Description
Book SynopsisDramatic, highly readable, and painstakingly researched, The Great Desert Escape brings to light a little-known escape by 25 determined German sailors from an American prisoner-of-war camp.The disciplined Germans tunneled unnoticed through rock-hard, sunbaked soil and crossed the unforgiving Arizona desert. They were heading for Mexico, where there were sympathizers who could help them return to the Fatherland. It was the only large-scale domestic escape by foreign prisoners in US history. Wrung from contemporary newspaper articles, interviews, and first-person accounts from escapees and the law enforcement officers who pursued them, The Great Desert Escape brings history to life.
At the US Army's prisoner-of-war camp at Papago Park just outside of Phoenix, life was, at the best of times, uneasy for the German Kreigsmariners. On the outside of their prison fences were Americans who wanted nothing more than to see them die slow deaths for their perceived
Trade Review
“With all of the emphasis on Allied POW escapes over the years, it is interesting to learn about the same from the German perspective.” - New York Journal of Books
“The Great Desert Escape is an extremely well-written account...If your measure of an interesting book (that also holds your attention) is that it makes you read more information on the various topics discussed within, then The Great Desert Escape is for you.”
-Military Review - The Professional Journal of the U.S. Army
