"VON WERRA FLEES!"

SCREAMED THE N.Y. HEADLINES

While the captured NAZI WW II pilot escaped from El Paso into Ciudad Juarez!

And just kept right on going!

In 1941, long before Pearl Harbor!


Source: Burt, Kendal and Leasor, James. The One That Got Away. New York: Random House, 1956.

Adapted from pages 259-265

"Von Werra left New York by alone by train. A few mornings later he reached El Paso, the largest city on the Rio Grande. At El Paso there are two toll bridges [1956] across the Rio Grande -- the Stanton Street Bridge and the Santa Fe bridge. On the opposite side is the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez.

"Von Werra had been told that control by U.S. authorities of persons and vehicles leaving America across the two bridges was very strict. He also knew that, once past the American check-point, entry into Mexico presented no difficulty. [E]ntry into the country was unrestricted to a depth of fifteen miles south of the border.

"Von Werra arrived at El Paso by train at about 5 A.M. He left his two suitcases in the luggage office and made his way at once to one of the bridges crossing the Rio Grande.

"He waited. At 6 A.M. Mexican labourers and peasants began to cross into the United States from Ciudad Juarez, on the far bank. They travelled by tram, bicycle and on foot. Some led carts piled with garden produce. They wore battered, sometimes split, broad-rimmed straw hats with high conical crowns, brightly coloured shirts, blue jeans and homemade sandals.

"U.S. border police were out in force watching them enter the city. Now and again carts filled with manure trundled past. The bright spring sunshine caught the vapour rising off their loads. The police waved them on hurriedly, screwing up their noses. Von Werra noticed that the few people the police examined were usually those carrying bags or parcels.

"He could not hope to get his two suitcases past the control point. He would have to leave them where they were in the station luggage office. They may still be there.

"Von Werra turned back into El Paso.

"After lunch, he found the bazaar district, where he bought a Mexican straw hat, a pair of jeans, a brightly colored shirt and a pair of sandals. To get rid of their obvious newness he screwed them up and drubbed them in the dust; the hat he stretched and bent out of shape.

"With the straw hat well down over his eyes, his jacket draped over one shoulder and his new sandals squeaking, he made his way back along Alameda Avenue towards the international bridge.

"The workers started drifting back across the bridge to Ciudad Juarez shortly after 5 p.m. Half an hour later there was a steady stream.

"Von Werra stood at the edge of the pavement about fifty yards from the check-point, watching from under his broad-rimmed hat.

"To passers-by he was just another idle, rubber-necking Mexicano. He had an idea and waited his opportunity to put it into effect.

"An empty manure cart approached. The carrier walked at the horse's head on the off-side, holding a rein in one hand and a stick in the other. A quick glance in the back. Just the job!

"He stepped boldly off the pavement and trailed behind the cart. The smell was appalling. There was a shallow backboard, and on the floor, within reach, was a manure fork -- the thing Von Werra had been hoping for.

"Ten yards to go. The wooden wheels rattled and creaked on the axle. Von Werra hung his jacket over the backboard, picked up the fork and slung it over his shoulder. He was hidden from the carter by the hindquarters of the horse.

"At the check-point there was a group of border police standing watching the pedestrians. Von Werra passed within a couple of feet of them.

"Once across the bridge he replaced the fork in th eback of the cart, picked up his jacket and joined the crowd on the pavement. The driver went on his way ignorant of the fact that he had gained and lost a mate.

"A little later von Werra squatted on his haunches, together with a crowd of other straw-hatted figures, on a platform of Ciudad Juarez rialway station, waiting for a train to Mexico City, 1,300 miles away.

"The train journey from Ciudad Juarez to Mexico City was the strangest von Werra had ever made. There was no glass on the windows of his third-class carriage, which struck him as rather a waste, as this time he had no need to dive out through one of them.

"He was a little apprehensive until the train passed the Federal inspection point at Ysleta [ Oh, yeah? ¡N'ombre! ], twelve miles south of Ciudad Juarez, but, as he had been assured beforehand, the passport inspectors did not bother even to visit te third-class coaches.

"That was why, with the best part of $1,000 in his pocket, he was travelling so uncomfortably.

"The carriage was packed with humanity, chickens and sucking pigs.

"The journey lasted two days and two nights. The train pulled into the terminus, Buenavista Station, Mexico City, late in the evening of March 28 [1941].

"The German Embassy in Washington had warned the German Embassy in Mexico City to expect von Werra on that date.

"He looked along the rank of parked cars and taxis and suddenly grinned. He had spotted a gleaming Mercedes-Benz, bearing the letters CD. The uniformed chauffeur, obviously a German, scanned the crowd, chin in the air. He completely ignored the grubby little Mexicano."

And so, ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, "the grubby little Mexicano" sure enough had some fun!

But as the authors sadly conclude: "His escaping days were over."