Arizona during World War II The history of Arizona during World War II begins in 1940 , when the United States government began constructing military bases within the state in preparation for war . Although far removed from the frontlines in Europe and the Pacific , Arizona ' s contribution to the Allied war effort was significant . Multiple prisoner of war camps and Japan ese internment camps were established across the state , as well as several new airbase s and associated sites , resulting in the birth of Arizona ' s aviation and manufacturing industries and the end of the Depression - era . The population of the state also experienced a major increase ; many veteran s returned to Arizona after the war ended in 1945 , laying the foundations for the large metropolis es of Phoenix and Tucson . History . Economics and population growth . Before World War II , Arizona ' s main source of income was generated by the " Five C " industries – cattle , cotton , copper , citrus , and climate – which flourished after the beginning of the 20th century and the World War I - era . However , the collapse of the Stock Market in 1929 and the ensuing depression eventually put the state into a period of decline . According to James E . Sherman , the beginning of the Depression - era created a whole new string of ghost towns in Arizona as people left to find opportunity elsewhere . The situation went mostly unchanged up until the beginning of the war in 1939 . Once it seemed as though intervention in Europe was inevitable , the federal government authorized the military to build new bases in Arizona , which would be used mainly for training purposes . With the " overnight " construction of airfields and other war - related infrastructure , Arizona ' s economy began to shift away from the " Five Cs " to a modern , aviation - driven , manufacturing and technology - based economy . Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , Hawaii , on December 7 , 1941 , the benefits of participating in the war actively added to the already recovering economy . Although the cattle , cotton , and copper industries began to bustle once again , manufacturing eventually took over . In 1940 the gross income for manufacturing was $ 17 million . By 1945 the number had grown to $ 85 million and by the 1960s manufacturing had become the state ' s number one income - producing industry . The population of Arizona , particularly in Phoenix , swelled as result of the war and it was the new military installations and associated manufacturers that provided the impetus for the growth . Many veterans who were stationed in Arizona during the war returned after the fighting was over , having found it to be a good place to find work and raise a family . In 1940 , the population of Arizona was less than 500 , 000 , but by 1950 it had grown to 750 , 000 . The population of Phoenix in 1940 was 65 , 000 . By 1960 it had become the largest city in the Southwest with a population of 439 , 000 . Military bases . Construction of military bases in Arizona was undertaken for several reasons . The state ' s warm weather , clear skies , large amounts of unoccupied land , good railroads , cheap labor , low taxes , and its proximity to California , made it attractive to both the military and private manufacturers . In August 1940 , the government announced its intention to turn Tucson ' s airport , Davis - Monthan , into a major airbase . Within the next few months , the base was expanded from 300 acres to 1 , 600 so as to accommodate 3 , 000 personnel and the largest of the Air Corps ' bomber s . Consolidated Aircraft established a plant at Davis - Monthan to modify bombers flying in from San Diego , Fort Worth , and Detroit . Two other bases were also built nearby : Ryan Field , located west of Tucson , and the Marana Field , located north of Tucson , near the town of Marana . In February 1941 , the city of Phoenix purchased 1 , 440 acres of land for $ 40 , 000 and then leased it to the federal government for $ 1 a year . In March , Del Webb Construction began building what would become the largest fighter - training base in the world . Luke Field , which was named after Arizona ' s World War I ace , Frank Luke , cost $ 4 . 5 million and was used mainly for advanced flight training . Soon after , the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation established a large plant west of Phoenix to build parts for combat aircraft while the Garrett Corporation built the AiResearch plant inside Phoenix ' s Sky Harbor to make parts for the B - 17 bomber . Other manufacturers eventually set up shop as well , including the Allison Steel Company and Alcoa . Thunderbird Field No . 1 was another important airbase in Arizona during the war . Built by Southwest Airways to resemble an Anasazi Thunderbird from the air , the project cost $ 500 , 000 and was completed over a five - week period between January and February 1941 . By the war ' s end in 1945 , more than 10 , 000 American , British , and Chinese pilots had trained there . The base also shares a unique connection with Hollywood . In 1942 , it was used for the making of the war film " Thunder Birds " , starring Preston Foster and Gene Tierney . Furthermore , many of the investors who helped finance the construction of the base were famous actors , such as James Stewart , Cary Grant , and Henry Fonda . Several other installations were built as well , including Mesa ' s Williams Field , Scottsdale ' s Thunderbird Field No . 2 , and the large Desert Training Center in western Arizona . Fort Huachuca , Arizona ' s only major army base , was reinforced by over 10 , 000 men between the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942 . In the small town of Bellemont , near Flagstaff , the army built the $ 30 million Navajo Ordnance Depot , which required 8 , 000 workers to build and 2 , 000 employees upon completion . Many of the staff were native Americans . Internment camps . On March 18 , 1942 , President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102 , which created the War Relocation Authority for the internment of Japanese - Americans . Most of the internees were from the West Coast states of California , Oregon , and Washington , and they were sent to a series of ten camps distributed across the country . Two of the largest camps were located in southern Arizona . The first of the camps was the Poston War Relocation Center , which was built within the Colorado River Indian Reservation , near the town of Poston , in early 1942 . The second , the Gila River War Relocation Center , was built shortly thereafter and located in the Gila River Indian Reservation , near the town of Rivers . Both eventually blossomed into the third and fourth largest cities in Arizona during the war with populations of 18 , 000 and 13 , 000 , respectively . The Gila River Center was considered to be one of the " most relaxed " out of all ten camps , being that many of the administrators were sympathetic for the internees . However , the desert heat and dangerous wildlife – rattlesnakes and scorpions – was a considerable discomfort during the long summers . The engineers who built the camps typically designed them in " block arrangements , " with each block containing fourteen barracks , one mess hall , one recreation hall , one ironing room , one laundry room , and male and female latrines . Other structures included warehouses for food , workshops for vehicles and equipment , administration centers , schools , libraries , hospitals , post offices , and canteens . Empty lots were used by children and the athletic as baseball fields . Adults found work in the large vegetable fields outside of the Gila River Center or in the manufacture of war - related goods , such as camouflage nets and model ship s for training purposes . A system was also created for raising livestock like cattle , chickens , and hogs . Many adult males were drafted into the military or voluntarily joined . Excluding draftees , 487 men from the Gila River Center volunteered to join the United States Army , twenty - three of whom were killed overseas . Prisoner of war camps . With America ' s entry into World War II came the construction of hundreds of prisoner of war camps for approximately 40 , 000 German , Italian , and Japanese men who were captured overseas . The largest of all the newly built prisons was Camp Florence , located near the town of Florence and not far from the Gila River Center . Over 13 , 000 prisoners made Camp Florence their home between its opening in the summer of 1943 and December 1945 . The 500 acre complex featured barracks , a hospital , a bakery , a swimming pool , ball fields , and several theaters , all surrounded by the usual concertina wire and watch towers . All of the prisoners were from either Germany of Italy , many of whom had been captured during the North African Campaign . The Italians were solely enlisted men ; officers were held at camps in other parts of the country . Apart from athletics , to occupy their time and earn money the prisoners could acquire a pass to work in the vegetable fields in the area . Also , those who renounced Italy ' s fascist government were organized into service units and shipped to military facilities throughout the United States , including Fort Lawton in Seattle , Washington . Although Camp Florence was much bigger , Camp Papago Park was the most famous , for it was the site of the largest Axis prisoner of war escape from an American facility . Located near Phoenix , Camp Papago Park had a maximum population of 3 , 100 and consisted of five separate compounds ; four for enlisted men and one for officers . Both German and Italian prisoners were admitted at first , but by January 1944 the facility had been designated for use by the former only . The Great Papago Escape , as it is known , occurred on the night of December 23 , 1944 . While other prisoners were distracting the guards with a Christmas celebration , twenty - five Germans , most of whom were from the Kriegsmarine , crawled through a 178 - foot tunnel they had painstakingly dug and fled into the desert . Several hundred soldiers , agents , and Papago Indian scouts were mobilized to search for the Germans and all of them were eventually caught over the next few weeks without a single shot fired . Most knew they had very little chance of getting back to Germany and were found in Maricopa County , however , a few did attempt to make the journey to Mexico . On January 1 , 1945 , two unnamed prisoners were captured by Papagos less than thirty miles from the border . Soon after , Captain Lieutenant s Friedrich Guggenberger and Jürgen Quaet - Faslem were captured within ten miles . One group of three men even built a collapsible boat to sail down the Gila River , but , to the their disappointment , they found the river mostly dry and ended up leaving the boat behind . The final holdout was Captain Jürgen Wattenberg , who was captured over a month after the escape . Instead of heading south , Wattenberg and two of his subordinates , Walter Kozur and Johann Kremer , made shelter out of a cave in the mountains north of Phoenix . From there they explored the area and even dared to venture into the city . According to author Ronald H . Bailey , Kremler " pulled off the most bizarre caper of the entire escape . " Every few days he would make contact with one of the German workers sent outside of the camp ' s perimeter and exchange places with him . The exchanged prisoner would spend the night in the cave with Captain Wattenberg while Kremer slipped back into camp . Inside , Kremer would gather food and information . To deliver the food he would either join a work detail and escape again or send it out with another worker . This continued for some time until January 22 , when a surprise inspection revealed Kremer ' s presence in camp . Kremer must have given his captors information because on the following night Kozur was captured by three soldiers at the abandoned car used to hide the provisions . Four days later , on January 27 , 1945 , Wattenberg walked to Phoenix and was arrested by the police . At least some of the escapees expected severe punishment – they had heard rumors that American prisoners of war were executed by their German captors in retaliation for the bombing of Dresden – however , their only consequence was to be put on bread and water rationing for as many days as they were missing from camp . None of the American guards received serious punishment either . Native Americans . Native Americans played a major role in World War II ; over 44 , 000 men and women from many different tribes served in the American military between 1940 and 1945 . The most celebrated of all are the code talkers from the Navajo Nation . In need of a way to protect communications from Japanese eavedroppers , the Marine Corps raised several outfits of Navajo radiomen who could use their native language as a code on the battlefield . The first group , which consisted of twenty - nine men , was recruited by Philip Johnston , a World War I veteran who had lived in the Navajo reservation of Arizona and was fluent in the Navajo language . Johnston and the " original twenty - nine , " as they were known , are credited with developing the original code , however , it was modified and improved by others as the war progressed . At least 540 Navajos served in the Marine Corps during World War II , about 400 of whom were trained as code talkers . Because many of them lacked birth certificates , it was impossible to verify the age of some recruits . After the war it was revealed that boys as young as fifteen had enlisted . Navajo code talkers fought in every major campaign of the Pacific theater between 1942 and 1945 ; from Guadalcanal to Okinawa . They saved countless lives with their simple transmissions and also helped hasten the war ' s end . Their code was never broken and continued to be used by American forces during the Korean War and at the beginning of the Vietnam War . Reservation life was also affected by the war . For example , when the government announced its plans to build the Poston War Relocation Center on the Colorado River Indian Reservation , the Tribal Council opposed the idea because " they did not want to participate in inflicting the same type of injustice as they had suffered " years before . However , the army and the Bureau of Indian Affairs overruled the Tribal Council on the basis that the relocation camp would provide the natives with new , developed farm land , built by army funds and labor , which would be turned over to them when the war was over . Another more serious incident occurred in late 1940 at the Papago Reservation west of Tucson . Following President Roosevelt ' s signing of the Selective Training and Service Act , attempts were made to register all able - bodied American Indian males for the draft . This did not sit well with the Papago leader Pia Machita , who refused to allow his fellow tribesmen to register because he did not recognize the United States government . Federal authorities knew that Pia ' s followers were mostly illiterate and therefore ineligible for the draft , but Pia was unaware of this and resisted . In response , federal officers launched a raid on the morning of October 16 , 1940 , to arrest Pia for draft evasion , but the Papagos captured them , beat them up , and then sent them on their way . Pia then fled into the desert , leading to a manhunt and his eventual capture and incerceration . The Phoenix Massacre . In what is usually referred to as the Phoenix Massacre , at least fourteen people were killed or wounded during a violent confrontation in downtown Phoenix between soldiers of the African - American 364th Infantry Regiment , officers from the African - American 733rd Military Police Battalion , and local civilian police . The trouble began on Thanksgiving , November 27 , 1942 . According to the official army history of the 364th Infantry , a soldier , reportedly drunk , became involved in an altercation with a woman at a cafe in Phoenix . There was a disturbance , so MPs were called in to arrest the soldier . Another group of soldiers , also from inside the cafe , witnessed the arrest and protested . A crowd formed and the MPs each fired a shot into the air to try and disperse it . One of the MPs then fired a second time into the ground . However , the bullet ricocheted and struck a man of the 364th . Later , after the MPs and local police had dispersed the crowd , soldiers of the 364th stationed at Camp Papago Park heard an exaggerated account of the incident and decided to arm themselves and seek revenge . Arriving in Phoenix , the rebellious soldiers engaged in a street battle with the police forces that lasted " all night . " Although figures for the number of casualties are disputed , the history of the 364th says that two soldiers and one civilian were killed and eleven others , mainly civilians , were wounded . Fifteen soldiers were court - martialed for " disobeying orders , mutiny , and inciting a riot . " One man , Private Joseph Sipp , was sentenced to death , however , President Roosevelt intervened in his case and had his sentence commuted . The others received prison sentences of up to fifty years . The story of the 364th Infantry was not yet over though . Transferred to Camp Van Dorn , Mississippi , men of the 364th were involved in another shooting with MPs on May 30 , 1943 , resulting in the wounding of two other soldiers . After that , the regiment participated in the Louisiana Maneuvers and was then shipped away to the cold and unexciting Aleutian Islands , largely because of the incidents at Phoenix and Camp Van Dorn .