Alcatraz (45 page)

By this time, Deputy Warden Miller had arrived on the scene, and he fired a shot in the air to convince the hesitant Walters to come out of his hiding place.

San Francisco newspapers carried brief notices of Walters’s “capture by prison guards.” At Bureau headquarters in Washington, James Bennett
was furious at what he saw as carelessness by the guards on duty in the towers, who should have provided visual supervision of the laundry building and the fences. Bennett announced in a terse telegraph to Warden Johnston that he was sending one of his staff, Assistant Commissioner A. H. Connor, to Alcatraz to investigate the escape. To Connor, Bennett sent the following instructions:

While at Alcatraz will you please check on escape of Ted Walters from laundry. Cannot understand how he could get over work area fence in plain daylight without being noticed by tower guards. Suggest you get Warden Johnston’s version and also talk with officers on duty at that time. It seems to me that there must have been inattention to duty and that officer responsible ought to be placed on leave without pay for a reasonable time. Such incidents as this cannot be permitted to go without fixing responsibility and taking appropriate action.
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Connor reported to Bennett that the model building tower had had no guard assigned for four weeks—a situation he found inexcusable. He also noted what Ted Walters had observed: that the road tower guard could not see an area between the industries building and the fences when he was on the recreation-yard side of the tower. Connor reported that Warden Johnston had prepared notices of thirty-day suspensions for Lt. J. H. Simpson and Capt. Henry Weinhold.
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Considering Johnston’s action, Bureau headquarters recommended that because Simpson and Weinhold had “rendered meritorious and outstanding service over a period of years, no suspension should be made.”
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Johnston agreed.

Ted Walters was brought before a good time forfeiture board, where he pleaded guilty to trying to escape, saying that he had tried to swim away but that the pain in his back after his fall from the fence had forced him to return to the sea wall at the bottom of the cliffs. The board, comprised of the deputy warden, two lieutenants, and Dr. Ritchey, took away 3,100 days of Walters’s statutory good time—in effect extending his term of imprisonment by approximately eight and a half years—three and a half years longer than the five-year term Walters would have received if he had been tried for escape and convicted in federal district court.

At some point after he was caught trying to cut the bars of the gun gallery in 1942, Whitey Franklin—still determined to escape from Alcatraz—began
plotting an escape with a group of at least four other inmates. They hit on the idea of gaining access to the utility corridor behind each block of cells, which contained air circulation ducts, plumbing, and electrical conduits, and then climbing up the pipes to the top of the cell house, where they would break through the roof.

The preliminary parts of this plan were already under way when, in May 1944, guards discovered a note in a magazine indicating an escape plot. The note was unsigned but matched Franklin’s handwriting. When Franklin’s cell was searched, a five-inch-long knife was found concealed under the linoleum floor in his cell. The subsequent investigation revealed other components of the escape plan and implicated other inmates, as described in a report to Warden Johnston by Deputy Warden Miller:

A thorough search resulted in the finding of 2 small bits and a small piece of hack saw blade very cleverly concealed in one of the floor brooms. We removed the men and went around from cell to cell searching them while they were unoccupied. This led to the discovery that Franklin had used either the hack saw blade or the band saw blade, or knife blade, to attempt a cut in the ceiling of the cell in the process of attempting to make an opening to get into the attic. We also found two ¼ inch holes drilled through the metal ceiling in his cell. It was apparent that he could do this by standing on his bunk. In the cell occupied by Cretzer we found bored in the wall 20 holes making a line approximately 7 inches in length on the north wall of his cell which would be the south wall of the adjoining cell occupied by his brother-in-law, Kyle. The holes were under the bunk in Kyle’s cell. The cuts made by Franklin in the ceiling of the cell were covered with soap and were not discernible until I had the ceiling of the cell washed and scraped.
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Miller concluded that in addition to Franklin, Joseph Cretzer, and Arnold Kyle, Ted Walters, and Floyd Hamilton were likely involved in the escape plan. This plot, involving five men who had all attempted to escape at least once before, demonstrated once again the determination of some prisoners to beat the government. It should also have informed the staff of deficiencies in the physical plant, patrolling practices, the habits of individual officers, and other weaknesses that provided inmates with escape opportunities. Deputy Warden Miller discounted the possibility of inmates getting inside the utility area behind the cells and climbing the pipes up to the top of the cell house for an escape, because he did not believe it was possible for inmates to get through the roof itself. Many
years later another group of convicts would find a way to overcome this obstacle.

In July 1945, with the war in Europe over and Japan under attack, another Alcatraz prisoner attempted to escape on his own. Taking advantage of two aspects of the war effort—the availability of military uniforms coming to Alcatraz for laundering and the regular coming and going of military ferries—John K. Giles succeeded in getting off the island and making it as far as nearby Angel Island.

Giles, a train robber, arrived at Alcatraz with a twenty-five-year sentence. Several years later, in 1943, he filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court claiming that his robbery conviction should be voided because the law applied to successful robberies, not to failed attempts. He declined to apply for parole consideration, noting that “applications from Alcatraz are impracticable.”
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In 1945, at age fifty, having failed to gain his release through legal means, as he had at the Oregon State Prison a decade earlier, John Giles resolved to leave Alcatraz by escape.

At approximately 10:20 on the morning of July 31, 1945, the U.S. Army ferry
General Frank M. Coxe
was tied up at the dock on Alcatraz before continuing on to Fort McDowell on nearby Angel Island. Sergeant Sherman Casey on the
Coxe
noticed a man in a staff sergeant’s uniform moving along a beam next to the boat but below the dock and apparently examining the beams with a flashlight. Casey then turned his attention to other matters. A few minutes later, however, a private informed Casey that an unidentified staff sergeant had jumped from the dock and piled into the freight hatch of the
Coxe
. As the boat left, Casey called out this information to Alcatraz guard Zenas Crowell who was standing on the dock. As the boat got under way, Casey instructed Corporal Paul Lorinez to locate the unidentified staff sergeant and ask where he was going. Lorinez found the man, asked his destination, and was told that he was a telephone lineman going to Fort McDowell to repair a cable. Sergeant Casey did not link the boarding of the unknown staff sergeant to an escape attempt because the week before the army had assigned several men to work on the telephone cables below the Alcatraz dock. The
Coxe
completed its fifteen-minute voyage, tied up to the pier at Angel Island, and prepared to allow its passengers to disembark.

Meanwhile, back on Alcatraz, the comment by Sergeant Casey to
Officer Crowell had prompted an immediate count of the crew of six inmates assigned to work as freight handlers. Crowell quickly determined that Giles, who had worked on the dock as a janitor and freight handler for nine years, was missing. Crowell notified the dock lieutenant, who called Warden Johnston with the news that Giles was missing. Johnston quickly telephoned Fort McDowell to ask that all passengers disembarking from the
Coxe
be screened; Deputy Warden Miller jumped into an army speed boat tied up at the dock and set out after the ferry boat as the siren sounded for an escape.

The officer of the day at Fort McDowell, Lieutenant Gordon Kilgore, received the news from Alcatraz that a prisoner, possibly dressed in an army uniform, had escaped. Taking a sergeant with him, Kilgore went on board the
Coxe
. Corporal Lorinez told him about the unidentified boarder and pointed to Giles, who was standing in the middle of a line of soldiers waiting to disembark. Kilgore approached Giles, asked him for his pass and dog tag, which were promptly produced and identified him as “George F. Todd.” The only irregularity Lt. Kilgore noticed was that the pass had not been stamped as required at Fort Mason, the starting point for the ferry on the city side of the bay. Kilgore asked the staff sergeant to accompany him to the dock office where he was questioned as to his business at Fort McDowell, which he said was “to visit the Post photographer.” Kilgore asked how long he had been in the army and the soldier replied, “off and on for about nine years.” At this point Deputy Warden Miller arrived at the dock and was directed to the office where Kilgore was holding “Sergeant Todd.” Miller walked into the office, took one look at the soldier, and placed handcuffs on his wrists. Giles was searched and handcuffed to the record clerk who had accompanied Miller in the boat. The party returned to Alcatraz, where after a physical examination Giles was locked up in solitary confinement on a restricted diet.

The San Francisco newspaper headlines reported “10 Years of Planning—Brief Moment of Freedom” and “Alcatraz Guest Nonchalantly Sails Away.”
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Warden Johnston asked U.S. Attorney Frank Hennessy to prosecute Giles for escape, not because the additional sentence would mean anything to Giles, but because the additional years for the attempt might deter other inmates. How the warden came to the conclusion that three- to five-year terms for escape attempts would deter men on Alcatraz who were already serving long sentences is not clear.

In subsequent interviews about his attempted escape, Giles reported only that he had picked up the various pieces of his uniform from the
tons of laundry that were unloaded and loaded by the inmate freight handlers on the dock. He said that he had thought about trying to escape for nine years and that on 31 July he had decided “Today is the day.” When asked why he did not board the
Coxe
when it was returning to San Francisco rather than en route to Angel Island, he replied that he thought moving in the latter, less expected direction would be more likely to succeed. Giles refused to disclose any further details when FBI agents sought to question him, saying only that no other person was involved in the attempt, that he had nothing to gain by supplying information, and that he was unconcerned about an additional prison sentence. He declined to disclose the place where he had hidden the uniform, or how he had obtained the substantial number of items found in his possession, including maps of the San Francisco Bay Area and of Marin County, two sets of enlisted men’s passes, two sets of dog tags, seven associated U.S. Army shoulder patches, and other items.
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Giles ended his interview with the FBI agents with a statement familiar to all Rock convicts and staff, “I’m a prisoner doing a long time. It’s up to the prison officers to keep me and it’s up to me to get away if I can. It is not in my book to tell anything because I don’t want to injure the chances that another prisoner may have in escaping.”
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Bureau of Prisons headquarters responded to Warden Johnston’s report on the escape by asking how so many contraband items and uniform pieces could have been collected by Giles and remain hidden from the shakedowns conducted by the custodial staff.
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Warden Johnston replied that all incoming laundry was first searched by an officer, item by item, but that the amount of laundry had become so large that some items in pockets possibly escaped detection.

Three and a half months after the escape attempt—after a good time forfeiture board had taken 3,000 days of his statutory good time—Giles was brought before federal judge Michael Roche in San Francisco and told the court that he did not wish to have an attorney represent him. A jury was impaneled with no objection from Giles, and the government proceeded to call six witnesses, primarily the military personnel on the
Coxe
, Lt. Kilgore from Fort McDowell, and Deputy Warden Miller. The government and the defendant concluded their arguments by 3:00
P.M
. on the same day, with Giles asserting that he should not be charged with “attempted escape” because he had, in fact, escaped. The following morning the jury deliberated for eight minutes and rendered its verdict of “guilty.” Giles was sentenced to three years to run consecutively at the end of his present twenty-five-year sentence; his only response to a reporter
was: “I’ll pay for what I get. But what I need is an undertaker, not an attorney.”
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During the spring of 1946, as the nation recovered from the devastating world war, four prisoners assigned to work in the basement below the kitchen noticed a steel door in the floor that was secured with a padlock.
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One of the men, number 1700, told the others that the steel plate covered the entrance to a tunnel through which the steam pipes that heated the prison passed. James Quillen—serving a forty-five-year federal term with a detainer against his release filed by the State of California—had heard stories from old-timers about Alcatraz being built “on top of the old Spanish prison.” He theorized that if they could get access to the tunnel, they “should be able to go anywhere underneath the building” and find an “outlet somewhere.”

To test the theory, 1700 picked the lock that held the door in place. When it was lifted a shallow tunnel three feet wide and three feet deep was revealed. Most of the space in the tunnel was taken up by a large steam pipe and two smaller pipes. Quillen crawled some distance into the tunnel to investigate. The plotters were encouraged when they saw that the walls of the tunnel were made of bricks, which unlike concrete could be dug out individually. In the yard, Quillen talked with “Ray,” who worked in one of the industries shops (this was most likely Alvin Karpis, who was called Ray by his friends). Quillen convinced Ray that escape was feasible and that he could help by smuggling needed items from the shops. Quillen and 1700 removed another padlock from a cabinet in the basement that matched the lock securing the grate in the floor. This lock was smuggled to Ray, who removed all but one tumbler; the altered padlock was then used to replace the lock at the tunnel entrance. “That lock was real, the lock wasn’t damaged, you couldn’t tell it had ever been touched,” said Quillen later. “Their keys worked in it, but anything we wanted to use would work in it.”