Battle of Alcatraz (1946)

Pasadena Independent (May 3, 1946)

Marines join bloody battle as Alcatraz prisoners riot

Armed convicts seize cell-block; guards held as hostages; 1 slain

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 (UP) – Rebellious convicts on Alcatraz Island Federal Penitentiary seized an arsenal of guns tonight in a desperate, bloody break for freedom and fought a savage battle from a cell-block barricade with counter-attacking guards and U.S. Marines in full battle dress. A least four guards were wounded and one killed. They were felled by sharp-shooting convicts as they advanced courageously to the very walls of the rebel stronghold on the eastern shoreline of “the rock” – the nation’s toughest prison.

The insurrectionists gained possession of a prison gun gallery. Armed with a machine gun and small arms, they returned shot for shot in blazing combat on the blacked-out isle a mile and a half east of the San Francisco shoreline.

The battle was still raging at 9 p.m., seven hours after it broke out with spectacular violence early in the afternoon. A detachment of more than 20 Marines, many of them veterans of jungle fighting against Japanese, landed on the island. But the situation, according to Warden James A. Johnston, remained out of hand.

The desperate inmates, headed by a ringleader with a machine gun, imprisoned most of the prison’s officers. Since the officers became virtual hostages, the fighting guards and military authorities reluctant to open an all-out offensive against the rebels.

Casualties were arriving at San Francisco waterfront early in the evening. Launch crewmen reported all of the embattled convicts had obtained guns. Other non-combatant inmates were herded into separate yard.

Capt. James Logan, at Highway Patrol headquarters on the Golden Gate bridge, said that a prisoner named “Coy” overpowered a guard, took is machine gun, pressed an electric button that opened up all the cell doors, and invited the prisoners to join him in the break.

Twelve inmates immediately rushed out and grabbed several other guards, stole their guns and scattered throughout the cell-block. It was not known how many others of the 300 convicts later joined the revolt.

The rattle of machine-gun fire, interspersed with rifle shots, blasted from the convicts’ stronghold. Daring prison guards, crawling along a catwalk and over walls surrounding the cell-block, fired through the bars at the rebels inside. They attacked at close range with sawed off shotguns, gas-bomb guns, rifles and pistols.

Leathernecks land

A detachment of 20 Marines, many of them veterans of fighting against Japanese snipers, landed on Alcatraz Island at 6:18 p.m. They went ashore on the northern side of the isle from the boat PC-799, under command of Warrant Officer C. Al Buckner.

The Leathernecks were equipped with small arms, tear gas bombs and smoke grenades.

At 8 p.m., six hours after the battle started, Warden James A. Johnston issued his third telegraphic bulletin to the United Press – long after darkness had blacked out the waterlocked island.

Johnston telegraphed: “We have moved prisoners from the work area and shops to the yard. Armed Marines are guarding them. Our officers are now trying to man a gun gallery where the armed prisoners have possession. Two officers were wounded in the attempt, shot by prisoners. Their names are Harry Cochrane and Fred J. Richberger. Officer Cochrane is badly wounded in the left upper arm near the shoulder, Officer Richberger in the calf of the leg.”

Two wounded Alcatraz guards were landed at Fort McDowell pier on the San Francisco waterfront at 7:30 p.m. One man was a stretcher case, with a gunshot flesh wound in his shoulder. The second casualty was limping with a flesh wound in his left leg. Another wounded man, an ambulance case, was landed at the Aquatic Park pier.

All prisoners armed

A crew member of the prison launch said: “All the convicts in the cell-block appear to be armed.”

United Press correspondent James Sheehy watched the battle from the police boat D. A. White, 100 yards off the island.

“We watched black-coated guards slink along a catwalk and fire pistols, reaching far over their heads. They held up their guns as high as they could to fire between the bars of the windows, into the main cell-block,” Sheehy reported.

“Frequently we heard the muffled report of rifle and machine-gun fire coming from the cellblock… We heard literally hundreds of shots. A guard clinging close to the building fired a projectile between the bars, but it struck one of the heavy bars and blazed back over his head, like a fiery tracer bullet, setting fire to pretty pink ice plants outside.”

Warden James A. Johnston announced the insurrection in a brief telegram received by the United Press at 3:23 p.m. PST. At 5:55 p.m., he advised the United Press that the situation for the officers was “difficult and perilous.” It was not known immediately how the convicts obtained the weapons.

One of the first of the wounded guards, named Cochran, reported as he was brought ashore at San Francisco that there were other wounded on the island, but “none that we can get at.” He inferred some were injured in block-off, besieged area under the range of convict fire. A doctor was reported trapped in a cell block.

Fearful wives and children of prison officials crowded around waterfront piers. Boys and girls cried: “I want my daddy!”

Two Navy destroyer-escorts, five Coast Guard cutters and patrol boats, two naval patrol boats and police launches cruised with guns alerted around the formidable “escape-proof” island.

Warden Johnston’s bulletin to the United Press, his first since he disclosed the rebellion:

“Have no additional information any more accurate or detailed than I have already given you. Our situation is difficult and precarious.

“Our officers are all being used in every place that we can man. The armed prisoner or prisoners are still eluding us so that at the moment we cannot control them. The Navy, Coast Guard and San Francisco police department are standing by to help when we find we can use them to advantage.”

In response to appeals from the island, an emergency corps of doctors – including three U.S. Marine Corps physicians – put out to the island with nurses.

Prison guards fired into the convicts’ barricade with rifles, shotguns and gas shells. San Francisco policemen radioed back from a launch off the island that prison officers were firing through the cell block windows on the east, or Oakland, side of the island.

United Press correspondent William Best, from his observation position atop Russian Hill overlooking the island, said he saw flames and smoke pour from windows at one end of the cell-block. Later the fire – whatever the cause – died down.

The Marine Exchange reported some unidentified “burning material” was thrown out of the cell-block, setting some shrubbery afire. Policemen guarding the waterfront said the fire probably was started by gas bombs.

Unofficial reports from the island said none of the convicts had been able to get away from the island and make good an escape. Prison officials expressed confidence that none of the conspirators would reach the San Francisco mainland.

The convicts had been able to capture most of the prison’s officials and hold them as hostages. For this reason, it was believed military and prison authorities were reluctant to open a full-scale offensive against the barricaded inmates.

At 6:15 p.m., observers said there was a fusillade of about 18 to 25 gunshot explosions, apparently from an automatic weapon of heavy caliber, at a window of the cell-block.

Planes in action

Warden Johnston, who initially announced the riot at his storied “Rock” at 3:23 p.m., called for help from the San Francisco police department. Chief of Police Charles Dullea answered by sending a launch, laden with his best marksmen who were equipped with a virtual arsenal.

A Coast Guard PB-Y patrol plane, performing virtually a wartime job, circled over the island to guide the besieging warcraft and to observe progress of the battle below.

The Navy dispatched two of its destroyer-escorts into the battle. The trim little warcraft moved across the bay and into the line of vessels cruising about the waterlocked penitentiary.

At 4:15 p.m., almost an hour after the armed revolt was first reported to the mainland in a tersely-worded official telegram, Warden Johnston telephoned to Police Chief Charles Dullea that the rioters were “cornered but not subdued.” Observers on San Francisco Bay reported the sound of shooting on the island.

First unofficial reports said at least two guards were wounded by machine gun fire, and that it was believed some of the convicts had been hit.

Johnston, in his first announcement of the battle, mentioned only one convict, who was armed with a machine gun. Later he informed police more than one convict was involved.

Guard around island

A cordon of boats, bristling with machine guns and manned by war-wise crewmen, was thrown around the island by 3:30 p.m. – seven minutes after Johnston first flashed word of the battle.

In a telegram to the mainland from the bleak island penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, Johnston said:

“Serious trouble.

“Convict has machine gun in cell house. Have issued riot call.

“Placed armed guards at strategic locations.

“Most of our officers are imprisoned in cell house.

“Cannot tell extent of injuries suffered by our officers or amount of damage done.

“Will give you more information later in the day when we get control.”

(Signed)
(J. A. JOHNSTON, WARDEN)

Five minutes after the United Press received this telegram, it was impossible to get a call through to the prison’s administrative headquarters.

Alcatraz, situated a mile and a half northeast of San Francisco’s waterfront marine district and almost directly east of the Golden Gate, houses some of the nation’s most dangerous criminals.

It is known as “escape-proof,” although two men once disappeared into the fog from the island and were never seen again.

The main cell block of Alcatraz from where convicts apparently were enforcing a state of armed siege, is on the north-central portion of the island facing toward the Oakland-Berkeley shore.

There are about 300 prisoners on Alcatraz, including kidnappers, bank and post office robbers and murderers.

The administration and warden’s office lies at the south end of the cell block.

The only two convicts who succeeded in escaping from Alcatraz were Ralph Roe and Theodore Cole, who escaped in December 1937, during a heavy fog which cut visibility to a few yards.

The two Oklahoma “badmen” sawed through the steel bars of a workshop window, jimmied the lock on a high mesh wire gate and jumped off a 20-foot cliff into the water. Cole was serving 50 years for kidnapping and Roe 99 years for bank robberies.

Alcatraz riot recalls many ‘breaks’ in past

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 (INS) – Alcatraz Island, the federal government’s fortress prison for the nation’s worst badmen, has been the scene of several breaks, mutinies and riots during its 12-year history.

Few of the many men who have attempted to escape from the “rock” have been successful and their fates are still a mystery.

In December 1937, Ralph Roe and Ted Cole, Oklahoma badmen, disappeared from the island. They were traced to the water’s edge. Presumably they attempted to swim to the shores of San Francisco or Marin County but their bodies were never found.

Since that time, the two have been reported seen many places in the United States and South America, but none of the reports were ever substantiated. Officially their case still is open.

One of the most spectacular breaks occurred on April 14, 1943, when four convicts made a desperate bid for freedom. Led by a desperado who boasted he was the “toughest guy on the rock,” the group overpowered two armed guards, stripped themselves and smeared their bodies with grease, then scrambled through a workshop window.

They made their way down a sharp cliff, over a 12-foot barricade and into San Francisco Bay. None of the quartet got very far.

James A. Boardman, a bank robber and Floyd G. Hamilton, once a member of the Clyde Barrow gang, were riddled with bullets and drowned as they swam toward the San Francisco shore.

The other two, ringleader Harold Martin Brest, a kidnapper, and Fred Hunter, one-time member of the notorious Karpis gang, were recaptured. Brest was dragged out of the bay and Hunter was found in a cave on the prison island.

In 1939, Arthur “Doc” Barker, one of the outlaw sons of “Ma” Barker, was killed when he attempted to lead four other convicts to freedom. One of the four, Dole Stamphill, a kidnapper, was wounded and the other three surrendered.

In March 1941, Joseph Paul Cretzer and three other life-termers held four prison officials captive in the prison mat shop for several hours while they attempted to saw through the bars. They were forced to free their captives and surrender themselves when they could not force the bars.

A year later, John R. Bayless, Missouri bank robber, ran from the lineup and reached the shoreline, but an armed guard forced him back.

In July 1944, John Knight Giles, a convicted mail robber, donned an army uniform he pieced together in the prison laundry and left the island on an army launch before he was detected.

In June 1937, Al “Scarface” Capone, one-time Chicago gang czar, was stabbed and wounded by James C. Lucas, a bank robber. Capone later was transferred from the “rock.”

Alcatraz inmates rate as country’s worst criminals

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 (UP) – The toughest convicts in the United States are sent to Alcatraz prison. Among the gangsters, killers, kidnappers and bank robbers sentenced to the “rock” were:

  • Al Capone: Chicago gang boss convicted on income tax evasion. Now released.

  • George (Machine Gun) Kelly who with Harvey Bailey and Albert L. Bates terrorized the Middle West in 1933 after their kidnapping of Charles F. Urschel. Kelly once boasted the government could not hold him six months.

  • John Paul Chase: One-time Sausalito, California, bootlegger and later a lieutenant for “Baby Face” Nelson.

  • Norman T. Whitaker: An accomplice in the $104,000 Lindbergh baby ransom fraud perpetrated against Mrs. Evelyn Walsh MeLean of Washington, D.C., who was attempting to assist in the recovery of the child.

  • Alvin (Old Creepy) Karpis: The nation’s No. 1 public enemy and one of the last of gangland’s big-time killers of the 1920s. Karpis was hunted as a cool, calculating, trigger-fingered killer as well as a kidnapper. He was implicated in the kidnapping of Edward G. Bremer at St. Paul, Minnesota, January 17, 1934, which netted the abductors $200,000.

  • Doc Barker: One of the members of the Karpis-Barker gang who assisted “Old Creepy” on many of his major crimes.

  • Volney Davis: Another member of the Karpis-Barker gang.

  • Harmon Whaley: Kidnapper of George Weyerhaeuser, Tacoma, Washington, boy.

  • Ludwig (Dutch) Schultz and Isaac Kostner: Members of the Roger Touhy gang.

  • “Count” Victor Von Lustig: Self-termed Austrian nobleman arrested as a counterfeiter and mentioned in connection with the death of Jack “Legs” Diamond.

  • Dewey Gilmore: Confederate of the “Irish” O’Malley gang at St. Louis and convicted for participation in the kidnapping of August Luer, of Alton, Illinois, in 1933.

  • John Bowers: Convicted of Butte County, California, post office robbery, and killed in 1938 when he was shot by a guard in an attempted escape.

  • Tom Holden: Train and bank robber who murdered two bank employees in Wisconsin.

  • John K. Giles: Escape artist who attempted to hold up the Denver & Rio Grande western mail train in Salt Lake City.

Sheehy: Convicts siege of Alcatraz outranks Hollywood drama

By James S. Sheehy

ABOARD THE POLICE BOAT D. A. WHITE, 100 yards off Alcatraz, May 2 (UP) – Alcatraz under siege from heavily armed convicts presented a scene to us as fantastic as any ever conceived in Hollywood.

Alcatraz today is a real Devil’s Island.

A bright westerly sun over the Golden Gate shone on the walls of the main cell block of the toughest prison in the country.

We watched black-coated guards slink along a catwalk and fire pistols, reaching far over their heads. They held up their pistols as high as they could to fire between the bars of the windows, into the main cell block.

Pistol shoes, rifles, projectiles fired from gas guns – they all blasted in the early May sun, while our boat itched in the swells and white-caps of San Francisco Bay.

Frequently we heard the muffled report of rifle and machine-gun fire. Veteran San Francisco police officers, led by Rangemaster Emile Dutil of El Verano, California, said: “This is a siege to end all sieges.”

Capt. Charles MacDonald of the Police Detective Division said: “They’ll have to smoke them out eventually.”

Two Navy flying boats constantly circled the island at 500 to 700 feet altitude, while a dozen Coast Guard cutter with its guns trained directly on the guard tower.

As we came within about 200 yards of the island, we heard the first of what turned out to be literally hundreds of shots within, but mostly from without the cell block.

Most of the shots were being fired by guards outside the block.

But we also heard muffled shots coming from the convicts’ barricade.

It set fire to the pretty pink ice plant that made a spring-like carpet covering ledge below the cell block.

We saw flames as a brisk bay breeze whipped up fire and smoke up, up toward the cell block. We wondered if the convicts thought they had set a big fire.

The wind swept the fire halfway along the hundred-foot ledge and it gave a further eerie, fantastic light to this siege.

There was plenty of machine gun fire, and plenty of rifle fire. There was almost constant pistol fire.

The dozen police officers aboard shook their heads, saying: “I wouldn’t want any of that in there.”

At 6:30 p.m., 150 convicts were moved out of the shops at the south end of the island. They were cut off entirely from the main block and marched in orderly single file up the steep stairs under guard, apparently to have their night chow.

All the main tower guards apparently left their stations at the first outbreak. They would have been easy pickings for convict riflemen.

The Evening Star (May 3, 1946)

Marine chop hole in cell roof to blast Alcatraz convicts

Cases of grenades send to island; second guard dies

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The Marine Corps said today that Leathernecks were chopping a hole in the roof of an Alcatraz Prison cell block to drop hand grenades on rebellious convicts.

BULLETIN

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Marines attacked a cell tier in Alcatraz Prison with 60-mm mortars today in an attempt to drive into the open a group of convicts who had killed two guards and then barricaded themselves in a cell block.

Marine Corps headquarters reported that 23 more battle-armed Marines went to the beleaguered island this morning, bringing the force of Leathernecks there to 83. Marine headquarters said most of the Marines sent to the island had combat experience.

The government arsenal at nearby Benicia dispatched 10 cases of fragmentation hand grenades and 10 cases of rifle grenades to the federal prison authorities.

Capt. Wiley Knight, officer of the day at the arsenal, said the shipment consisted of 200 of the small fragmentation grenades, and 100 made for firing from carbines.

Guards launch attack

Earlier, Alcatraz Prison guards launched a vigorous attack with hand grenades on the six convicts pinned down in a cell block.

Meanwhile, a second guard wounded in the fighting last night died as rioting by the desperate convicts continued into the second day.

Guard William A. Miller died in a hospital as the new attack was launched to dislodge the convicts from their stronghold.

Guard Harold P. Stites was killed by machine-gun bullets at the outset of the rioting yesterday afternoon when convicts seized an arsenal.

About 11:15 a.m. today shafts of white smoke streamed into the sky, followed by the sound of explosions, as the new attack was begun.

At 11:30 a.m. a guard at the prison reported by telephone to the Associated Press that he didn’t have time to talk, but “we’re sure going after them right now.”

Held as hostages

The six convicts during the night held 10 prison officers as hostages for about seven hours, shooting some and injuring all but one. The hostages were rescued in a raging gun battle.

In addition to the death of Mr. Stites and Mr. Miller, 13 other prison officers were injured.

This morning a guard said 72-year-old Warden James A. Johnston, who had been on the job all night, was personally directing efforts to end the uprising.

“Everybody’s pretty busy,” the guard said. “And Warden Johnston is right in there. He certainly has got what it takes.

“There are plenty of explosions occurring right now.”

Guard overpowered

The break began with the overpowering of a guard and the capture of guns and ammunition from the prison arsenal yesterday about 3 p.m. PST. The spectacular fight raged until shortly before dawn, when a prison officer said: “They’re holed up and nobody’s doing any shooting now. We still don’t know how many are in there.”

Bernard Paul Coy, 46, serving 25 years for armed robbery in Louisville, Kentucky, and sent to the island prison for desperate criminals in San Francisco Bay, was reported to have overpowered the guard, Bert A. Burch, who was armed.

Coy had a prison job cleaning gun galleries. He reportedly threw a master switch to open all cells in the block and passed out guns to 16 other prisoners.

Immediately the alarm was sounded, but guards who rushed to Mr. Burch’s aid were, captured and locked up as hostages. The prisoners obtained keys to all doors in the block except the building exit, a Marine public relations officer reported. He had gone to the “Rock” with Marines guarding prisoners not involved in the fight.

Guards attack building

Uniformed guards and plain clothesmen rushed to the scene, attacking the building on the pinnacle of the rock. The three-story, concrete structure formed a fortress for the convicts, who raked the approaches through windows.

Crouching along a catwalk, guards reached the windows from which the criminals blasted automatic fire. The officers, protected under the wall from the angle of opposing fire, repeatedly shot through the windows.

Searchlights and flares blazed over the island, and heavily armed boats circled the scene of battle as the fight went into the night. About midnight the guards crashed into cell block C, in which the desperate men were then cornered.

Warden Johnston termed the taking of hostages a part of a “plot to make a mass escape.”

Ringleaders named

He named the ringleaders, in addition to Coy, as:

  • Joseph Paul Cretzer, 35, serving 25 years for bank robbery, five years for escape from McNeil Island Prison and life for murder of a United States marshal at Tacoma, where he was on trial for escape from McNeil.

  • Miran Edgar Thompson, 29, serving 99 years for kidnapping and life for murder of a police officer in Amarillo, Texas, sent to Alcatraz from Leavenworth in October 1945 with a record of eight escapes.

  • Sam Shockley, 36, serving life for kidnapping and bank robbery in Muskogee, Oklahoma, sent to Alcatraz from Leavenworth May 1938.

  • Marvin Franklin Hubbard, 34, serving 30 years for stolen firearms, kidnapping and transporting a kidnapped person from Chattanooga, Tennessee, sent to Alcatraz from Atlanta December 1944. He had a record of three escapes and participating in a mutiny at Atlanta.

  • Clarence Carnes, 19, serving 99 years for kidnaping, holdup, murder and escape. Escaped from Granite, Oklahoma, and from United States marshal, Oklahoma City, sent to Alcatraz from Leavenworth July 1945.

When the alarm signaled the uprising, other convicts were herded into the prison yard, and Marines landed to guard them while the prison officers pressed the battle against the criminals trying to blast their way to freedom.

The warden named the following rescued guards: Lt. Joseph Simpson, shot several times in the stomach, condition critical; R. R. Baker, serious leg wounds; Capt. Henry H. Weinhold, condition critical, wounds unlisted; Cecil D. Corwin, condition critical, wounds unlisted; Mr. Miller, Joseph Burdett, E. L. Lageson, Robert C. Bristow and Fred S. Roberts, slight wounds, and Carl W. Sundstrom.

Guards injured in the hail of gunfire included Herschel R. Oldham, Elmus Besk, Harry Cochrane, Fred J. Richberger and Robert Sutter.

Wounded guards who had been held as hostages said Cretzer took over leadership of the uprising after Coy started it.

Four of the wounded men, Capt. Weinhold, Lt. Simpson, Mr. Corwin and Mr. Miller, made statements in which each said, “Cretzer shot me.”

Mr. Stites, one of the slain guards, almost singlehandedly halted an attempted break on “The Rock” May 23, 1938, when bullets from his pistol and rifle killed Thomas R. Limerick, 36, South Dakota robber and kidnapper, and wounded Rufus Franklin, 24, Alabama bank robber, and James C. Lucas, 26, Texas robber.

The three were shot down by Mr. Stites when they charged his guard tower, after they had beaten Royal C. Cline, 36, senior custodial officer, to death with a hammer. Mr. Cline had attempted to sound the alarm when the three convicts started their break in the prison carpenter shop. Franklin and Lucas received life sentences for slaying Mr. Cline.

Coy once told U.S. judge he was ‘hardened to crime’

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) – Bernard Paul Coy, identified as one of the prisoners involved in the attempted break from Alcatraz yesterday, was sentenced here June 3, 1937, for his part in the $2,175 robbery of the Bank of New Haven, Kentucky, three months earlier.

Coy was identified by cashier A. E. Kirkpatrick as the man who walked up to the bank cage, drew a sawed-off shotgun and said, “All right, put ‘em up.” A companion, armed with a pistol, scooped up the money.

At his trial, Coy told Federal Judge Elwood Hamilton it was his “lack of education, I guess, judge,” that started Coy on a career of crime.

“Do you get a thrill out of criminal activities?” Judge Hamilton asked.

“No, I’m just hardened to it,” Coy said.

Coy and Delbert Lee Stiles were convicted and sentenced on the bank robbery charges.


Carnes entered Alcatraz when he was only 18

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Youthful Clarence Carnes, one of two Oklahomans named as ringleaders in a desperate attempt to break out of Alcatraz Prison, was sent to “the Rock” last year at the age of 18.

The McAlester youth’s first break from jail came in August 1943, while he was being held at the Atoka County Jail as a murder suspect. He was captured later the same day, and sentenced to life in Granite Reformatory for murder.

In 1945 he escaped from Granite, kidnapped a Granite farmer and forced him to drive to Shamrock, Texas, where the farmer was released.

On March 19, 1945, Federal Judge Edgar S. Vaught sentenced Carnes to 99 years for kidnapping the farmer. He was sent to Leavenworth prison and transferred to Alcatraz in July of last year.

Sam Shockley, 36, the other Oklahoman named as a ringleader, was serving life for kidnapping D. P. Pendley, president of the Bank of Paoli, Oklahoma, and Pendley’s wife, the assistant cashier, as hostages after robbing the bank of $947.38, March 15, 1938.

Eyewitness in boat describes battle of convicts and guards

By Paul Draper, San Francisco Chronicle Reporter

The following eyewitness account of what could be seen last night at the Alcatraz escape riot from a boat lying off the penitentiary island in San Francisco Bay was written for the Associated Press by a Chronicle reporter who approached as closely as he could during the desperate battle.

OFF ALCATRAZ (AP) – I am sitting on a small boat 50 yards from the fight.

We moved in close in order to see better and because we knew the men holding the first floor of the main cell block towering above us were using short-range automatic arms.

Just above me, it seems, guards are lying on their stomachs firing rifles. I watched them hit the dirt – Army style – firing, advancing, taking cover.

The slow, deliberate rifle fire of the guards is being answered by gun bursts of the convicts.

The convicts can’t quite reach us, but they can sweep the guards. Apparently they have plenty of ammunition. They are throwing five shots for every one they take.

One of the kids running the boat is keeping his eyes on one guard trying to creep in close.

“I’m just waiting for him to get it,” he says.

I am watching a huddle of guards and plain clothesmen hiding around the south corner of the building. We can see them but the convicts can’t.

Some kind of attack is about to take place. On the roof of another building north of the old cell block we catch a glimpse of two guards, their heads bobbing above the roof wall.

“Watch those guys,” I say, and just then the two figures stand up and pump three or four rifle shots down into the north end windows of the cell block.

Now the guards huddled at the south end of the building are starting to move. They are hugging the wall, crouching low and from the way they are scurrying along we think they are probably scared stiff.

Fire from the windows steps up. The angle is wrong. The convicts can’t get in a shot as long as the guards hug the wall.

They hit the ground. Then they are moving again.

One of the guards raises up. He stands on tiptoe, stretches his hand up full length, fumbles for the window ledge. He is feeling for a hole in the glass.

He crouches down, pulls something out of his pocket, then throws a tear gas bomb inside. In a second it comes bouncing out again like a red-hot rock.

The grenade bounces off the guard and lands smoking in the purple flowers. Other guards are now reaching up and throwing grenades in the broken windows. Two of them shoot revolvers inside.

Another grenade sizzles out of one of the windows.

We think one of the guards has been hit in the hand. He is grabbing his wrist.

The tear gas hasn’t worked. Maybe they are dug in for the night. Nobody’s won this little war yet.

The Evening Star (May 4, 1946)

Reinforced Alcatraz guards set to hurl new assault on rioters after give up or die ultimatum

Prison clerk silent on report that mutiny has ended

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Prison guards strengthened their battle line with reinforcements today and prepared to blast rebel convicts out of their cell block entrenchment at Alcatraz if they refuse a “surrender or die” ultimatum.

BULLETIN

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Marines who rushed to the aid of guards at Alcatraz Prison when rioting broke out there were being withdrawn from the island today. Maj. Albert Arsenault said Warden James A. Johnston told him they no longer were needed. There was some indication that the rioting convicts, under heavy fire for two days, might be dead or wounded.

The choice for the desperate criminals was to face the blistering fire of assembled guns and grenades or to surrender and face charges of murdering two guards and wounding 14 others in the blazing mutiny, now in its third day.

Marines, San Francisco police and guards from other prisons bolstered the officers of the island federal prison as the besiegers tensely awaited the desperadoes’ decision.

James V. Bennett, director of the Bureau of Prisons, flew to San Francisco from Washington last night to make a “complete investigation” of the riot.

The cell block of the three-story concrete structure atop the rocky island was quiet as the doomed men considered their choice.

Saw ladders at windows

A reporter for the Oakland Tribune said that while cruising around Alcatraz today he saw several guards put long ladders to the windows from which convicts had been shooting; that the guards peered in the windows, and there was no shooting from inside. There had been no fire from the convicts since late yesterday.

A clerk at the prison reported later by telephone, however, he could not confirm reports the riot had ended. He would say nothing more.

The reporter said two ladders were set up to the windows of the cell block. Five men mounted the catwalk.

A shot was fired, either into the cell window, or to attract attention. Then a guard mounted one ladder and looked inside.

Another man in a gray uniform, such as convicts wear, climbed the other ladder and stood for some time peering inside the cell block, his head and shoulders above the window sill.

Then both men descended and the five departed.

The cornered criminals were reported to have ammunition, but no shots were heard from the embattled blockhouse since last night.

Warden wouldn’t deal

One of the convicts yesterday telephoned Warden J. A. Johnston to bargain for surrender.

“We’ll make a deal when you throw out your guns and ammunition,” the 72-year-old warden snapped back.

Silence followed.

There was no certainty how many of the convicts remained alive. A marine officer estimated 24 were involved, on the basis of wounded guards’ reports. It was presumed that some were killed and wounded in the fierce battling with machine guns, rifles, pistols, hand grenades and tear gas that raged for hours, then slackened into last night’s calm.

Guards ordered withdrawn

Not a sound could be heard from the portion of the prison which they had held for more than 36 hours.

About 10:30 last night Warden Johnston ordered guards who had been attempting to creep within gunshot of the rebels to withdraw.

“We’re leaving them alone tonight, to talk it over,” a prison official said. “We’ll go to work on them in the morning.”

When the rioters seized the cell block, one of the two guards killed was brutally kicked and beaten. He died later of his injuries. Others were herded into a cell, where frenzied and cursing convicts pumped bullets into them.

The guards held as hostages were rescued by a gallant group of prison officials, who braved a hail of gunfire to remove their comrades from the hands of the desperadoes.

There was no indication of convict casualties, but they undoubtedly have been heavy. For more than 24 hours, rifle and grenades had blasted at the trapped men.

Escape attempt failed

The unprecedented escape attempt, perhaps the most spectacular in the history of federal prisons, was a complete failure.

Warden Johnston said it initially had been planned as a mass break. Not one convict ever got beyond the cell block.

After many hours of firing, the convicts stopped shooting. Except for a brief flurry of gunfire late in the day, all was quiet from the cell block.

Warrant Officer Charles L. Buckner of Memphis, Tennessee, who led a detachment of Marines to the island for guard duty, volunteered to join the light.

He mounted the roof, and cut holes in it with an electric drill.

He dropped 150 fragmentation grenades into the cell block. Screams were heard from the trapped men, and then a rifle shot. No more screams were heard.

In San Francisco, thousands of persons watched from the hills and docks for gunfire display from the bleak island, set at the entrance of the bay.

It was still not known how many of the convicts inside the cell block were resisting. Warden Johnston named seven as the ringleaders, but prison officials were quick to admit that they had no idea of the total number involved.

It was considered likely that the ringleaders, armed with weapons from the gun gallery, which they seized early in the riot, may have prevented nonparticipants from surrendering.

The riot began, according to one version, when a convict hooked a T-square around the guard within the gun gallery. Jerking him to the bars, he wrested from him the keys and opened the gallery. Then he passed out weapons to his accomplices, who scattered throughout the cell block, rounding up guards as hostages.

These were held, many of them shot in cold blood, until other guards stormed the redoubt and brought them to safety.

Warden Johnston went to bed early this morning – some 33 hours after the bloody uprising began.

Kept under range

While the veteran penologist got his first rest from personal command of forces fighting the rebellious felons, guards kept the cell block in which the desperadoes are cornered under range of their guns.

Mr. Johnston, a native of Brooklyn, was named warden at San Quentin in 1912, served there 12 years, during which time he became known for prison reforms, and then became a member of the Advisory Pardon Board. For a short time, he was director of the State Department of Penology. After a time in business, he took over the Alcatraz job on New Year Day, 1934.

The warden was attacked and beaten by a convict at Alcatraz in 1937, but was not seriously hurt.

Guard who feigned death 10 hours calls convicts ruthless

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – “I was shot down in cold blood by Cretzer,” said Guard Robert R. Baker, who lay wounded and feigned death in an Alcatraz cell block for 10 hours. Joseph Paul Cretzer (“Dutch Joe”) is a convicted bank robber and slayer of a policeman.

“Someone suggested they hold us as hostages,” the guard said. “Cretzer just laughed.

“‘We don’t need hostages,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to make agreements. We want the keys.’

“They threw Miller (a guard who later died of his wounds) on a bench and punched him and kicked him. Miller took it as long as he could and then gave up the keys. He held out the important key – the key to the back gate. Miller passed out.

Jammed into cell

“The cons seemed to go crazy. One of them swung a rifle yelling, ‘Let’s shoot the -----.’

“They jammed us into a cell.

“I don’t know who fired into the other cell. But Cretzer stood at the door to the cell I was in and went wild. He emptied a .45 automatic into us. There wasn’t time to think of falling to the floor.

“Simpson (a guard) stood on the bed. Two bullets hit him in the chest and he fell flat on the cot.

“Before I could get under a bed, a bullet got me and dropped me. Sundstrom (a guard) in my cell fell to the floor behind me and wasn’t hit.

Didn’t dare help Simpson

“I thought Cretzer would come in and finish us off. But he left.

“I lay there for 10 hours with blood splashing from my wound. The floor was cold and I didn’t pass out. Sundstrom hugged the floor without a sound. I could hear Simpson moaning.

“We didn’t dare help him. The convicts kept coming back and looking in.

“When Cretzer said he didn’t want hostages, a con said: ‘Let’s kill these witnesses. We don’t want witnesses.’

“Coy was one convict who did plenty of damage during it all. I saw him pick off three guards with as many shots during the start of the fight in the cell tiers.

“He’s deadly with a rifle.”

Editorial: The Alcatraz riot

The latest ill-fated attempt of some of the nation’s most notorious desperadoes to escape from Alcatraz Prison provides additional evidence of the soundness of the government’s decision in 1933 to use “The Rock” as an isolation center for hardened convicts of the “public enemy” type. The original plan for a sort of American “Devil’s Island” in San Francisco Bay was adopted by the Department of Justice over the protests of some well-intentioned sociologists, to say nothing of alarmed residents of San Francisco. The attitude of a few of the critics was similar to that taken by former Attorney General Frank Murphy, who felt that the atmosphere at Alcatraz was too stern. However, Attorney General Cummings, in advancing the project, declared that some such isolated penitentiary was needed to safeguard the public from the scandalous series of prison breaks which marked the gangster era of the late twenties and early thirties.

There is no doubt as to the sternness of Alcatraz, but, as Mr. Cummings pointed out in advocating the prison, the incorrigible convicts confined there are of a kind that understand and respect only the sternest of penal measures. They are killers, kidnappers and other criminals whose records are such as to give little or no hope of reformation. Most of them have escaped from other federal or state prisons one or more times. In Alcatraz they find virtually all reasonable hope of escape gone. That does not mean that these desperate men ever completely give up hope of making a break, however. Warden James E. Johnston, a successful banker who became a penologist because he was interested in the subject of criminal detention and reform, has never claimed that Alcatraz is escape-proof. “We only hoped it was,” he said after the frustrated break of 1939 in which Arthur “Doc” Barker of the Karpis-Barker kidnapping gang was shot to death as he and four other convicts reached the water’s edge. Only two prisoners ever succeeded in leaving the island and officials are convinced both of them drowned in the swirling currents which sweep around “The Rock.”

Only a careful investigation will determine whether the latest attempt, which already has cost the lives of two guards, was due to any relaxation of vigilance on the part of the prison staff or to other preventable causes. Whatever the origin of the break, Warden Johnston and his staff deserve commendation for the courage with which they met the vicious challenge of the embattled convicts. And the country may well be glad that this battle took place in so remote a spot as Alcatraz – not in some community where innocent citizens would have been imperiled.

The Sunday Star (May 5, 1946)

Alcatraz siege ends as last of rioters is seized

Three convicts known dead; investigation of battle underway

SAN FRANCISCO, May 4 (AP) – The siege of Alcatraz ended today with the official announcement that the last of the conspirators had been taken into custody.

Two guards and three convicts are known to have died in the struggle, but the total number of convict casualties was not made known immediately. Fourteen guards were wounded.

James V. Bennett, federal prison director, and Warden James A. Johnston announced that the last of the conspirators were taken into custody when the three ringleaders – Joseph Paul Cretzer, Los Angeles bank robber; Bernard Coy, Kentucky bank robber, and Marvin F. Hubbard, Tennessee kidnapper – were found dead and their weapons recovered.

Resistance ended

The announcement came from the two officials in the form of answers to questions which had been asked by press services.

“At the end of the battle this morning,” the statement read, “there was no resistance.”

The statement said Cretzer, Coy and Hubbard “probably died as a result of gun shots in the tunnel or utilities corridor in a cell block. Hubbard, according to the doctor’s report, probably died this morning around 8 o’clock. The others died earlier. Probably Coy died last evening and Cretzer somewhat later.”

The officials said the total number of conspirators who had taken part in the riot had not yet been finally established, but added that in addition to previously named men Miran Edgar Thompson, Texas murderer and kidnapper, and Sam Shockley, Oklahoma bank robber, were ringleaders. The statement added that there were “two or three others whose names we cannot yet reveal.”

Previously, Warden Johnston had included Clarence Carnes, Oklahoma murderer, among the ringleaders, but he was not named in the latest statement.

Investigation begun

The statement did not clarify whether the search of the cell block which the conspirators had held against deadly gunfire for 40 hours had been completed.

Daniel C. Deasy, assistant U.S. attorney, and seven FBI investigators landed on the island this afternoon to begin an investigation. Mr. Deasy said the death sentence would be demanded for all who are indicted by the federal grand jury as a result of the investigation.

The attempted break, perhaps the most spectacular in the history of federal prisons, was a complete failure. Warden Johnston said it initially had been planned as a mass break, but not one prisoner ever got outside the cell-block stronghold.

The riot began, according to unconfirmed reports, when Coy hooked a T-square around the neck of a guard and gained access to weapons, the exact number of which still has not been revealed by prison officials.

Opened fire on guards

The convicts then dashed through the cell block, rounding up guards. These they herded into a cell, where they opened fire on the helpless men. At least one of the survivors named Cretzer as the man who shot him.

One guard, Harold P. Stites, was kicked to death. It was believed that the convicts paid off a long-standing grudge by killing Stites. A number of years ago he broke up an attempted escape, killing one convict.

The riot quickly got out of hand and the warden called for help. San Francisco police, Navy and Coast Guard boats patrolled the island to intercept any prisoners who might reach the water.

A detachment of Marines, led by Warrant Officer Charles L. Buckner, formerly of Memphis, Tennessee, landed on the island and took under guard about 150 prisoners who had not taken part in the riot.

Then, in a gallant rescue, armed guards stormed the cell block where their colleagues were held, brought the survivors to safety, and removed the bodies of the two guards who had been killed. Details of this rescue still were not available.

Grenades dropped through roof

Meanwhile, a rain of fire poured through the windows of the prisoners’ stronghold. Alcatraz guards, bolstered by guards from other federal prisons, rushed to the scene, attempted to blast the desperate men into submission.

Buckner, a veteran of Marine action in the Pacific, volunteered to join the fight. Mounting the cell block, he drilled three holes in the roof of the cell block and dropped 150 hand grenades into the interior.

Later, while exposed to convict fire, Buckner fired at least two cases of rifle grenades through the windows.

Firing ceased early yesterday afternoon, and was resumed at two brief intervals later in the evening.

The convicts, after the grenade attack, made one truce bid. They telephoned the warden to ask for “a deal.” Mr. Johnston replied that he would make a truce when the prisoners threw out their weapons and ammunition.

No more was heard from the convicts.

Marine praises guards’ role in putting down Alcatraz riot

Says men begged for chance to shoot it out with convicts

SAN FRANCISCO, May 4 (AP) – Unsung heroes of the bloody battle for Alcatraz are the “Rock’s” civilian guards, a medal-covered combat Marine said today.

Haggard and bruised from his 27-hour vigil at the prison, Warrant Officer Charles L. Buckner told how the guards not only protected him with rifle fire, but also “asked permission of the warden time after time to go into the cell block and shoot it out with the prisoners.”

The 32-year-old Marine hero holds the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exploits against Japs on Guam.

At an interview, Buckner emphasized that his is the business of war. He used military terms – “avenues of approach” and “lines of fire” – to describe the problems which faced guards in their deadly task.

He described weapons with which the guards were unfamiliar – fragmentation grenades whose small segments will tear through flesh 50 or more feet away and rifle grenades capable of piercing steel plate.

“They’ll need a lot of repairs on their prison, no doubt about that,” he said. “I’d like to have stayed on to see what my rifle grenades did.”

With a launcher fitted to the muzzle of his carbine, the veteran of 12 years in the Marine Corps attempted to blast the steel bars in the cell windows with rifle grenades. The bars were too closely spaced to permit passage of hand grenades.

“The carbine didn’t have the range, so after several grenades fell short, I switched to an M-1,” Buckner explained. The Garand M-1 rifle was standard infantry equipment in the war.

“My shoulder is kinda blue this morning,” he grinned. “Usually we use padding when firing rifle grenades, but there wasn’t any around.”

“They’d make good Marines,” he said, paying the prison guards the highest compliment in “leatherneck lingo.”

“I watched from the visiting room while they rescued other guards who were hostages. They put down a covering fire so thick none of the rebels could raise their heads to fire.

“Then, two at a time, guards would dash into the cell block and carry out one of their buddies until all were safe.”

Pfc. George J. Meyers of Los Angeles, one of Buckner’s fire-team leaders, said Buckner “understood that we were to enter the cell block and clean the resisting prisoners out. He said that Warden Johnston wouldn’t give us permission to enter the cell block area. … We could have cleaned them out in no time.”

Pfc. A. L. Smith of Alexandria, South Dakota, and Pfc. Vernon Weber of Bridgewater, South Dakota, nodded their heads in agreement.

“So then Buckner ordered us to check our carbines,” Meyers continued, “and not to fire unless we were fired at or unless the prisoners got out of hand.”

Buckner was the only Marine actually to engage in the fight with the prisoners. His men guarded the stockade or “bull pen” where the prisoners who had refused to join the fight burned everything made of wood in an effort to keep warm.

The warrant officer plans to go back to Alcatraz soon – for a visit.

“The warden told me,” he said, “to come back any time. Said he’d give me a duke’s tour of the place.”

The Evening Star (May 6, 1946)

3 surviving mutineers at Alcatraz may face murder charges

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The FBI moved into Alcatraz today to collect evidence against three survivors of the half-dozen convicts whose desperate, vain break for freedom brought a bloody, 36-hour siege of their cell block and left five men dead and 15 wounded. Not a single prisoner escaped.

The three may yet die – in San Quentin’s green-painted gas chamber.

“There is a good chance that evidence will be sufficient to indict the surviving participants for murder,” U.S. Attorney Daniel C. Deasy asserted. If it is, he said, the death penalty will be demanded.

Despite the fact there were only two guns in the entire group involved in the furious battle, he added, “where one or more participants (in a conspiracy to escape) actually killed someone, the others would be part of that conspiracy and could be charged with murder.”

The FBI is taking statements from other prisoners as well as from guards, Mr. Deasy reported, and “the matter will be presented to the federal grand jury here.”

Three surviving mutineers

The three surviving participants, Warden James A. Johnston said, are Sam Shockley, 36, serving a life term for kidnapping and robbery in Oklahoma; Miran Edgar Thompson, 29, serving 99 years for kidnapping and life for killing a Texas policeman, and Clarence Carnes, 19, Oklahoma desperado serving 99 years for kidnapping and murder.

Guards broke into the last dark utility corridor of the embattled prison wing Saturday to find the bodies of three others.

Bernard Coy, 46, spry, little Louisville bank robber who started the uprising by clambering up to a third-tier guards’ gallery and forcing his way into it to slug and disarm Guard Bert Burch, was defiant to the last. Death caught him with arms extended as though still gripping the rifle he has seized from the guard.

The other dead

Also dead in the narrow, pipe-filled passageway were:

  • Joseph Paul Cretzer, 35, Los Angeles bank robber who had assumed command and carried on the fight furiously, despite his quick conclusion that the break had failed and “we’re as far from San Francisco as ever!”

  • Marvin F. Hubbard, 36, Tennessee kidnapper, who had lived until Saturday morning – outlasting Coy and Cretzer by one night.

The rifle and pistol which Coy had wrested from Mr. Burch were found beside the convicts.

Dead were two guards – one, Harold P. Stites, shot in a valiant early assault attempting to free hostages; the other, W. H. Miller, captured unarmed and killed when the felons turned their guns on their seven hostages. Mr. Miller had a key to the back door of the wing – but he threw it into an empty cell and died without revealing it.

14 guards, one prisoner wounded

Fourteen guards were wounded during the siege; so was one convict, James Groves, described as “a bystander.”

Warden Johnston told newsmen the full story of the attempted break as he showed them, late Saturday, the bullet-chipped, explosive-battered cell building.

“Tell de trut’, de whole trut’ and nuttin’ but de trut’, Johnston,” shouted one nervy convict through the bars.

“Hey, Saltwater Johnston,” yelled others, “tell ‘em how you starved us for two days.”

The nickname sprang from the saltwater solution of Johnston’s grimly tight little island; and the taunt presumably meant meal service had been disrupted during the long gunfight.

There were three principal reasons why the break failed, Warden Johnston reported:

Cretzer was unable to free some of the more desperate convicts from their cells to help in the fight; Mr. Miller had thrown away the key to the outside door, and they could not release Rufus “Whitey” Franklin, life-term killer on whose knowledge of the prison the convicts had greatly depended. Franklin had killed a guard during an attempt to break out of Alcatraz in 1936.

Warden’s story of mutiny

Warden Johnston gave this account of the rise and fall of the mutiny:

Coy, an orderly, was cleaning the floor in cell block C.

Above him, but apparently untouchable in the heavily barred gun gallery (which is a patrol area, not an arsenal) was Guard Burch, armed with a .30.06 Springfield rifle, a .45 automatic pistol and several gas “billies.”

The gun gallery has no doors opening into any cell block. Guards enter it only through two armored doors from outside the cell blocks. These are opened separately by the lieutenant of the guard when the guard is being changed. No weapons are kept there.

It was considered impossible to get into the gun gallery from a cell block until the Kentucky bank robber proved the nation’s best penologist wrong.

Mr. Burch went through a door leading into that part of the gallery overlooking cell block D. Barred doors and a concrete wall separate block D from block C. About 30 convicts were in each block.

Coy, alone on the floor below the gun gallery in block C, stood on a radiator, leaped, caught the lower bars of the gun gallery, and climbed up them.

Found ‘Achilles heel’

At the top of the gallery, he found Alcatraz’s “Achilles heel,” as Warden Johnston admitted.

There the bars curve to the wall to form the barred roof of the gun gallery, and there Coy inserted a prison-made spreader.

This device was made of at least 10 pieces of connections stolen from prison toilets and screwed together. Coy also had stolen somewhere a heavy pair of prison pliers. With these he turned the threads of the plumbing connections, extending them. This spread the five-inch gap between the bars to seven inches. The cross bars were 18 inches apart. This left a hole 7 by 18 inches.

It seemed improbable that even a runty, wiry convict like Coy could get through such an aperture, but Warden Johnson said Coy made it squirmed inside the gun gallery floor and slugged Mr. Burch as he came back through the door.

Gave Cretzer pistol

Seizing Mr. Burch’s weapons, coat and keys, Coy went back out through the opening he had made in the bars, stuck up the floor guards in block C and locked them into cells, then with Mr. Burch’s keys he entered the upper tier of block D.

First Coy freed Cretzer and gave him the pistol. Coy kept the rifle. Next came Carnes, Shockley and the others.

Coy opened fire with the rifle on two guard towers which commanded the yard.

Mr. Burch still lay in the gun gallery and Warden Johnson sent six guards to storm it, fearing the convicts were inside. Cretzer’s deadly fire met them and Guard Stites was killed. Three of the other guards were wounded.

The armed felons had locked three guards in cell block C and easily captured four more who rushed in at the first alarm.

The felons turned their guns on the guards locked in the cells. It was at this time that Mr. Miller was wounded fatally. Only one guard escaped being wounded.

Took guard’s wallet

This guard was C. W. Sundstrum, who said Cretzer ordered him to strip, took his wallet containing $92 and said: “You can call this highway robbery.”

One guard was stabbed with a knife which Carnes had taken from a prison kitchen.

Mr. Burch said that when he regained consciousness in the gun gallery, Coy took two shots at him and called out: “I’ll kill you if you try to reach that phone!”

By Thursday night, hours after the battle began, guards under a hot covering fire pushed inside the cell wing and brought out the hostages. By Friday, Marine fragmentation grenades were being hurled into the wing through its roof. Both Cretzer and Hubbard were wounded by some of the 150 explosives, but rifle bullets killed them. A pistol bullet finished Coy.

By Saturday, firing from inside the cell block citadel ceased. Surviving prisoners had slunk back to their cells.

Not one had even broken out into the prison yard.

The Evening Star (May 7, 1946)

Widows of Alcatraz guards to receive $61 monthly

By the Associated Press

The Justice Department said yesterday the widows of the two guards slain during the Alcatraz riot would receive $61.25 each a month in federal compensation.

In addition, the children of the men – William A. Miller and Harold P. Stites – will receive $17.50 each a month until they reach the age of 18, a spokesman told a reporter. But the maximum amount which a family can receive under the law is $116.16 regardless of the number of children.

Mrs. Stites has four children, but one is over 18. Mrs. Miller is the mother of two, the spokesman said.