germans engineered was a makeshift radio receiver. They used wire, racial blades, and other savage pieces of equipment and they tapped into the prison sparb 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 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.

They're going, You're right, why didn't it?

Just as they just they're kidding everything else?

Like I need it for I need to I like to talk to people when I'm bathing.

Yeah, Hey, Sandy, how is it going? How is little h my God? Also, like I don't know, you know, not not because of the story, but just in general. I have some friends that are so handy at building shit out of nothing, and I just realize how ill equipped I would be for the apocalypse, you know what I'm saying. I'd just like be wandering around be like, does anybody need acting?

Oh?

Trust me, I have thought about this a million times.

I'd be like, I'm going to lighten the mood.

So because they had a radio. When the Nazi army launched the Battle of the bulg in Europe in December nineteen forty four, the prisoners in Compound one A were able to fall along and celebrate the advance of the German tanks across Belgium, which in and of itself the Battle of the Bulch was a fucking insane plan by a drug addicted hitler. And I don't know how much you know about it, but I don't.

As a matter of fact, when you said Battle of the Bulch, I was like, that's where we got it from, yeah, right, because I was just like, I've only heard this in context of like dumb weight loss, but obviously, 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 fucking absolute meth head that he was, he decided to throw everything everything he had, full court press, full court press, so that they couldn't make it to the port. But they were all the way back out to Germany, I believe, and they'd worked

Fucking suicide for all these people.

It was a scary kind of to the Allies because you're getting attacked out and it was just like, you can't fucking win this. Why are we fighting? And it just goes to show you how fanatical people were and listening to every order even if it made no sense and it meant their death. Now that you know, I love this. Some World War two histories are going to fact check the shit out of me.

If anyone writes into fact check you on anything. Just realize you've made their day?

Is it? That's it?

They spend twenty four hours.

Say happy right now.

So back in the German camp, five days before Christmas, the tunnel was complete. Both ends were this guy's with boards and brush, and it was time to put the rest of their escape plane into action. On the night of the summer of twenty third, nineteen forty four, the German prisoners threw a party next door in Compound one B the guards try to shut them down a few times. So they were busy going in and out of Compound one all night.

Ye, here's what works at a prison.

Why stop?

So so all right, it's fun, it's fun.

I get it. Yeah, so the quiet, the quiet, Compound one A got no attention. Just before nine pm, the escape plan began. The twenty five soldiers organized into small, three man flight groups. He started dropping down into the tunnels. The tunnel was almost two hundred feet long, and it crossed under two lines of fences and even the perimeter road that went around the park. It took more than a half an hour for each group to crawl through to the other side. Prisoners who stay behind the Papaco

Well, this sounds like they're like, you guys threw a party while we escape. I'd be like that, no, no, wait this second.

No, no, yeah, that was what the party was.

We like people that were like wait what I was having a fucking green.

It was just like a blower just like.

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, he found that it was raining super hard. It was a cold December desert rain, but all the same, it will help screen their escape.

So they even got lucky with the weather. That never happens 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 three feet deep. If they stayed load, the escapees could then wade quietly forward, and the canal banks would keep them out of sight from any prison guards looking their way. How the fuck the army thought that this was inescapable. There's like an escape highway right outside. I will never know.

Oh, Like, when you're building a tunnel, don't you think like when you get to the end, like you wouldn't just be like, Okay, now I'm going to go back and wait for the plan.

Wouldn't you just go well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, I wouldn't have the wherewithal to be Like, I'm like, fuck those guys they were having a party. I'm I'm just gonna pelt it out here. I'm just gonna run fast and make a lot of noise. I think that's how it was got so. Once the Germans moved far enough to be out of side 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.

Dun Dun Dunn.

But for some of these ski piece so journey did not last long. One twenty two year old soldier only lasted one day because after being pounded by cold rain, here we go, dring in the cold canal and trying to eat a meal of dried Brent cubs that he had packed for himself in his pockets, which is so fucking stupid it makes me laugh.

That's like ridiculous. One of them was dumb.

One of them was incredibly dumb. He was the guy that was like, I thought we were going back to the pat I don't know what they don't. So he hitchhike directly to the local sheriff and asked to be brought back to the prison. The sheriff called Papaco Park just as prison officials. We're discovering the missing men the next day. Also, the descert gets really fucking cold to night, so I'm thinking, particularly in the winter, you get rained, you're a fucked Yeah.

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.

I'm going back with the sex work stuff. And like they have baths, they have cloth to baths, Like 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.

God, I have one hundred and fifty percent. You are so fucking rare, Like there is no prison where you exactly where you're Like we were you suddenly don't have a fucking five force meal and you're like, actually, I don't mind. I'm not it's not for me. Not for me.

I liked it when I had friends.

What a great point of me. 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 by no, no, no, not in Christmas. They're like, well not Christmas. Any other day, Yes, we would have your picking cantalope.

The army jumped into the day It's family, Yes, it's right.

The day it was vin Diesel actually at the time catching all of them, so they called them the FBI, the Border Patrol, and every other agency that would lend a hand. A reward was offered of twenty five dollars for each German pow captured. That's like four hundred dollars of today's money. But yeah, I don't no, no, it doesn't seem like they would trying very hard.

Right, Oh, no, Like how much do you get when you win the voice.

They're like, I don't know. We got twenty dollars at a bus pass. Anybody any takers.

Yes, it should be the equivalent to one million dollars.

So ranchers, farmers, and local trackers all started combing the desert. Once they found the prisoners tracks, it was actually pretty easy. Most of the fight groups were caught as they tried to cross the desert on foot, but the V shapes had been cut into the soles of the prison shoes, so their tracks easily stood out. They're like, it's either here or there's like some mighty offensive ostriches walking around.

Oh that's hilarious. No one ever thought to do that to change their so whatever.

Had a little arrow, like literally, it had a little arrow pointing in the direction that they went.

So this.

Is getting more and more road runner every single second.

But what about the three boatmen. You know, they might have actually escaped if there wasn't a major flaw in their nautical plan. Not with a boat, mind you. That worked great because they tried it out in their beautiful claw foot bath the but they dragged it thirty miles over the desert and finally they'd reached the Heelo River, and here, my friends, was a flaw. Germans had assumed that if a map showed the river, they would count

Hours building a boat ahead of the finest days.

Yeah, you could have been playing volleyball this.

Entire time, Yes, smelling roses.

They try to find deeper spots to launch, but they could never go down more than the short stretch of the muddy river bed 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. Okay, and that's what he was doing when the cowboys caught up with him. They literally found him with his pants down. Ah,

So, just like the Battle, Tarantino came into this podcast.

Yeah, so ha ha ha yeah what I like what? I like his stories. I like stories because it's fun, because it's fun. Violence, it's fun. So that's my terrible one to replace. I guess I'm not getting cast in his last film. Shit.

So just like the Battle of the bulls.

The escape was a big Nazi plan that made splashy headlines before ending in complete fucking failure, and the last Gairman call was whiny little Jurorgan Vazenburg. He mentioned 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

Oh my god, the guy had way too much ego.

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 that some of the escapees were caught with milk, gum, tobacco, and slaps of bacon in their fucking packs.

It was clear just slaps, some just thick cut bacon, which, by the way, bacon, as you may know, is and I'm sure at the time the luxury food.

That is the luxury food.

Oh my god, foods. There's very little I won't do for some thick cut bacon.

It was the most expensive. If you raise pigs, it means that you don't. You're like, because pigs are. They don't do anything else.

They just exist and they cuddle and then they die for you to have some bacon. Yeah, all of our vegan all of our vegan listeners are like, fuck you, guys. We know how it works. We've been telling you for centuries. Sorry, guys. So it was clear that the prisoners had been giving 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

Are you kidding me? This guy talk about failing up. They talk about men failing up in life, but this guy, oh my god.

For like Nazis fucking failing up makes me particularly mad. Like but brewery, they're like, well, this is like give him a beer, give okay, fine, RelA tiation him was lesson. Give him a beer. Give him as many beers as he won.

The Jurugan's got a couple stories? Oh really does? You're gonna have a couple of stories.

And the brewery has since been demolished, but the legend says that you can still hear his whiny, little shitty voice on the Southwest. That's it, that's the sound hear it.

I am not in the.

And that is our story. Thank you so much, a fear for coming.

You know what, Jurgen is the luckiest motherfucker, laniest motherfucker I've ever heard of.

But what is what is the biggest takeaway from the story? What do you think you're going to remember from it?

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 in order for the Americans to get information out of him.

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 is possible.

Listen, I gotta tell you, this has been some of the most fun I've had during episode.

That's very sweet.

I loved, I loved, I learned a little something, so thank you, Urduro.

Thank you.

Well.

I think when they fact check me, it turns out that none of this was true, but we learned to get it. But the Angelope thing was her with you. When for our listeners, where can they find you?

Oh, they can find me in all the socials at O Fira e uh and I play all around tour and all around. You can also listen to my podcast parenting as a joke on iHeart Weekly Episodes.

Awesome, Thank you so much, Afirah. We'll see you next time, and here's a mop of music to play us out. Grady's Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers from me Or Touro Castro, Lissa Martino and Milan Popelka from Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Winning Donaldson from Gilded