Steve Hosa will present a fascinating story about Camp Papago Park, built to house US soldiers undergoing desert combat training. But an influx of POWs led to a repurposing of the facility in 1943. The first German POWs arrived at Papago in January 1944. When it comes to rivers, Arizonans are extremely open-minded. Water is not an essential ingredient of a river here. That proved to be a painful lesson for one group of German prisoners of war. On Dec. 23, 1944, under cover of darkness, 25 prisoners squeezed through a slender tunnel beneath the barbed wire of Camp Papago Park and scattered across the desert. It was the largest escape by Axis prisoners of war from a U.S. compound. Hosa, a history major at ASU, has worked at the Arizona State Capitol Museum, has interviewed numerous of these German POWs in Germany, and has had many of them visit him at his home. Come and hear his captivating Arizona history story!