82
I
n the late hours of 11 June
1962, three inmates at Alcatraz
Federal Penitentiary entered
criminal folklore by performing
the seemingly impossible feat of
breaking out of the maximum-
security prison and making for the
shore on an improvised inflatable
raft. What became of the escapees
is one of the most perplexing
mysteries in American history.
The escape plan was years in
the making and should have
involved four inmates – brothers
Clarence and John Anglin, Frank
Morris, and Allen West – but onlythree made it out of their cells. The
trio scaled a 9-metre (30-ft) wall
and crossed a rooftop, before
manoeuvring down a 15-metre
(50-ft) pipe to the ground below.
They also climbed two 3½-metre
(12-ft) barbed-wire perimeter
fences. All of this they achieved
while hauling a makeshift raft,
which they inflated and launched
into the icy waters.Daunting task
Alcatraz was regarded as an
escape-proof prison, with its
unmatched security and isolated,
inhospitable location surrounded
by the cold waters and strong
currents of San Francisco Bay. In
its history as a federal prison, from
1934–63, only one inmate – John
Paul Scott – is known to have made
it off the island alive. In December
1962, six months after the “Escape
from Alcatraz”, Scott scrambled
through a storage room window
under the kitchen and swamESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ
IN CONTEXT
LOCATION
San Francisco, California,
USTHEME
JailbreakBEFORE
2 March 1935 Six inmates
escape the penal colony of
French Guiana by boat; all but
Parisian native René Belbenoît
are later apprehended.AFTER
10 June 1977 James Earl Ray,
imprisoned for the murder of
civil rights leader Martin
Luther King Jr, escapes the
Brushy Mountain State Prison
in Tennessee, along with six
other inmates; they are all
recaptured three days later.25 September 1983 Tw o
Irish republican prisoners at
Maze Prison in County Antrim,
Northern Ireland, use
smuggled guns to hold guards
hostage and escape along with
36 other members of the IRA
in the biggest prison break in
British history.31 May 1984 Six inmates on
death row at Mecklenburg
Correctional Center in Virginia
overpower guards, change into
their uniforms, and bluff their
way out of the prison in a van.“The Rock” is a 19-hectare (47-acre)
island situated a daunting 2 km
(1¼ miles) offshore. Its position has
made it ideal as a military base, and
as a maximum-security prison.I got back into the cell house
and all the cons were hollering,
‘They got away! They got
away! They got away!’
Darwin Coon,
Alcatraz inmate080-085_EscapeFromAlcatraz.indd 82 02/12/2016 14:41
83
ashore. He was found by the Golden
Gate Bridge unconscious and
suffering from hypothermia,
and was immediately recaptured.
In total, 36 inmates tried to
break out of Alcatraz in 14 separate
attempts. Of those, 23 were caught,
six were shot dead, and two
drowned. Five are listed as
“presumed drowned”: the Anglin
brothers, Morris, Theodore Cole,
and Ralph Roe. Cole and Roe made
it to the water on 16 December 1937
after filing through flat iron window
bars, but they did so on a stormy
night when the currents were
particularly treacherous, reducing
the likelihood that they reached the
shore alive.Exploiting a weakness
In December 1961, the Anglins,
Morris, and West found themselves
in adjacent cells and becamefriends. According to West, that
same month he began to devise an
escape plan after finding discarded
saw blades in a corridor. Searching
for a weak point in the rear wall of
their cells, they discovered that the
ventilation duct openings under the
sinks could be loosened.
The quartet painstakingly
chiselled away, taking turns to act
as a lookout by using a periscope
they had fashioned to spy on the
guards. They used a variety of
crude tools, including sharpened
spoons and an improvised drill
constructed from the motor of aSee also: The Great Train Robbery 30–35 ■ D.B. Cooper 38–43CON ARTISTS
The mugshots taken of Clarence
Anglin (right), his brother John Anglin
(centre), and Frank Lee Morris (far
right) upon their separate arrivals to
Alcatraz in 1960 and 1961.The escapees
John and Clarence Anglin began
robbing banks together in the
1950s. In 1956, they were
arrested and sentenced to 15–20
years in federal prison. After
failed escape attempts at
different penitentiaries, they
were transferred to Alcatraz:
John arrived in late 1960, and
Clarence in early 1961.
The brothers were housed on
the same cellblock as convicted
bank robber Frank Lee Morris.
An orphan who was raised in
foster homes, Morris began hislife of crime at 13 and by his late
teens had a long criminal record
that included convictions for
armed robbery.
While serving 10 years in
the Louisiana State Penitentiary
for bank robbery, Morris
escaped. He was recaptured
a year later in the act of
committing a burglary, and
was sent to Alcatraz in 1960.
He possessed an exceptionally
high IQ, and is often credited
as the mastermind behind the
escape – despite Allen West’s
claim to be the instigator of the
audacious plan.broken vacuum cleaner to remove
an entire section of each of their
cell walls. They also made the most
of the daily “music hour”, the time
prisoners were allowed to play
instruments, which conveniently
concealed the noise the four men
made digging their tunnels.
The tunnels opened up into an
unguarded utility corridor behind
the cell tier. There they climbed up
a shaft of steam pipes and ducts to
the building’s roof, where they cut
away the ventilation fan. Hidden
on the roof, the four men built a
makeshift workshop for the next
phase of the plot – escaping from
the island.Collecting for the cause
To conceal their nocturnal
activities and continue unhindered,
they sculpted dummy heads, using
a cement powder mixture. These
were decorated with flesh-coloured
paint from art kits and human
hair collected from the prison
barbershop floor.
The four men positioned the
dummies on their pillows and
stuffed clothing and towels under
the bed covers to give the
appearance of a body to avoid
discovery during bed checks. ❯❯080-085_EscapeFromAlcatraz.indd 83 02/12/2016 14:41