Speaker 1: This is great as Escapes, a show bringing you the
Speaker 1: wildest true escape stories. Now, today we're heading back to
Speaker 1: World War Two and the biggest escape from an American
Speaker 1: prisoner of war camp. I'm Martora Castro and today I'm
Speaker 1: joined by the comedian Canadian and public radio sization of
Speaker 1: Fida Eisenberg. Hi you, Fear, I thank you so much
Speaker 1: doing this. I'm so happy to see you. We've met
Speaker 1: once before when you were hosting Ask Me Another Live
Speaker 1: on stage. Yes, Santo for Grace was on that pot
Speaker 1: guests with me, and he wiped the floor with me.
Speaker 1: Uh because there was a bunch of cereal questions. But
Speaker 1: I had a fucking bliss and a trivia show.
Speaker 2: Don't make don't make people think it was a serial podcast.
Speaker 3: It was a trivia show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were talking about kidnapping, and suddenly he just
Speaker 1: started he started asking him questions about Cereal.
Speaker 3: It was super weird.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you something, what do you consider to
Speaker 1: be your greatest escape?
Speaker 3: You have a little bit of idea of this.
Speaker 2: So I was living in Toronto and I decided that
Speaker 2: I wanted to live in New York. Every stand up
Speaker 2: comic and actor that I saw leave Toronto would do
Speaker 2: this thing where they would throw up goodbye party for
Speaker 2: themselves and then they would be like see later, I'm
Speaker 2: going to pilot season in La or steal later like
Speaker 2: make it yeah, And then some of them never moved.
Speaker 1: Back, and many of them did, oh man, like it's
Speaker 1: about having to come back with the table to your legs,
Speaker 1: because I think most people when they move for an
Speaker 1: artistic reason. Every you got everybody saying like okay, like
Speaker 1: fucking see you in about a month, right, So.
Speaker 3: I concocted this plan.
Speaker 2: I go to get this rental car the next day,
Speaker 2: and I started driving towards the border, just being.
Speaker 3: Like, you never see me again, go to America.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make it in New York City, baby, yeah.
Speaker 3: And I got to the border to apply for this visa.
Speaker 2: The guy said what are you applying for? I said,
Speaker 2: graphic designer. He goes, where's the evidence of your work?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I have evidence of my work
Speaker 2: and he goes, well, did you go to school in
Speaker 2: graphic designer? I was like no, no, I went to
Speaker 2: school in cultural anthropology. And he was like, but it's okay.
Speaker 2: Just go back home to Toronto and just get the
Speaker 2: stuff together and bring it back, like you can bring
Speaker 2: it back later today, you could bring it back tomorrow.
Speaker 1: What'd you do? Well?
Speaker 2: The line was really really long to get back to
Speaker 2: go to Canada, and then I just saw a sign
Speaker 2: that said Buffalo Airport forty miles and so I just
Speaker 2: gunned it and looked in my rear view mirror the
Speaker 2: whole time going like, this can't be happening. This can't
Speaker 2: be happening. This can't be happening. Did I just blow
Speaker 2: through a border?
Speaker 1: Oh my god?
Speaker 3: And I was shaking the whole time.
Speaker 2: And I dropped off the car at the Buffalo Airport
Speaker 2: rental car Did you know you can do that? You
Speaker 2: can drop a rental car off anywhere for hundreds of Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: Going to say, for a fee and a small child
Speaker 1: of your firstborn. And you got away with it.
Speaker 2: I seem to have gotten away with it as I
Speaker 2: sit here right now.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. But like, what a stroke of luck that,
Speaker 1: after all that, you're suddenly in New York ready to
Speaker 1: make it. Baby.
Speaker 3: He's like, now I'm going to learn how to do
Speaker 3: graphic design.
Speaker 1: And now let me tell you about the story of
Speaker 1: our great this escape. Are you ready?
Speaker 3: I want to hear it.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. So far our story, we're heading down
Speaker 1: to America's southern border, to a sweep of land that
Speaker 1: covers fifteen hundred acres outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Today, it's
Speaker 1: called Papago Park and it's this beautiful area covered with large,
Speaker 1: jagged rock formations the rice up out of the red soil.
Speaker 1: Now why did the American government take that land? Besides
Speaker 1: because it was filled with beautiful buttes, it was to
Speaker 1: build your shit, of course, like a strange white pyramid tomb.
Speaker 1: For Arizona's first governor, George Hunt.
Speaker 3: It's like being a king. He's like, I want all the.
Speaker 4: Beauty, all the buttes around me, the beautes of Arizona mine.
Speaker 1: So the government put an army base in Papago Park.
Speaker 1: But eventually that base became a prison. And part of
Speaker 1: the reason that they made that switch is that when
Speaker 1: they were building, they had trouble digging in the rocky ground.
Speaker 1: So they even had to like blast it with dynamite
Speaker 1: to get through. So they thought that there was escape proof.
Speaker 1: You know, They're like, we're not going to give them dynamite.
Speaker 1: We're not that.
Speaker 2: Stupid, right, Every prisoner just gets one stick and.
Speaker 1: It was a coyote pushing that thing down.
Speaker 3: So well, oh, that's my favorite cartoon.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen forty four, the prison was used to
Speaker 1: hold German prisoners of war. Right when they arrived at
Speaker 1: Papaco Park in January that year, they were put to
Speaker 1: work doing manual labor. In the spring they were digging canals,
Speaker 1: and in the summer they were hired by local farmers
Speaker 1: to do things like pick potatoes and pack analog and
Speaker 1: bail hey, and of course entertained them by doing the
Speaker 1: patient in germanoonstans.
Speaker 3: Did you say antelopes? By the way, did you.
Speaker 1: Say, yeah? They kept packing antelopes into these massive surfaces.
Speaker 2: I was like the antelopes would have grooved out to
Speaker 2: those tombs.
Speaker 1: So life in the prison was fairly routine for these soldiers, right,
Speaker 1: and despite the fact that they were enemy combatants, security
Speaker 1: was I mean somewhat lax, pretty lax, I'd say. Prisoners
Speaker 1: were always moving in and out for work, and the
Speaker 1: prison guards were confident that no real escapes were possible. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is foreshadowing a little bit, but the show is
Speaker 1: about escapes, right, So also, what the fuck man how
Speaker 1: do you let these social paths out of it, like
Speaker 1: to go pack antelopes, Like that's unacceptable on so many
Speaker 1: levels now.
Speaker 2: And also, is it Arizona not a prison in itself?
Speaker 2: They actually need another thing.
Speaker 1: That's it exactly so, which brings us to the fall
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty four, when the prison plumber responsible for
Speaker 1: maintaining the sewage plant noticed something weird the prison. Oh
Speaker 1: is that sound of a fucking Oh? That is nasty
Speaker 1: the prison. So yeah, yeah, I think that's good. Thank you.
Speaker 3: So funny.
Speaker 2: Why that's such an innocuous noise and we're both just
Speaker 2: totally creeped up.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, It's just I don't know, because it's like,
Speaker 1: once you say sewage and you hear that, you just
Speaker 1: think poop.
Speaker 4: I yeah.
Speaker 1: So, the prison sewage pipes kept getting clogged. He would
Speaker 1: open them up, clear them out, and find that they
Speaker 1: were blocked with packed dirt and rocks. He was maybe
Speaker 1: like slightly annoyed, but he wasn't going to replace the
Speaker 1: whole prison sewage system just to fix where dirt was
Speaker 1: getting in, which is what he thought was happening. But actually, though,
Speaker 1: what the plumber was seeing was the first sign of
Speaker 1: a massive attempt to escape. It was a breakout schedule
Speaker 1: for Christmas nineteen forty four. Actually, there had already been
Speaker 1: an escape attempt at Papago Park within the first month
Speaker 1: of arriving. Five Germans hid in an army truck and
Speaker 1: try to sneak out of the prison so they could
Speaker 1: head for the southern border. They were hoping they could
Speaker 1: catch a ship back to Germany from the Mexican port.
Speaker 1: It's like, these guys really wanted to get back into
Speaker 1: the fight. You know. It kind of tells us like
Speaker 1: who was being kept in this place?
Speaker 3: What kind of person? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like, also, there wasn't there one guy that was just like,
Speaker 2: I don't know when we just waited out.
Speaker 1: I love them. They're being like honor system about this,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, actually, yeah, no, they'll come back. I know.
Speaker 1: They love antelopes, they love candelops, they love the Beatles.
Speaker 3: I love them all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The buttes are nice.
Speaker 3: Do you know what they had before? Did they have buttes?
Speaker 3: Have you seen the sky in Arizona?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So two of them were arrested in Tuson, but
Speaker 1: the others made it all the way to Mexico before
Speaker 1: they were stopped. When they were returned to the prison.
Speaker 1: The guards hadn't even realized that they were gone. Can
Speaker 1: you fucking believe.
Speaker 3: Those were the top notch guards.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, that's awkwreat I thought I just talked
Speaker 1: to you in Well, so they sill they come back in.
Speaker 1: So word got out to the local papers. Inspections around
Speaker 1: the prison found just how free and easy things were.
Speaker 1: Roll called wasn't taken seriously, and prison gates were left
Speaker 1: unlocked and some of the German prisoners of war were
Speaker 1: allowed to drive trucks so they could go in and
Speaker 1: out of the prison regularly as part of their work.
Speaker 3: This is the best prison ever.
Speaker 1: Do you think that, like, when you're guarding literal Nazis,
Speaker 1: you'd be a little more fucking eye on the ball, kid,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: It sounds a little bit like summer camp.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so they also had crocheting, you know, they
Speaker 1: got to swim, They got to swim, They made friends.
Speaker 1: So the lackadaisical attitude towards security was especially fucking nuts
Speaker 1: right because the prison held German naval officers, and in
Speaker 1: particular the commanders of German submarines called U boats. German
Speaker 1: U boats commanders were hardcore, and they were the most
Speaker 1: ruthless and most fanatical officers in the German Navy. They
Speaker 1: had to be the kind of men able to live
Speaker 1: in a metal tube underwater for days and weeks at
Speaker 1: a time. And they had to be fanatical and Nazis
Speaker 1: willing to sink civilian ships without mercy, some real evil shit.
Speaker 1: And they had to also be highly trained engineers who
Speaker 1: were capable of fixing broken down systems underwater without any
Speaker 1: help from the outside.
Speaker 2: And they still found these guys with those three insane criteria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I could be
Speaker 1: in the tube underwater. Do you think you could ever
Speaker 1: survive like in a submarine or sign up for that
Speaker 1: that kind of duty.
Speaker 2: I think in the beginning you would go crazy, and
Speaker 2: then as time went on you would be like, you
Speaker 2: know what, tubes looking nice today?
Speaker 1: Yeah, from the inside you're like, wow, this this turk
Speaker 1: was really brings out your eyes.
Speaker 2: But I just think I really do think, like the
Speaker 2: weirdest thing is that humans are unbelievably flexible, and that
Speaker 2: if some if you just go like twenty more days
Speaker 2: in a tube, like I would need to do some
Speaker 2: hash marks on the wall.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, that's what you would in prison too. That's
Speaker 1: what you would do. That's the yeah.
Speaker 3: But I would also do it in the tube. It
Speaker 3: would be a different form.
Speaker 1: A prison, but that we know how you would spend
Speaker 1: your days inside of.
Speaker 2: Submarine and I'd be like, you know what, I can
Speaker 2: meditate in the morning, like I'm trying the upside.
Speaker 1: Nobody's asking you to do shit like so in this submarine.
Speaker 1: In this scenario, nobody wants you to do anything around
Speaker 1: the submarine. You're just kind of like there and like
Speaker 1: having like just like working on yourself, you know, working
Speaker 1: on anytime, anytime underwater. These U boats, right, because they
Speaker 1: were filled with fucking psychopaths. They're filling guys like Jurgen Wottenburg.
Speaker 1: And he was a naval officer who was already had
Speaker 1: one wartime prison escape under his belt. Also, I'd like
Speaker 1: to think that he only responded to his name. But
Speaker 1: it was like Yoda and him like yur Agan, Like
Speaker 1: it's just like hard to find somebody scared. There's like, ah,
Speaker 1: I'm new, I'm.
Speaker 3: He seems so nice, so gentle.
Speaker 1: Look he's he's troking the antelope in such a beautiful way.
Speaker 1: So at the beginning of the war, Jurgen was one
Speaker 1: was on the crew of a German battleship. His crew
Speaker 1: lost a fight off the coast of Uruguay, and Wottenburg
Speaker 1: navigated his damaged shipped to land, but was captured. He
Speaker 1: escaped from a prison there and made his way back
Speaker 1: to Germany, where he was treated like a fucking hero
Speaker 1: and then trained to command a German submarine. Right Jurgen's
Speaker 1: U boat sank fourteen ships in nineteen forty two, including
Speaker 1: a lot of civilian cargo ships. He was finally captured
Speaker 1: northeast of Trinidad and sent to the desert with the
Speaker 1: first batch of German soldiers in nineteen forty four. So
Speaker 1: when people like Wadenberg were slipping out of the American
Speaker 1: prison and riding around in trucks, it did actually ruffle
Speaker 1: some feathers in the army ranks. They made some changes
Speaker 1: to the security of Paplco Park. For instance, the most
Speaker 1: uncooperative of the prisoners were all put together into a
Speaker 1: single area of the prison compound. One A.
Speaker 2: That's what I would do, Take all the batties and
Speaker 2: put them together so they can scheme.
Speaker 1: Stupid fucking idea.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 1: They're like, they're all the worst. Yeah, put them there together,
Speaker 1: they'll learn from each other. They'll be real scared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right right exactly, so they can all chat and
Speaker 2: be like, who's got the best idea?
Speaker 1: Thanks, I got it you. So the American prison guards
Speaker 1: continued to underestimate the prisoners, and that was a mistake
Speaker 1: with serious consequences. When German prisoners were captured by the
Speaker 1: Americans during World War Two, the first stop was Fort
Speaker 1: Hunt in Virginia, where they would be questioned thoroughly. When
Speaker 1: it came to German submarine officers, the US Navy would
Speaker 1: take the first crack at questioning them. So they're hoping
Speaker 1: to learn everything from submarine technology to fleet movements, secret
Speaker 1: codes and trading methods and astrology signs, stuff like that. Right. So,
Speaker 1: what do you think the US military was doing to
Speaker 1: make German prisoners talk during World War Two?
Speaker 2: I guess you could go two tactics. It could be torture.
Speaker 2: That would be like one tactic just to torture them,
Speaker 2: and the other tactic would be like butter them up,
Speaker 2: making your friends so they would give you all the information.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what the army did. They in order to
Speaker 1: get them to talk. The Navy interrogators made them super comfortable.
Speaker 1: They house them in cozy rooms where they had plenty
Speaker 1: of food and books and magazines at their disposal. They
Speaker 1: had a swimming pool, playing cards, cigarettes and liquor. This
Speaker 1: is not a joke, can you fucking believe? So this
Speaker 1: was during wartime rationing too. So imagine how you would
Speaker 1: have felt if you were in New Yorker at the
Speaker 1: time and you heard that this is what they were
Speaker 1: getting when everybody else had to like tie to their belts, you.
Speaker 2: Know, right back then, all the New Yorkers had to
Speaker 2: eat the garbage food of the time, which was oysters, oysters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were all feasting on lobsters and oysters, and
Speaker 1: we're like, what the fuck? They get meat loads also,
Speaker 1: you know, not to go on a full tangent, but
Speaker 1: I don't think people talk a lot about how instrumental
Speaker 1: the Canadian Army and Canadian military was in winning World
Speaker 1: War Two. Thank my grandfather or my grandma's step grandfather,
Speaker 1: I guess was fought and so and sold it. All
Speaker 1: of his brothers from Owen Sound, And it's incredible what
Speaker 1: they did on D Day. And I don't think in movie.
Speaker 1: I mean in movies they're barely mentioned. But I just
Speaker 1: don't think it's in the general psyche.
Speaker 2: Because Canada, if you think about right now, we don't
Speaker 2: think of a Canadian military presence or even a lot
Speaker 2: of money put towards military, or that even being talked about.
Speaker 3: I have been asked before, you know, like well.
Speaker 1: What Canadian army? What?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: Sometimes I just say, yeah, we have a cannon in
Speaker 2: one of our museums.
Speaker 1: Another thing that they used to butter these guys up
Speaker 1: is that one American Navy guy let sex workers in
Speaker 1: to entertain some of their German prisoners.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, I would have chopped, like, forget about the pool,
Speaker 2: just do sex workers and cigarettes, Like why are you
Speaker 2: spending your money on the rest of it.
Speaker 1: So, when things inside the prison felt like they were
Speaker 1: actually turning peaceful in the fall of nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: the guards really should have known that they were being
Speaker 1: lulled into a false sense of security. They even ignored
Speaker 1: this big sign that said vivantu escape. It didn't seem
Speaker 1: to like really register with them. They're like, we are escaping.
Speaker 1: It just crossed out all the time. It's happening soon
Speaker 1: and They're like, oh my god, there arts and crafts
Speaker 1: really improved, you guys.
Speaker 3: I like all these signs. I feel like it's like
Speaker 3: word art.
Speaker 1: They seem like, you know, Amy Poehler and mean girls
Speaker 1: where she's like I'm cool mom. Like they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: just like cool. I'm just like here to support.
Speaker 3: I love that they have positive affirmations, you know, escape.
Speaker 1: You are seeing, you are loved. One American officer in
Speaker 1: charge of security at Public Park would later say that
Speaker 1: he had a bad feeling about Compound one. A oh yeah,
Speaker 1: bad fat feel good for you, champ, you hero, go on?
Speaker 2: That is that what? That's a number one attribut I'm
Speaker 2: looking for in a guard.
Speaker 3: Hey do you do? You have bad feelings?
Speaker 1: So that's like, go check. But man, I feel kind
Speaker 1: of uneasy about it. Might be the oysters that they
Speaker 1: keep shipping down from New York.
Speaker 3: Does anyone else feel queasy?
Speaker 1: Mostly because there was a place in the middle. He
Speaker 1: felt bad because there was a place in the middle
Speaker 1: of it that couldn't be seen from any of the
Speaker 1: guard towers. So, in other words, it was a blind
Speaker 1: spot that.
Speaker 3: Was known a known blind spot.
Speaker 1: And they're like, guys, that doesn't seem like a good idea,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to go look in there.
Speaker 3: Let's ignore the blind spot, how about you.
Speaker 1: So so the security officer later said that he knew
Speaker 1: that the Germans were too smart not to know what
Speaker 1: is a blind spot, and he thought it didn't make
Speaker 1: any sense to put all their smartest prisoners right next
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 3: Oh my, this is the comedy of errors in prison style.
Speaker 1: Is this should tell you something about this guy. He
Speaker 1: also said that the Nazis were a bunch of fine men,
Speaker 1: So fuck that guy.
Speaker 3: Well, we know, I see what's happening.
Speaker 1: You understand what they're getting. I feel like they were enamored.
Speaker 1: There's an enamorment by these prison guards.
Speaker 3: Who side were they on? Where's the mole?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Where's the mole? Oh my god, I love that reality
Speaker 1: TV series? Don't get me right? So good? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they really should have known better than putting all the
Speaker 1: most angry, most troublesome, the most dedicated Nazis together in
Speaker 1: one compound. But for some reason, that's exactly what they
Speaker 1: fucking did. The first thing that the German captains did
Speaker 1: in Compound one A was a little landscaping. They started
Speaker 1: plotting out flower beds and generally working on a plant
Speaker 1: to beautify the place, or so it seemed. The other
Speaker 1: part of the routine was whining. That's true. The guards
Speaker 1: started to get regular complaints from you again, Vattenberg. He
Speaker 1: winded about the food, he winded about the work. He
Speaker 1: mostly whined that he was a high ranking officer and
Speaker 1: he didn't think it was fair that he was being
Speaker 1: treated like a prisoner. He especially didn't like it when
Speaker 1: low ranking guards were telling him what to do and just,
Speaker 1: uh god, can you.
Speaker 3: Believe they do to make him feel better. I know
Speaker 3: they were on it. I know they were like you.
Speaker 1: I know that they didn't let him. They did not
Speaker 1: let this one man go through such suffering. Anything I know.
Speaker 2: About this story is they were like I everyone meet,
Speaker 2: emergency meeting.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh my god, we're so so, so
Speaker 1: so embarrassed.
Speaker 3: Urget is sad.
Speaker 1: But you guys, you guys sorry. Is it reported by
Speaker 1: the war No? No, no, no, Get's sad. He doesn't
Speaker 1: want to plant daffodils today. So it wasn't a surprise.
Speaker 1: One day you're going to approach the camp commander and
Speaker 1: ask for some shovels for the flower bit You know, and.
Speaker 2: Of course they were like, we will give you the biggest.
Speaker 3: Heaviest shovel.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, do you need a tractor because I
Speaker 1: have one.
Speaker 3: The guns that look like shovels, do you want those?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So for some of all about reason,
Speaker 1: the army guards decided that they should fucking agree. And yes,
Speaker 1: the gardening tools were supposed to be under close watch,
Speaker 1: but still none of them happens. Nothing is none of
Speaker 1: them having to notice when a pickaxe went missing and
Speaker 1: the gardens were popping up all over.
Speaker 2: It's not like in the like a classic movie where
Speaker 2: you look at the shed and there's a shadow of
Speaker 2: where the pickaxe was supposed to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, like what is this? Must be? What an
Speaker 1: interesting design the shed maker created here? So they they
Speaker 1: were popping out everywhere with the gardens. There's gardens everywhere.
Speaker 1: So that's when the Germans came up with the next idea.
Speaker 1: They asked the guards if they could have a sports
Speaker 1: field then their compound. They needed more digging tools and
Speaker 1: also rakes that they could use to smooth out the
Speaker 1: dirt into a nice level playing field.
Speaker 3: Oh and what are they playing?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you guys. What are you think they're playing.
Speaker 2: I think they're playing hide all of the tools and
Speaker 2: maybe killing the guards so they can escape.
Speaker 1: They started creating a volleyball court in the middle of
Speaker 1: the compound. One volley and at least that's what it
Speaker 1: looked like to the guards. I mean they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they called it the volleyball Kurten. And behind their backs,
Speaker 1: the German U boat crews were actually working on a
Speaker 1: different project. Surprise, Rice. They were actually working furiously to
Speaker 1: dig a tunnel under the prison fence. Yes, you know
Speaker 1: where it started in the blind spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say the compound where all the
Speaker 2: smarty pants are one hundred evil smarty pants dudes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was right next to the bathhouse. So
Speaker 1: to get to ease the access, the prisoners losing the
Speaker 1: boards in the bathhouse wall. Anytime they were going into
Speaker 1: the tunnel, they would walk in the door of their
Speaker 1: bath house, sneak out through the back wall, and then
Speaker 1: get to work. And when then when they were done,
Speaker 1: it was back into the bathhouse and out the door again. Imagine,
Speaker 1: if you're a garden you're just like think thinking that
Speaker 1: the Germans are showering for like three hours at a time.
Speaker 2: You know, we have established these guards are not thinking no,
Speaker 2: so they're.
Speaker 1: Like, really, guys, get really clean.
Speaker 2: Are you sure the sex workers weren't hanging out with
Speaker 2: the guards because these guards seem oblivious.
Speaker 1: They're distracted. They were playing. The guards were playing volleyball
Speaker 1: this entire time.
Speaker 3: They're just like, wait, we're just playing with them. They're
Speaker 3: very good at volleyball.
Speaker 1: So the biggest challenge for the digging Nazis was what
Speaker 1: to do with the dirt as they made progress on
Speaker 1: the tunnel. And at first they tried flushing it down
Speaker 1: the toilets in the bathhouse, but as you know, it
Speaker 1: caught them and risk their plans. Don't don't do that
Speaker 1: sound again? Pleased? I will fucking die. Stop. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's a real shitty sound. Sorry, Oh my god. So
Speaker 1: what's what I'm just listen. This is not a question
Speaker 1: of mine, but my producers want me to do it.
Speaker 1: So what is your best worst clog toilet experience?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have one. It's very female centric. I'm not
Speaker 2: embarrassed by it, but I bet you will be.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I've a budding young teen and I have
Speaker 2: a period like like young teens do, and I'm still
Speaker 2: getting used to how everything works with the products right,
Speaker 2: And basically, you know, we lived in a house that
Speaker 2: had a very ancient sewer system that you were not.
Speaker 1: To pull the chain like it was like the right, it.
Speaker 3: Was a sleeve on a pipe.
Speaker 2: But no, it was always like, you know, don't even
Speaker 2: like put the good toilet paper down it kind of thing.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm a I'm a young teenager girl.
Speaker 2: I'm on the run and I'm self obsessed with me
Speaker 2: And i had my own room in the basement and
Speaker 2: there was a toilet there and anyways, it got clogged up.
Speaker 2: It was overflowing, basically flooded the entire basement. But it
Speaker 2: wasn't nothing could be seen what it was just water,
Speaker 2: and so my mother had to you know, hire a plumber.
Speaker 2: They went into another room in the basement, took apart
Speaker 2: these ancient pipes that hadn't been taken apart in a
Speaker 2: hundreds of years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was like lead poisoning warnings. And then they.
Speaker 2: Pulled out one super tampon holy smoked and it was
Speaker 2: it was rinsed clean, so it was just white in case.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't care, I'm just surprised by the
Speaker 1: fucking expansion.
Speaker 3: It was basically like a cotton umbrel.
Speaker 1: Were you dying as a teenage girl when you found
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: It was like a full denial now, and we need
Speaker 2: to talk about what the fuck he's doing in those battoms.
Speaker 1: Also, I didn't help. The diplumbers were all shirtless and
Speaker 1: incredibly hot like so there.
Speaker 3: Was men as far as the eye could see in
Speaker 3: every direction.
Speaker 1: The clogpipes bring us to the flower beds in the
Speaker 1: volleyball court. Once those projects had been approved, that German
Speaker 1: prisoners started smuggling dirt out in the open right, raking
Speaker 1: evenly across volleyball court and mixing it into the planting soil.
Speaker 1: Once the guards got used to seeing piles of dirt
Speaker 1: scattered around, they didn't really think much of it, even
Speaker 1: when the piles seemed to never get any smaller and
Speaker 1: they're like, that's fucking weird. The digging prisoners took it
Speaker 1: in turns to work through October and November and into December.
Speaker 1: Outside the fence, there was a drainage stage they had
Speaker 1: to get past, which meant that the tunnel had to
Speaker 1: go even deeper underground.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: To light the tunnel, the Germans used a single bulb
Speaker 1: on the bare wire that connected back through the tunnel
Speaker 1: into a socket in the bathhouse.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: They had like a they well, I guess engineers and
Speaker 2: all this working together.
Speaker 1: Of course, the water and bear wiring met that the
Speaker 1: wire shocked them as they work, which makes me fucking laugh. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: digging the tunnel was only one part of the preparations.
Speaker 1: The Germans also started storing food, maps, and other supplies
Speaker 1: for the journey. They forged papers by making US government
Speaker 1: stamps that they could use to approve documents. Looking at
Speaker 1: the map, time, do you say they made them? Yes,
Speaker 1: the fors papers by making government stamps.
Speaker 3: There are This is not just flower beds and.
Speaker 1: No, no, no in these rocks. I know, I know.
Speaker 1: It's just like, you know, they have that military mentality
Speaker 1: and like sort of like fucking you.
Speaker 2: Know, and every day they're just asking for more materials.
Speaker 2: They're like, we're gonna need some.
Speaker 1: That's not related, but we're gonna need a swimsuit. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna need We're gonna need a Do you guys
Speaker 1: have a vacuum cleaner up here in.
Speaker 3: The printing press. We're gonna need a printing press.
Speaker 1: It was the beginning of three D printing. Not a
Speaker 1: lot of people know this. So looking at the map,
Speaker 1: three of the Germans even decided that they were going
Speaker 1: to build a boat. They saw that the Hilo River
Speaker 1: ran south into Mexico, so they plan to carry raft
Speaker 1: through the tunnel and use it to float to freedom.
Speaker 1: God so, okay, this is crazy. They tested out each
Speaker 1: part of their boat in the prison bathtub before disassembling
Speaker 1: it to be carried through the tunnel.
Speaker 2: What kind of beautiful, large sized bathtub. First of all,
Speaker 2: prisons don't have bathtubs.
Speaker 1: There was clawfoot. It was just like palm trees are out.
Speaker 3: It fantastic.
Speaker 1: So one of the craziest things that the Germans engineered
Speaker 1: was a makeshift radio receiver. They used wire, racial blades,
Speaker 1: and other savage pieces of equipment and they tapped into
Speaker 1: the prison sparb wire fence to use it as an antenna.
Speaker 1: The radio receiver was so effective that they were able
Speaker 1: to pick up Nazi radio broadcasts from the German propaganda ministry.
Speaker 1: It allowed them to follow the news of the war
Speaker 1: from the Nazi perspective. Can you believe how?
Speaker 2: I mean again, why did they have to do all
Speaker 2: of this? They could have just said, we need a
Speaker 2: radio and a transmitter.
Speaker 1: They're going, You're right, why didn't it?
Speaker 3: Just as they just they're kidding everything else?
Speaker 2: Like I need it for I need to I like
Speaker 2: to talk to people when I'm bathing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey, Sandy, how is it going? How is little
Speaker 1: h my God? Also, like I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: not not because of the story, but just in general.
Speaker 1: I have some friends that are so handy at building
Speaker 1: shit out of nothing, and I just realize how ill
Speaker 1: equipped I would be for the apocalypse, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I'd just like be wandering around be like,
Speaker 1: does anybody need acting?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Trust me, I have thought about this a million times.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, I'm going to lighten the mood.
Speaker 1: So because they had a radio. When the Nazi army
Speaker 1: launched the Battle of the bulg in Europe in December
Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, the prisoners in Compound one A were
Speaker 1: able to fall along and celebrate the advance of the
Speaker 1: German tanks across Belgium, which in and of itself the
Speaker 1: Battle of the Bulch was a fucking insane plan by
Speaker 1: a drug addicted hitler. And I don't know how much
Speaker 1: you know about it, but I don't.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, when you said Battle of
Speaker 2: the Bulch, I was like, that's where we got it from, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: because I was just like, I've only heard this in
Speaker 2: context of like dumb weight loss, but obviously, oh really,
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: Never heard the term outside of the outside of the battle. Basically,
Speaker 1: he knew he was losing the war, he was losing
Speaker 1: in the East, and now he had gotten invaded in
Speaker 1: D Day in the West. So fucking absolute meth head
Speaker 1: that he was, he decided to throw everything everything he had,
Speaker 1: full court press, full court press, so that they couldn't
Speaker 1: make it to the port. But they were all the
Speaker 1: way back out to Germany, I believe, and they'd worked
Speaker 1: at first, which is a crazy thing. They threw all
Speaker 1: their tanks or every available tank commanders over to the
Speaker 1: Allies and then in they are. Then forest was where
Speaker 1: they finally stopped because nobody sent them with extra fuel.
Speaker 1: They just had to calculate that they have enough fuel
Speaker 1: to get to a port and then capture the fuel supplies.
Speaker 1: But if it didn't work. There's just no point to
Speaker 1: this fucking advance because if they had no fuel, it
Speaker 1: would get up number one and number two. They didn't
Speaker 1: have enough troops to hold any of this territory, so
Speaker 1: it was literally just an insane.
Speaker 3: Fucking suicide for all these people.
Speaker 1: It was a scary kind of to the Allies because
Speaker 1: you're getting attacked out and it was just like, you
Speaker 1: can't fucking win this. Why are we fighting? And it
Speaker 1: just goes to show you how fanatical people were and
Speaker 1: listening to every order even if it made no sense
Speaker 1: and it meant their death. Now that you know, I
Speaker 1: love this. Some World War two histories are going to
Speaker 1: fact check the shit out of me.
Speaker 2: If anyone writes into fact check you on anything. Just
Speaker 2: realize you've made their day?
Speaker 4: Is it? That's it?
Speaker 1: They spend twenty four hours.
Speaker 3: Say happy right now.
Speaker 1: So back in the German camp, five days before Christmas,
Speaker 1: the tunnel was complete. Both ends were this guy's with
Speaker 1: boards and brush, and it was time to put the
Speaker 1: rest of their escape plane into action. On the night
Speaker 1: of the summer of twenty third, nineteen forty four, the
Speaker 1: German prisoners threw a party next door in Compound one
Speaker 1: B the guards try to shut them down a few times.
Speaker 1: So they were busy going in and out of Compound
Speaker 1: one all night.
Speaker 3: Ye, here's what works at a prison.
Speaker 1: Why stop?
Speaker 2: So so all right, it's fun, it's fun.
Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah, so the quiet, the quiet, Compound
Speaker 1: one A got no attention. Just before nine pm, the
Speaker 1: escape plan began. The twenty five soldiers organized into small,
Speaker 1: three man flight groups. He started dropping down into the tunnels.
Speaker 1: The tunnel was almost two hundred feet long, and it
Speaker 1: crossed under two lines of fences and even the perimeter
Speaker 1: road that went around the park. It took more than
Speaker 1: a half an hour for each group to crawl through
Speaker 1: to the other side. Prisoners who stay behind the Papaco
Speaker 1: Park closed up the tunnel once they were through. What
Speaker 1: would you think if you were just one of the
Speaker 1: dudes that was left be hiding, like, but you are
Speaker 1: coming back, right? I was just wet here.
Speaker 2: Well, this sounds like they're like, you guys threw a
Speaker 2: party while we escape. I'd be like that, no, no,
Speaker 2: wait this second.
Speaker 3: No, no, yeah, that was what the party was.
Speaker 1: We like people that were like wait what I was
Speaker 1: having a fucking green.
Speaker 3: It was just like a blower just like.
Speaker 1: The far end of the tunnel opened into a clump
Speaker 1: of bushes on the bank of a nearby canal. As
Speaker 1: the men started to emerge, he found that it was
Speaker 1: raining super hard. It was a cold December desert rain,
Speaker 1: but all the same, it will help screen their escape.
Speaker 2: So they even got lucky with the weather. That never
Speaker 2: happens for.
Speaker 1: Just for a little while. As each flight group had
Speaker 1: made it through the passage, they slid down into the canal,
Speaker 1: where the water was about three feet deep. If they
Speaker 1: stayed load, the escapees could then wade quietly forward, and
Speaker 1: the canal banks would keep them out of sight from
Speaker 1: any prison guards looking their way. How the fuck the
Speaker 1: army thought that this was inescapable. There's like an escape
Speaker 1: highway right outside. I will never know.
Speaker 2: Oh, Like, when you're building a tunnel, don't you think
Speaker 2: like when you get to the end, like you wouldn't
Speaker 2: just be like, Okay, now I'm going to go back
Speaker 2: and wait for the plan.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you just go well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, I wouldn't have the
Speaker 1: wherewithal to be Like, I'm like, fuck those guys they
Speaker 1: were having a party. I'm I'm just gonna pelt it
Speaker 1: out here. I'm just gonna run fast and make a
Speaker 1: lot of noise. I think that's how it was got so.
Speaker 1: Once the Germans moved far enough to be out of
Speaker 1: side of the prison, the flight groups went their separate ways.
Speaker 1: They all look for places to lay low. The three
Speaker 1: men carrying the pieces of the boat marched west towards Phoenix.
Speaker 1: They found a public school that was locked, and they
Speaker 1: went inside, where they prepared for their journey down the
Speaker 1: Hilo River, which they were going to reach the very
Speaker 1: next day. Oh Captain Jurgen Wattenburg took the other two
Speaker 1: men and marched northwest into the hills around Phoenix. They
Speaker 1: found a cave where they would hide out and plot
Speaker 1: their next move, And with that, twenty five German navymen
Speaker 1: had achieved the largest mass escape from any American prison
Speaker 1: camp in World War Two.
Speaker 3: Dun Dun Dunn.
Speaker 1: But for some of these ski piece so journey did
Speaker 1: not last long. One twenty two year old soldier only
Speaker 1: lasted one day because after being pounded by cold rain,
Speaker 1: here we go, dring in the cold canal and trying
Speaker 1: to eat a meal of dried Brent cubs that he
Speaker 1: had packed for himself in his pockets, which is so
Speaker 1: fucking stupid it makes me laugh.
Speaker 3: That's like ridiculous. One of them was dumb.
Speaker 1: One of them was incredibly dumb. He was the guy
Speaker 1: that was like, I thought we were going back to
Speaker 1: the pat I don't know what they don't. So he
Speaker 1: hitchhike directly to the local sheriff and asked to be
Speaker 1: brought back to the prison. The sheriff called Papaco Park
Speaker 1: just as prison officials. We're discovering the missing men the
Speaker 1: next day. Also, the descert gets really fucking cold to night,
Speaker 1: so I'm thinking, particularly in the winter, you get rained,
Speaker 1: you're a fucked Yeah.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine how great your life is at that
Speaker 2: prison if you escape and with the taste of freedom,
Speaker 2: you go, this is hard.
Speaker 3: I should go back.
Speaker 1: I'm going back with the sex work stuff. And like
Speaker 1: they have baths, they have cloth to baths, Like no
Speaker 1: one does that.
Speaker 2: No one's Like I'm a prisoner of war in another country.
Speaker 2: I escaped and it's like feels hard and I'm hungry.
Speaker 1: God, I have one hundred and fifty percent. You are
Speaker 1: so fucking rare, Like there is no prison where you
Speaker 1: exactly where you're Like we were you suddenly don't have
Speaker 1: a fucking five force meal and you're like, actually, I
Speaker 1: don't mind. I'm not it's not for me. Not for me.
Speaker 3: I liked it when I had friends.
Speaker 1: What a great point of me. So other flight groups
Speaker 1: have been less lucky in trying to find spots to hide,
Speaker 1: so instead of empty schools and farms, at least two
Speaker 1: of them went directly into a farmhouse and knocked on
Speaker 1: the door on Christmas Eve asking for food and shelter.
Speaker 1: They were quickly turned in by no, no, no, not
Speaker 1: in Christmas. They're like, well not Christmas. Any other day, Yes,
Speaker 1: we would have your picking cantalope.
Speaker 3: The army jumped into the day It's family, Yes, it's right.
Speaker 1: The day it was vin Diesel actually at the time
Speaker 1: catching all of them, so they called them the FBI,
Speaker 1: the Border Patrol, and every other agency that would lend
Speaker 1: a hand. A reward was offered of twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: for each German pow captured. That's like four hundred dollars
Speaker 1: of today's money. But yeah, I don't no, no, it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like they would trying very hard.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, no, Like how much do you get when
Speaker 3: you win the voice.
Speaker 1: They're like, I don't know. We got twenty dollars at
Speaker 1: a bus pass. Anybody any takers.
Speaker 3: Yes, it should be the equivalent to one million dollars.
Speaker 1: So ranchers, farmers, and local trackers all started combing the desert.
Speaker 1: Once they found the prisoners tracks, it was actually pretty easy.
Speaker 1: Most of the fight groups were caught as they tried
Speaker 1: to cross the desert on foot, but the V shapes
Speaker 1: had been cut into the soles of the prison shoes,
Speaker 1: so their tracks easily stood out. They're like, it's either
Speaker 1: here or there's like some mighty offensive ostriches walking around.
Speaker 2: Oh that's hilarious. No one ever thought to do that
Speaker 2: to change their so whatever.
Speaker 1: Had a little arrow, like literally, it had a little
Speaker 1: arrow pointing in the direction that they went.
Speaker 4: So this.
Speaker 2: Is getting more and more road runner every single second.
Speaker 1: But what about the three boatmen. You know, they might
Speaker 1: have actually escaped if there wasn't a major flaw in
Speaker 1: their nautical plan. Not with a boat, mind you. That
Speaker 1: worked great because they tried it out in their beautiful
Speaker 1: claw foot bath the but they dragged it thirty miles
Speaker 1: over the desert and finally they'd reached the Heelo River,
Speaker 1: and here, my friends, was a flaw. Germans had assumed
Speaker 1: that if a map showed the river, they would count
Speaker 1: on a river. But what they didn't know was that
Speaker 1: by December, the Heel River was hardly more than a
Speaker 1: trickle running through puddles a mud, so there was nowhere
Speaker 1: they could flow their fucking boat. Got your motherfucking I
Speaker 1: can just it just gives me such joy, like I imagine.
Speaker 1: And they try to just like slush through the shit
Speaker 1: like it's not working. It's not working, just thick mud
Speaker 1: and shale. And you've spent.
Speaker 2: Hours building a boat ahead of the finest days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could have been playing volleyball this.
Speaker 3: Entire time, Yes, smelling roses.
Speaker 1: They try to find deeper spots to launch, but they
Speaker 1: could never go down more than the short stretch of
Speaker 1: the muddy river bed before they would get stuck again. Eventually,
Speaker 1: they abandoned the boat and decided to walk. Two days later,
Speaker 1: when they stopped for a breather, two of the men
Speaker 1: laid down for a nap, and the third decided he
Speaker 1: would take a bath and wash his underwear. Okay, and
Speaker 1: that's what he was doing when the cowboys caught up
Speaker 1: with him. They literally found him with his pants down. Ah,
Speaker 1: how about the rest of the slippery Nazis. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the eskps ended up breaking down under questioning and
Speaker 1: telling the prison guards how it all went down. Following
Speaker 1: his testimony, they finally discovered the hidden tunnel. The other
Speaker 1: German prisoners had been hoping that if they didn't give
Speaker 1: the tunnel away, the guards would never find it and
Speaker 1: other prisoners could use it again to escape the future.
Speaker 1: Another one of the escapees gave up after he had
Speaker 1: a run in with a Chola cactus. The spines had
Speaker 1: dug their wig into his foot and he didn't know
Speaker 1: how to deal with it. It hurts so fucking bad
Speaker 1: that they just asked the farmer to drive them back
Speaker 1: to the station. Apparently the Chola actors is also the
Speaker 1: worst kind of thing. Oh yeah, fucking haha, Nazi piece
Speaker 1: of shit.
Speaker 4: So, just like the Battle, Tarantino came into this podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so ha ha ha yeah what I like what?
Speaker 1: I like his stories. I like stories because it's fun,
Speaker 1: because it's fun. Violence, it's fun. So that's my terrible
Speaker 1: one to replace. I guess I'm not getting cast in
Speaker 1: his last film. Shit.
Speaker 3: So just like the Battle of the bulls.
Speaker 1: The escape was a big Nazi plan that made splashy
Speaker 1: headlines before ending in complete fucking failure, and the last
Speaker 1: Gairman call was whiny little Jurorgan Vazenburg. He mentioned to
Speaker 1: hide out in his cave until the end of January,
Speaker 1: when he tried to make his way to a train
Speaker 1: in Phoenix. He went to a hotel, had dinner, and
Speaker 1: then asked a gas station attendant the way to the
Speaker 1: train station. Now, fortunately the attendant had recognized Wattenburg. The
Speaker 1: Arizona Republic had just published a story about him that
Speaker 1: morning titled the big Shots Still at Large. When the
Speaker 1: police stopped Addenburg, he said, I'm the big shot you
Speaker 1: are looking for.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the guy had way too much ego.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in the end, all of the Germans were
Speaker 1: recaptured in the state of Arizona. People around Phoenix were
Speaker 1: especially furious when the Arizona Republic reported that some of
Speaker 1: the escapees were caught with milk, gum, tobacco, and slaps
Speaker 1: of bacon in their fucking packs.
Speaker 4: It was clear just slaps, some just thick cut bacon, which,
Speaker 4: by the way, bacon, as you may know, is and
Speaker 4: I'm sure at the time the luxury food.
Speaker 3: That is the luxury food.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, foods. There's very little I won't do
Speaker 1: for some thick cut bacon.
Speaker 2: It was the most expensive. If you raise pigs, it
Speaker 2: means that you don't. You're like, because pigs are. They
Speaker 2: don't do anything else.
Speaker 1: They just exist and they cuddle and then they die
Speaker 1: for you to have some bacon. Yeah, all of our
Speaker 1: vegan all of our vegan listeners are like, fuck you, guys.
Speaker 1: We know how it works. We've been telling you for centuries. Sorry, guys.
Speaker 1: So it was clear that the prisoners had been giving
Speaker 1: things that were scarce at the time, while most of
Speaker 1: the country was rationing for the war. The papers made
Speaker 1: sure to point out that the prison at Papago Park
Speaker 1: held the most ruthless and fanatical Nazis, for instance, like
Speaker 1: fucking Jurgen. After in nineteen forty five, he got sent
Speaker 1: back to Germany. There he put his prison experience to
Speaker 1: good use. He became the branch manager of the Bavaria
Speaker 1: and Saint Pauli Brewery in Luba.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? This guy talk about failing up.
Speaker 2: They talk about men failing up in life, but this guy,
Speaker 2: oh my god.
Speaker 1: For like Nazis fucking failing up makes me particularly mad.
Speaker 1: Like but brewery, they're like, well, this is like give
Speaker 1: him a beer, give okay, fine, RelA tiation him was lesson.
Speaker 1: Give him a beer. Give him as many beers as
Speaker 1: he won.
Speaker 3: The Jurugan's got a couple stories? Oh really does? You're
Speaker 3: gonna have a couple of stories.
Speaker 1: And the brewery has since been demolished, but the legend
Speaker 1: says that you can still hear his whiny, little shitty
Speaker 1: voice on the Southwest. That's it, that's the sound hear it.
Speaker 3: I am not in the.
Speaker 1: And that is our story. Thank you so much, a
Speaker 1: fear for coming.
Speaker 2: You know what, Jurgen is the luckiest motherfucker, laniest motherfucker
Speaker 2: I've ever heard of.
Speaker 1: But what is what is the biggest takeaway from the story?
Speaker 1: What do you think you're going to remember from it?
Speaker 2: You know, if you look at it from the point
Speaker 2: of view, is that in the beginning, you know, at
Speaker 2: one point in the story we were talking about how
Speaker 2: the Germans were coddled in order for the Americans to
Speaker 2: get information out of him.
Speaker 3: That was the tactic.
Speaker 2: But if you look at this crazy like insanity of
Speaker 2: the lifestyle they were given. How stupid these guards were
Speaker 2: in Arizona. You just like I'm amazed that any of
Speaker 2: this is possible.
Speaker 1: Listen, I gotta tell you, this has been some of
Speaker 1: the most fun I've had during episode.
Speaker 3: That's very sweet.
Speaker 2: I loved, I loved, I learned a little something, so
Speaker 2: thank you, Urduro.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: I think when they fact check me, it turns out
Speaker 1: that none of this was true, but we learned to
Speaker 1: get it. But the Angelope thing was her with you.
Speaker 1: When for our listeners, where can they find you?
Speaker 2: Oh, they can find me in all the socials at
Speaker 2: O Fira e uh and I play all around tour
Speaker 2: and all around. You can also listen to my podcast
Speaker 2: parenting as a joke on iHeart Weekly Episodes.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you so much, Afirah. We'll see you next time,
Speaker 1: and here's a mop of music to play us out.
Speaker 1: Grady's Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
Speaker 1: Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers from
Speaker 1: me Or Touro Castro, Lissa Martino and Milan Popelka from
Speaker 1: Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Winning Donaldson from Gilded
Speaker 1: Audio and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced
Speaker 1: and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
Speaker 1: our research overlord and music Overlord. Our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
Speaker 1: technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Speaker 1: Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
Speaker 1: a rating or review. My mom will call you each
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Speaker 1: week