The Great Desert Escape

THE GREAT DESERT ESCAPE, by Keith Warren Lloyd, tells the amazing true story of the 25 German U-boat men who escaped a POW camp in Arizona in December 1944. Lloyd elaborates on men who serve on a U-boat and how most of the men ended up at the Papago Park POW camp leading up to the escape. In detail, Lloyd describes how the escape happened, where things went right and wrong on both sides and ultimately what happed to those 25 men, as well as outcomes for many of the US military men that were key participants at camp and during the escape investigation.
POW camp life at Papago Park was casual to say the least and Lloyd make sure to explain in detail the lazy approach to managing the POW's as well as the privileges POW's at Papago Park received that were unnecessarily beyond the norm. Lloyd walks the reader through the geography of the camp and how an escape route was established using the desert landscape and the layout of the camp buildings. Lloyd constantly toes the line on whether the escape happened because of ineptitude of camp management or ingenuity of the German POWs. In the end, while acknowledging the intelligence of the German soldiers, I believe Lloyd puts more blame on management of the camp, which I think Lloyd finds disappointing.
Fascinating look at an event few people today know about, THE GREAT DESERT ESCAPE enlightens and educates the reader in a very entertaining way. The book was a joy to read.

The Great Desert Escape in an entertaining read, with facts that I was not aware of in the high plains desert country that I love. Roswell had a POW camp but it was very loosely supervised from what I understand. The camp at Papago Park outside of Pheonix, AZ eventually housed 4,000 German Navy personnel, for the most part, submarine sailors. All but 7 of Germany's submarines were sunk by the Allies, but I had no idea the remaining crew members numbered in the thousands, nor that they were all housed together in the desert. It was an excellent place to house them - theoretically at least - and it certainly makes for a fine tale.

Keith Warren Lloyd brings us the well-documented story of the POW camp at Papago Park from conception to closing and brings to us the interesting personalities of the inmates and their interactions with each other and their guards. This was a history I thoroughly enjoyed and am pleased to recommend to friends and family.

I received an ARC of the Great Desert Escape from Netgalley, Keith Warren Lloyd and Lyons Press. I have voluntarily read this history and provided this review.