Copyright © 2005 by the heirs of J. Campbell Bruce
Copyright © 1963, 1976 by J. Cambell Bruce
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in the United States by McGraw-Hill, New York, in 1963.
Photographs in this book used with permission of the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. Photo from the movie Escape from Alcatraz © Paramount Pictures; used with permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bruce, J. Campbell (John Campbell), 1906-
Escape from Alcatraz / J. Campbell Bruce.
p. cm.
Reprint. Originally published: New York : McGraw-Hill, 1963.
1. United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, California. I. Title.
HV9474.A4B7 2005
365’.979461–dc22
2005002738
eISBN: 978-0-307-81583-5
v3.1
For Bianca,
who did time on this rock.
Group posing in a fake prison cell labeled “Alcatraz,” 1944.
Title page: Aerial view of Alcatraz Island, date unknown.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword to the New Edition
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Maybe
Why
The Veil
Epilogue
Photo Insert
Foreword to the New Edition
THIS BOOK WAS FIRST PUBLISHED in 1963. Two weeks before the publication date the last prisoner was escorted off of America’s Devil’s Island and Alcatraz ceased to be a prison. In the ensuing years The Rock has taken on many guises. It was the locale of several Native American occupations and has become a thriving tourist destination administered by the National Park Service. It has been the subject of several movies, most notably the 1979 release Escape from Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood, based on the J. Campbell Bruce book of the same name.
Both the book and the classic movie portray in spellbinding detail the daring escape attempt by Frank Morris and two accomplices. The movie was the first ever to be offered as a home-rental tape and has become a classic of the prison-film genre. It is considered by film historians to be a pivotal role in the remarkable career of Clint Eastwood.
The book is written in a terse but compelling narrative style and is easily discernable as the basis for the movie. However, there is more to the book than just Morris’s dramatic escape. Woven between chapters on Morris’s entrance, existence, and exit from this “inescapable” prison is a thorough chronicle of The Rock’s transition from a Spanish fort into the maximum-security penitentiary that housed such infamous inmates as Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, and mobster exemplar, “Scarface” Al Capone.
This edition features a gallery of photographs including a scene from the movie. It invites the reader to discover the intriguing saga of Alcatraz, whose name is still synonymous with punitive isolation and deprivation where America’s most violent and notorious prisoners resided in tortuous proximity to one of the world’s favorite cities.
Kevin Bruce
August 2004
Acknowledgments
GRATEFUL THANKS GO TO Frances H. Buxton and Helen Willits, California Room, Oakland Public Library; Evelyn Gahtan and Miss Florence Marr, Berkeley Public Library, and the staffs of the University of California libraries and the Alameda Free Library, for their courtesies; to Sam H. Laub and Paul G. Morken, for technical advice; to Mrs. Jean V. Molleskog, U.S. Geological Survey, and Joan Bell, Carol Fisher, Kay Long, Betty Turner, Gordon Bergman, William Bronson, Ken Butler, Dale Champion, Dr. George L. Delagnes, Peter Delmas, Michael S. Gregory, Neil Hitt, Alvin D. Hyman, U.S. Deputy Marshal Alexander F. Koenig, Carl Latham, John Molinari, Robert O’Brien, Quentin Pack, John E. Peterson, Charles Raudebaugh, Dr. Robert L. Redfield, Augy Sairanen, Henry K. Thomas, William R. Whitener, and T. Robert Yamada for all their help, in many and varied ways; and to those who furnished so much, in confidence.
Chapter 1
JANUARY 14, 1960, A THURSDAY, broke dismal and drizzly over the San Francisco Bay region. The Weather Bureau had forecast a few showers in the morning, clearing in the afternoon. The showers would spill off the southern fringe of a disturbance centered in the Gulf of Alaska, spawning ground of winter storms along the Pacific Coast.
During the night the center had moved a bit southward and an hour or two after daybreak, as unexpectedly as an earthquake, the storm whiplashed the Bay Area. Gusty winds flung sheets of rain along the street, pelted hail at windshields, powdered the high peaks with snow. Commuter traffic crawled off the bridges and the Peninsula freeway, further choking the city’s already clogged arteries.
The Warden Johnston, the boat to Alcatraz, grated against the landing at the Fort Mason dock as she rose and fell on the wind-stirred swells. She was a half hour late casting off for the nine o’clock trip to the island. The skipper glanced at the frothing whitecaps on the bay, then back at the gateway to the pier. He was waiting for an extra passenger, coming in from Georgia. The Southern Pacific’s Lark, overnight train from Los Angeles, where it had made connection with the cross-country Sunset, had arrived on time, but the storm was now in full fury. At length, a black limousine rolled through the gate, the traveler came aboard, and the Warden Johnston pulled away.
The man from Georgia, of medium height and build, sat quietly in a cabin of the launch, staring at the rain-sloshed window. Drops of rainwater still dripped from his thick brown hair and coursed down his face, off his firm chin and strong-set jaws, but he appeared oblivious to any discomfort. His eyes, hazel eyes, held a bold, level gaze and, as any newcomer to the area, he seemed eager for his first glimpse of Alcatraz. Something about his face caught the attention: not just the good looks, not the manifest intelligence, nor even the solemnity. Something else … nothing, really, and therefore significant: this man, at the age of thirty-three, bore not the faintest hint of a smile line at the corners of his mouth, yet his lips had the fullness associated with an amiable nature.
A lawyer, perhaps, bound for The Rock to consult an inmate client? Looking again, lower: his hands are close together, gripped in handcuffs clamped to a padlocked chain around his waist. Looking still lower: his feet are close together, chained to leg irons.
Squalls buffeted the Warden Johnston as she plowed out into the bay, taking a wide loop to starboard to make a direct approach through the treacherous tide rips to the wharf on the southeastern end of the island. Seemingly, down by the bow, she plunged through the waves rather than over them, keeping the deck and the pilot-house windows awash. The grim outline of Alcatraz loomed up ahead, its massive bulk remarkably like an obsolete battleship riding at anchor, its prison and lighthouse on the crest like a superstructure and stack.
Below, the prisoner watched the formidable crag rise out of the spray and rain shroud—a granite keep at world’s end—but only the curiosity of
a sightseer marked his expression. His glance caught a sign on a cliff, its huge letters dimly discernible in the deluge: “KEEP OFF! Only Government Boats Permitted Within 200 Yards. Persons Entering Closer Without Authorization Do So At Their Own Risk.”
The black plastic raincoat that had been thrown over his shoulders for the few steps from depot to limousine and, at the dock, for the fewer steps down to the landing float and onto the launch, now lay open. It became evident that his attire on the transcontinental trip—first-class Pullman accommodations—was the salt-and-pepper garb of a federal felon. The pants, a special pair issued at Atlanta for the journey to Alcatraz, were extra large and beltless. Thus, even though hobbled by ankle irons fettered together, should he try a dash for freedom the pants would drop and further impede flight. In addition, his shoes had been replaced at Atlanta by backless canvas slippers.
The Warden Johnston edged cautiously alongside the wharf and made fast. The doctor on his daily visit and other passengers debarked. Then the skipper performed a habitual security rite. He locked the wheel, went ashore, attached the key to a line and signaled the guard in a bulletproof gun tower. The guard came out to the tower rail and hauled up the key by pulley; he would keep it there until the next scheduled departure, and he would lower it then only if assured the Warden Johnston’s skipper was still in charge and all The Rock’s convicts were accounted for.
The storm, worst in years, took a freakish turn as the prisoner, huddled under his black raincoat, now shuffled ashore. The San Francisco Chronicle’s weather story said that around 10 A.M.—just about the time the prisoner was stepping onto The Rock—lightning began to streak the sullen sky and thunder rolled like a cannonade, a phenomenon common to a humid eastern summer but rare at any season in this region.
A bolt struck the Point Bonita lighthouse on the north headland beyond the Golden Gate, disabling its radar and radio—the direct contact for Coast Guard help when a break occurs at Alcatraz. Lightning also hit a power line that blacked out communities along the Marin County shore to the north and nearby Angel Island.
The chink of the chains around his legs made a faintly musical note in the storm as the prisoner slowly climbed into a waiting bus. He glanced out at the dockyard where cargo is sifted and then passed through a metal detector—something like a doorframe with a humped sill, dubbed the Snitch Box by the convicts—before being carted to the crest. Another such detector, kept there for visitors, stood beneath a shelter at the far side. These “eyes,” an Alcatraz innovation along with other advanced security devices, inspired an early inmate to characterize The Rock as “a scientific stir.”
The bus labored up the narrow, tortuous road, its progress watched by the sentry in the higher tower. To return to the dockside the driver would descend by an equally twisting route carved into the southwest façade of The Rock. At the beige-colored prison on the crest a grim reception committee waited—guards in nickel-gray uniforms with maroon ties, rifles at the ready.
The prisoner, still hobbled by the leg irons, scuffled up a short flight of steps and through a granite archway to a grated door. To the right were the outer offices leading to the warden’s headquarters. The turnkey, recognizing the party, opened the gate, and they stepped into a vestibule and turned left into the visitors’ room. It had the cozy, inviting appearance of a windowless mezzanine lounge in a major hotel: a reddish brown rug; occasional chairs with lamps and stand-up ash trays, for visitors waiting their turn; walls tastefully done in tan and adorned with framed prints.
On this January morning only the prisoner from Atlanta and his guardians were in the room, as visiting hours were in the afternoon—the one o’clock boat over, the 3:20 back. No guard was armed now, except the sentry at the door, who carried a gasbilly, a combination metal club and tear-gas gun. The prisoner’s manacles, midriff chain, and leg irons were removed, and he was ordered to strip to the skin for the ritual known as “dressing in.” Just as a physician had done before his departure from Atlanta, a doctor now conducted an orifice search: ears, nose, mouth, rectum. He was probing for contraband—dope, a coded message, even a tiny tool useful in an attempt to escape.
“A convict once tried to smuggle in a watch spring in his ear,” a guard remarked to a colleague. “Good to file through a bar, if you have plenty of time—and they got plenty of that here.”
The prisoner, still naked, was led back into the vestibule. Directly opposite was the command post of the most important man, while on duty, in the prison—the Armorer. His station, the nerve center of The Rock, is accessible only from the exterior, and he alone can open the door. On this inner side he is sealed off by steel plate pierced with gun slots and a narrow vision panel of bulletproof glass.
The party with the prisoner in the vestibule began the complex progression into the cellhouse. They approached a barred gate, but the turnkey could not open it: a metal shield covered the lock on both sides. At a nod from the turnkey, the Armorer glanced into mirrors set at an angle and surveyed a chamber beyond the gate, then touched a button that released the shield. The turnkey opened the gate and, once they had all entered, closed it, the metal plate instantly sliding back into place.
They now confronted a solid steel door. The turnkey peered through an eye-level slit, scanned the interior, then opened the door. They passed through, and he relocked it.
They faced still a third door, barred and cross-barred, the last barrier to the cellhouse. The prisoner stared in surprise. With its high windows and skylights, and its triple-tiered cell blocks, the place vaguely resembled a vast aviary. His nostrils caught a distinctive odor, and a familiar one: the mingled scent of disinfectant, itself not unpleasant, and of men packed closely together. His surprise came in the splash of color, bright even in the murky daylight: the cell blocks were painted a shocking pink trimmed in barn red.
The naked newcomer scuffed his zori-like canvas slippers—“scooters” to the convicts—down an aisle between two cell blocks, a corridor called Broadway. His custodial guide directed him to turn right at the far end, along a lateral corridor to a stairway that took him to a basement room containing thirty-five showers. The officer on duty there noted the prisoner’s tattoos: a devil’s head on the upper right arm, a star on each knee, with a “7” above and an “11” below the star on the left knee. “Superstitious, eh? Any more?” The prisoner held up his left hand: a star at the base of the thumb, a “13” at the base of the index finger. The officer said, “Shower up.”
The prisoner saw a single knob at each shower, indicating a single cold stream. He must have heard of this: stories of Alcatraz escapes usually mentioned how the convicts conditioned themselves with daily showers of frigid salt water pumped out of the bay. And, like most newcomers, he could well have fitted it into nebulous plans for an eventual getaway: a perfect conditioner to endure the icy waters, ranging from 51° to 60° Fahrenheit off Alcatraz, as he swam or paddled a makeshift raft. As others had, he braced himself under a shower head and turned it on full force for a quick drenching, to get the shock over with fast. He was shocked, but not by a chilling impact. The water was warm. It was premixed, the hot and the cold, by a guard at the end of the row.
After the shower he received a set of fresh clothes, including a pair of shoes. As he walked in the heavy square-tipped shoes along the lateral corridor toward Broadway again, he skidded on the cement, waxed and polished to the glossiness of a ballroom floor. He climbed a circular steel stairway at the west end of C Block to the middle tier and found his cell, the second, by the nameplate already on the door:
FRANK LEE MORRIS
The cell was in the quarantine section, and he would remain there for a week or two, until assigned a job.
Inmates delivered his regular issue: another set of clothing, from long cotton drawers to denim trousers and shirt, gray flecked with white; five more pairs of socks and a large handkerchief that looked as if it had been snipped out of a blue bed sheet; a safety-razor holder and shaving mug; a tin cup; a nailcli
p; a mirror; a face towel; toothbrush and dental powder; a mattress and cover, two sheets, one pillow case. An instant after the officer left with the inmates the cell door slid shut, locked. All cells were opened and closed, singly or in units up to fifteen, by guards at manual control boxes at either end of a block.
Frank Lee Morris, bank burglar and escape artist, stood at his cell front, staring down at the lustrous corridor floor. He was alone now, for the first time since he had left Atlanta to serve his remaining ten years at this super-maximum-security prison at Alcatraz. And super-maximum security is the word. From the moment he debarked at the wharf until he reached this cell, everywhere he turned there stood a guard. In all the institutions he had at one time or another called home, he had never seen so many custodial officers.
His open-faced manner gave the impression of casual interest, but whatever his glance fell upon, no matter how fleetingly, that object—man or thing—was instantly, expertly cased. He had a computer’s ability to take in and store away detail, infinite detail.
Quiet, soft-spoken, Morris was essentially a loner, a recluse in a crowd. Yet on the surface he appeared personable, cooperative. At times he even seemed to make a shy overture of fellowship. These infrequent displays of camaraderie could be merely the patina of half a lifetime of enforced gregariousness in the lockstep of prison herds; or they could be the pathetic, smothered yearnings of a profound inner loneliness.
He turned away from his contemplation of mirror-bright Broadway and took stock of his new home, five feet wide by eight feet long. The rear wall was concrete, the side walls, sheets of steel. Only the barred front admitted light and air. He gripped one of the short, thick uprights between the stout crossbars. He did not know that these upright bars—cores of cable embedded in toughest alloy steel—supposedly could resist the most persistent saw or file, but he did not need to know: they had the feel of resistibility.
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