The Great Papago Escape was the largest Axis prisoner-of-war escape to occur from an American facility during World War II.

The 3,500 Germans at Arizona’s desert-bordered Papago Park camp were full of wooden-faced horseplay. Prisoners nagged their guards, sometimes hid for days only to turn up well-fed and grinning.

Home to the Desert Botanical Garden and the Phoenix Zoo, Papago Park is popular with locals and ... a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II and a veterans affairs hospital.