Formerly a military base, Alcatraz Island opened as a federal maximum security prison in 1934. The prison was nicknamed The Rock, due to the fact that the prison sits on a 22 acre island about a mile-and-a-quarter away from the city of San Francisco. Because of this, the prison gained a reputation as being inescapable, with water surrounding the prison hovering around 48 degrees fahrenheit to 54 degrees fahrenheit all year, along with formidable currents pulling strongly out to sea leading up to low tide.
The Alcatraz Prison Escape landed itself in the history books
As time went on, the prison would fall into disrepair, and the budget to fix things was limited. This would become an important factor in the inmates’ escape. So without further ado, let’s meet the escape crew. First up, we have the Anglin Brothers, John William Anglin and his younger brother Clarence Anglin, both in their early 30s at the time of the escape. The brothers were serving time for robbing a bank together.
Next we have Frank Morris, in his mid-30s at the time of the escape, who had been abandoned as a young child, put in foster care and run away, and was then in and out of prisons since he was just 13 years old. He was also serving time for a bank robbery. The final member of the crew is Allen West, age 33 at the time of the escape. West began serving time by the age of 14 and bounced around various federal prisons. Our crew of escapees established, let’s jump into the inception of the escape.
It’s said that West first approached Morris with a plan to escape in early 1960. West apparently knew of a ventilator cover above Cell Block B that might not be sealed over with concrete, as some of the other vents had been. If true, this could provide them with a way to get onto the roof of the prison from the inside. West also began working with the cell house maintenance crew, which gave him insight into the building’s structure, layout, and weaknesses. By September 1961, the Anglin Brothers, Morris, and West all had requested moves to cells that were close to each other in Cell Block B, directly under the unsecured vent cover. All cell moves were approved.
In terms of who planned what, the details are a bit murky. But one thing is for sure. The plan that the four men would execute was undoubtedly bold and ingenious. That being said, let’s break down the plan, starting with phase one, deception. With Alcatraz, it wasn’t just about escaping the prison walls, as it was also about making it back to the mainland and avoiding capture in that process. In order to prevent that, the men knew they needed a head start. To accomplish this, the men created painted dummy heads made from a plaster-like mix of soap, concrete, and other materials. And complete with human hair.
Alcatraz escapees managed to fool guards
They laid the heads in their beds to fool the guards. Sure enough, on June 12, on the morning following the escape, when the 7:00 AM bell went off to wake the prisoners, guards discovered that the escapees appeared to still be asleep in their beds. It wasn’t until one guard reached into Morris’ cell and pushed the head, only for it to roll away and strike the ground, that the guards realized something was was wrong. To this day, the dummy head that struck the ground still has the damage that resulted from this fall. It’s unknown who came up with the idea to create dummy heads. However, Clarence worked as a barber and had access to human hair trimmings. Either way, phase one deception as a success.
This brings us to phase two, breakout. After laying the dummies in their beds, the men went to work on busting out of their cells. All four of the men’s cells had five inch by nine-and-a-half inch ventilation grates in the back of their cells. Perhaps due to his time on maintenance, West may have known that the wall surrounding the grate was less than six inches thick, making it possible for each man to expand the hole in their cell to fit through.
For months, each of the escapees had drilled small, closely-spaced holes around the cover of the ventilation grates. For this, they used crude handmade tools, like spoons stolen from the kitchen and a drill made from a vacuum cleaner motor. These holes made it possible for them to remove the entire small section of the wall around the air vents, which they then kept covered up with their musical instruments and with fake covers made of cardboard.
West failed to make it to the landing spot and was left behind
These holes allowed them to crawl through to a utility corridor located directly behind their cells that was typically left unguarded. From there, they were able to climb up to a hidden landing area directly above their cell block, where they had been working in secret for several months. Some or all of the escapees had been given permission, at some point, to do maintenance work on this landing area. In fact, to this day, you can still see where West actually completed part of the painting job.
Apparently, West had even convinced the guards to allow him to hang blankets that concealed his work, because it was sending dust cascading down to the ground level. In reality, he was actually using blankets to hide the work that was really being done up there. This concealed landing area became the escapees’ secret workshop. They even built and used a primitive periscope to take turns as lookout. In the workshop, they were able to build the aforementioned dummies, tools, and other items they’d used to escape.
It’s worth noting that, on the night of the escape, West never made it to this landing spot, due to the fact that he was unable to break through the last portion of the wall around his ventilation grate. Consequently, West was left behind. From the landing, the ceiling was about 30 feet directly overhead, and the men were able to climb to the ceiling via the pipes and reach an air vent that they had previously pried off in preparation for their escape.
Experts believe that a sound reportedly heard around 10:30 PM was the sound of the air vent cover being pushed off on the roof. And this marks the approximate time the escapees would have reached the roof. They then climbed down from the roof via a pipe next to the back of their cell block, climbed the 15-foot fence, and made their way to the north shore of the island.
Phase Three of Alcatraz Escape
Which brings us to the next phase, phase three, escaping the island. In their workshop, the inmates had built life preservers and a six-by-14 foot rubber raft, all made from prison issue raincoats. They’d gathered over 50 raincoats for the job, possibly stitching them together using sewing machines in the clothing or glove shops. They even vulcanized the rubber raincoats by holding the seams up to the heat from the steam pipes, an idea they’d gotten from a popular Mechanics’ issue. The raft was inflated using a converted musical instrument, a concertina ordered by Morris back in April.
The plan was to sail across San Francisco Bay in their raft to Angel Island, about two miles north of Alcatraz Island. From there, they would sail again, this time across Raccoon Strait, about a half-mile wide, which would then bring them to the mainland. There, they would steal a car as well as clothing, according to West, who would later inform the FBI about a good deal of the plan. Once the men were discovered missing, Alcatraz went into lockdown as a search began.
Guards quickly found the secret workshop, the hole in the ceiling, and footprints on the roof and at the bottom of the pipe they climbed down. The FBI joined the case, as would the Coastguard and Bureau of Prison Authorities, in what would be a wide-scale search. However, the escapees, as well as their raft, were never seen again. Even though we know the three men made it off of Alcatraz Island, what happened to the three men after that remains a mystery.
Alcatraz Escape Theories
The men perished in the journey over to the mainland.
The Bay’s waters are known for being frigid, and there is a strong current that could’ve worked against the escapees. Experts point out that the trio’s goal of taking the raft north to Angel Island would have been extremely difficult at this time, especially given that they had paddles but no rudder.
- Additionally, results of a reenactment of the escape carried out by Dutch scientists in a piece for PBS, in which they built a raft similar to the one the escapees used, found that two of the men would have to work to keep the raft inflated, leaving only one to paddle. The weather would’ve been about 47 degrees fahrenheit when the men made it outside the prison. The water is said to have been 54 degrees fahrenheit. If the raft had sunk or the men had gone overboard into the water, they would probably have only lasted two hours before starting to lose consciousness, according to author Jolene Babyak.
- On June 12, bits of wood resembling a handmade paddle were found in the water near Angel Island. The pieces were identified as belonging to the escapees. On June 14, bags made from raincoats were found halfway between Alcatraz and Angel Island. These bags contained irrefutable evidence that they had belonged to the escapees, photos of the Anglins and their family, nine pieces of paper with a list of people to contact on the outside, and a letter written to Clarence Anglin. Many point to these personal items as evidence that the journey was ill-fated, as these would have not been items easily given up. On June 15, a homemade life vest was found floating near Cronkite Beach. A second life vest was discovered on June 22 no more than 100 yards from the eastern coast of Alcatraz Island. Its ties were still knotted.
- All three of the men would have set out with very little money, so the fact that the hordes of authorities on the case never found a shred of evidence of any thefts or holdups tied to Morris or the Anglins for food, clothing, or transportation made it seem unlikely that they made it to the mainland alive.
- The FBI states that they never found any credible evidence, either in the U.S. or abroad, that the men lived. In mid July 1962, about six weeks after the escape, a Norwegian shipping freighter, the S.S. Norefjell, spotted a body in the ocean about 20 miles away from the Golden Gate Bridge. However, they did not call in the sighting and did not report it until fall, when they returned to San Francisco, and the body was never recovered.
The escapees survived
Morris and the Anglin Brothers had a raft to help them navigate the waters, which many people have successfully been able to swim before without the benefit of a raft or life jackets.
- A triathlon is held each year in which participants complete a mile-and-a-half swim in the same waters around the same time of year that the escape occurred. Participants do say that the current, choppy waters, and wind are major factors to contend with. But according to Jeff Harp, a security analyst for CBS San Francisco who worked with the FBI for over 20 years and goes for swims in the San Francisco Bay, he doesn’t know of any contestants in the triathlon who haven’t been able to complete the swim.
- Furthermore, most of the bodies of those who drown in the Bay will float after a few days, but despite extensive searches, the fugitives’ bodies were never found. U.S. Marshal Michael Dyke has run a simulation with help from the Coastguard that determined the escapees could’ve survived in the water for two-and-a-half hours at least if the raft plan failed.
- The same Dutch scientists who carried out the reenactment of the escape also created a computer model, which they presented in 2014, that could recreate the conditions in the water on the night of the escape. The model found that there was a very narrow window between 11:30 PM and midnight during which the trio would have needed to launch their raft in order to have a chance of making it to land. And since the inmates may have made it to the roof by 10:30 PM, this window seems possible. Though, even then, they would’ve had to let the currents carry them to Horseshoe Bay, northeast of the Golden Gate Bridge, rather than trying to reach Angel Island. The model also suggested that items left at the shoreline near Horseshoe Bay would drift back towards Angel Island, where some of the escapees’ items were recovered once the tides reversed. And while the Dutch scientists’ real life recreation of the escape did not work, as they were unable to withstand the currents and bring the raft to land, they still got fairly close to Golden Gate Bridge in a little over an hour aboard the raft. One of the scientists conceded. He still believes the escapees might have been able to pull it off given the rush of adrenaline and need to survive.
- David Widner, the nephew of the Anglin Brothers, has said that his uncle Robert, one of John and Clarence’s older brothers, confessed on his deathbed to his sisters, “that they didn’t have to worry about their brothers, that he had been in touch with them and they were okay.” Widner added that his grandmother, who would’ve been John and Clarence Anglin’s mother, would sometimes receive roses with her sons’ signatures on the card following the 1962 escape. Multiple family members of John and Clarence Anglin have claimed over the years at family funerals that they have noticed mysterious women wearing veils and/or heavy makeup, which could have been the undercover Anglin Brothers coming to pay their respects.
- In 2015, a history channel show claimed that a photo taken of two men in Brazil 13 years after the escape depicted brothers John and Clarence Anglin alive. The photograph came from Fred Brizzi, a childhood friend of the Anglin Brothers, who turned it over to the family sometime in the 1990s. Brizzi’s story is that he was on a trip in Brazil when he happened to run into John and Clarence at a bar. Brizzi has since passed away. Many in the Anglin family have held onto the belief that John and Clarence survived the escape. They also believe the photo shows John and Clarence. An expert connected with the history channel show concluded that the photo showed the Anglin Brothers. The U.S. Marshal’s office investigated the claim. Their experts do not believe the photo depicts John and Clarence. However, they acknowledge that a solid determination isn’t really possible given the age and wear to the photo and the fact that the subjects are wearing sunglasses.
