At 11:55 a.m. the sound of a whistle resonated throughout the cellhouse, signaling for the inmates to line up outside their cells, and then at Captain Weinhold’s direction, they filed into the dining hall as usual. It has been suggested that this meal period was the meeting hub where the final signals were given that the prison break was on. The lunch period progressed according to its usual strict customs, and at 12:20 p.m., when all of the inmates had finished their meals and the eating utensil counts were completed, the inmates were marched out of the Mess Hall and back to their cells for another count. After this process had been completed, all those assigned to the industries would line up for their march into the recreation yard, and return to their specific work assignment. There was also a second sick-call for inmates wishing to be examined by the island’s physician. The inmates would notify their correctional officer, who in turn would provide them an approval slip to leave their assignment and fall into the designated line. Miran Thompson would be one of the first inmates to line up for sick call, while several others would form special lines for interviews with the Associate Warden, and the most favored would cue for visits that had been pre-approved by the Warden.
The cellhouse activities then started to shift focus to D Block, where the inmates were to be fed, and those with limited privileges were to be prepared for a brief excursion to the recreation yard. Marvin Orr, one of the officers assigned to the kitchen detail, helped wheel the food carts over to D Block, then started serving lunch to the inmates inside their cells, assisted by Correctional Officer Cecil Corwin. Officer Bill Miller had just returned from lunch, and he initiated the 1:00 p.m. inmate count. At that time, Bernie Coy gathered his broom and electric floor polisher and started preparing to clean the smooth-surfaced cement floors. With the majority of inmates back at work in the Industries, the cellhouse had grown fairly quiet, almost like a library.
By 1:30 p.m., the correctional staff was at its minimum level. Burch remained stationed in the West End Gun Gallery, where he usually spent his time after lunch on the D Block side, because the majority of the inmates would be found there during standard work hours. Of the prison’s operational staff on duty at the time, Correctional Officer Ernest Lageson was leaving the main cellhouse to take a short lunch break; Corwin would be on duty solo on the D Block floor; Bill Miller would be alone in the main cellhouse overseeing routine maintenance and cleaning activities; and lastly Joseph Burdett, a correctional officer from Joplin, Missouri, would be supervising the clean-up in the kitchen and dining areas.
Before Lageson departed, he met with Bernie Coy to give final instructions about the areas that would likely require the most attention. Feeling confident that Coy understood his work directive, Lageson made one last round to ensure that the workers had started in on their assigned tasks, and then made his way to the main entrance of the cellhouse, where he would leave the building for lunch. Lageson’s exit would mark the onset of an event that would forever be ingrained into the history of The Rock. As Coy pushed his broom, sweeping the aisle down Broadway toward Times Square, he carefully made his way to the edge of the cellblock, watching Lageson gesture to gate Officer Al Phillips at the main entrance to let him through. In D Block, the period following lunch was usually very quiet, since most of the inmates would take naps around this time. Coy hurriedly made his way to the library, and then made a tapping sound on the access door to D Block, to signal that the escape was commencing.
The sound of the taps would be the signal for Sam Shockley, who had been confined to D Block for his role in the bold May 1941 escape attempt with Joe Cretzer. He was residing in cell #D-5. Sam’s role was to start a disturbance in D Block, in order to shift attention away from the main cellblock. As Shockley screamed and shouted violent threats, Officer Corwin called for assistance to help calm the inmate, who was nicknamed “Crazy Sam” by inmates and guards alike. Officer Burch made his way to the D Block end of the gallery, attempting to size up the situation before calling down to Miller.
Meanwhile, Bernie Coy was making his way toward the kitchen to signal Marvin Hubbard. Marv was stalling as he completed his clean-up tasks, pacing himself so he could stop work as soon as he received the signal from Coy. Hubbard had made careful efforts to ensure that everything was in perfect order, so that Officer Burdett would not become suspicious. In accordance with their meticulous plan, Hubbard made a final stop at the wooden knife rack, and carefully slipped a large butcher knife into the underside of his shirtsleeve with the handle resting in his palm. Hubbard then approached Burdette, stating that he had finished his work and was ready to get some fresh air out in the yard. Not suspecting anything unusual, Burdette granted Hubbard permission to leave. Hubbard then went to the dining room entrance and waited for Officer Miller to open the gate and let him pass. Miller, who was unaware of the recent problems in D Block, opened the gate and let Hubbard pass through. As procedure dictated, Marv then stood at the base of the West End Gun Gallery waiting for Miller to search him. Miller locked the gate after Hubbard and approached the inmate. Meanwhile Coy, who was closely watching the two while walking toward them from C Block, carefully started pushing his broom closer and closer, trying not to spark suspicion.
Hubbard stood at attention, slightly lifting his arms so that Miller could start his head-to-toe search. Suddenly Coy grabbed Miller from behind with the quiet skill of a silent assassin, pinning his arms around his back. Hubbard started delivering violent and rapid blows to Miller’s head using his clenched fists and Miller slumped over into unconsciousness. The East Gallery had been left unmanned as a result of budgetary cuts from the previous year and no one was at this post to monitor activity at the east end of the cellhouse. Bert Burch had rushed into the D Block side of the gallery to assess the disturbance that Shockley was causing. Officer Miller was thus left helpless, with no other prison guard aware of his plight. Hubbard and Coy each grabbed an arm, and starting dragging him around to cell #404 at the end of Seedy Street, which was used by guard staff and cellhouse workers as a common bathroom. Coy pulled the large key ring from Miller’s belt clip, and opened the control box that housed the cell access levers. Having carefully watched the correctional staff open and close the various inmate cells, Coy was able to rack open #404 without a hitch. The inmates pulled Miller into the cell and Hubbard removed his pants and jacket. Miller was then gagged and tied to the cell bunk.
Cells #404 and #403, located at the end of C Block, were used by the escapees to lock up their hostages. This would the site of a cold blooded and vicious murder.
Joseph Moyle
Bill Montgomery
Earl Egan
Joseph Moyle, an inmate who had just happened to pass through the main gate less than a minute before, was shocked to witness Coy and Hubbard pulling Miller into cell #404. Joseph Moyle and Bill Montgomery were both assigned as Warden Johnston’s “passmen.” This was the most coveted work assignment on Alcatraz as these men were allotted the most freedom of all the inmates, in order to serve as the Warden’s personal stewards. The passmen worked directly in the Warden’s house and often spent several hours each day outside of the normal confines of the prison. The inmates who worked as the Warden’s stewards were handpicked and were generally nearing their release date. Though it may seem hard to believe, the passmen did most of the Warden’s cooking and cleaning, and some reported that the Warden’s wife would put on the radio (allowing them to listen to baseball games), leave out newspapers (which were prohibited inside the prison) and give them special treats like homemade cookies. Though the assignment came with many great perks, these men were generally not trusted by the general inmate population, as they spent so much time with “Old Saltwater” himself. Therefore as Moyle approached the escape accomplices, Hubbard motioned him to enter the cell with Miller to ensure that he didn’t “rat them out” to an unsuspecting guard.
At about the same time two other inmates who were assigned to painting details, Earl Egan and George Pichette, were walking up Park A
venue when they witnessed the activities that were transpiring just ahead. As Coy motioned them forward, Egan apparently indicated that he didn’t want any part of the escape. But the men weren’t taking any chances and Egan was also directed into the cell. Pichette had turned at the end of the cellblock and disappeared. The door of cell #404 was quickly racked closed, and Coy started running to the block control boxes and opening the cells of his other accomplices. Thompson, Cretzer, and younger inmate named Clarence Carnes all emerged from their cells in a state of near disbelief that Coy’s plan had actually succeeded, even to this point. Carnes seemed an unlikely type to participate in the escape, as he was the youngest inmate ever to be sentenced to the Rock at only eighteen.
When Coy had released his accomplices, he made a swift dash down the C Block utility corridor to where his tool set was hidden. Coy emerged from the passageway with a cotton pouch of the type that inmates generally used to carry their dominos into the recreation yard. While the other inmates stood watch for Burch in the West Gallery, and for any other correctional officers who might enter the cellhouse, Coy quickly stripped down to his underwear and with Cretzer’s help, smeared axle grease over his chest, head and extremities. He then briefly inventoried the tools in his sack and started climbing up the West End Gun Gallery from the juncture at Times Square and Michigan Avenue. Hand-over-hand, he scaled the barred cage until he reached the top.
An officer looks up toward the area where Bernard Coy scaled the gun galley. Using plumbing fixtures that had been fashioned into a makeshift bar-spreader; Coy quietly entered the Gallery and secured weapons.
The makeshift tool used by Coy to spread apart the bars at the top of the Gun Gallery.
Clenched in Coy’s teeth was the small bag containing his crudely fashioned bar-spreader device, which had been made from toilet fixtures in one of the prison workshops. He set the tool firmly between the two bars (which were approximately five-inches apart), and using pliers or some type of gripping wrench, he was able to exert enough force to create an opening nearly ten inches wide. With Cretzer eagerly watching his progress from below, Coy painfully squeezed his body through the opening and slipped into the West Gun Gallery.
Without delay, Coy secured a riot club and positioned himself in a low crouch so that Officer Burch couldn’t see him when looking through the window in the door. On Coy’s signal, Cretzer sharply tapped the recreation yard access door with Miller’s key ring, a standard indication to the gallery officer that the cellhouse guard needed a key for access. Burch was unknowingly being lured straight into an ambush. By now, Shockley had ceased his staged screaming fit and Corwin was sitting at his desk talking casually with D Block orderly Louis Fleish, the famed onetime leader of Detroit’s “Purple Gang” of the early 1930’s.
D-Block Orderly Louis Fleish.
When Burch passed through the doorway, Coy forcefully hurled the wooden door forward, throwing the unsuspecting guard off balance. With brutal force, Coy clubbed the officer and forced him to the floor, then strangled him till he lost consciousness. Inmate Jim Quillen later recalled that all of the residents of D Block could hear the struggle in the gallery, and the first rumor to travel down the row of cells was that the “hacks” were fighting among themselves. But the prisoners quickly realized that an inmate had amazingly managed to infiltrate the gun gallery.
Coy quickly lowered a Colt .45 pistol with twenty-one rounds of ammunition and several riot clubs to Cretzer, who was standing on the officers’ work desk. Coy then pitched down a large key ring that he was confident would hold the yard door access key, #107. After dropping these items down to Cretzer and now armed with a Springfield rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition, Coy entered the D Block Gallery, taking aim at the unarmed Officer Corwin. Coy directed Corwin to follow his orders carefully, and to stay away from the phone. He instructed him to walk slowly over and open the steel door that divided the segregation unit from the main prison. As soon as Corwin had rotated the key and the door swung open, he was met by Cretzer, who aimed the .45 directly at his forehead. As the barrel of the .45 was pressed against Corwin’s forehead, the cold metal felt as though it was biting into his flesh. Louis Fleish had opted not to get involved, but he encouraged Corwin to follow Cretzer’s demands so that he wouldn’t get hurt.
Coy headed back to Officer Burch and stripped him of all his clothing, then tied him to electrical piping that ran near the floor. After ensuring that Burch would be unable to trip an alarm if he regained consciousness, Coy retraced his steps to the top of the gallery, carefully squeezed through the bars, and climbed back down to the cellhouse floor. Meanwhile Cretzer demanded that Corwin rack open #D-14, the cell of Rufus “Whitey” Franklin, an inmate who was notorious as a guard killer and a master escape artist. Franklin was serving time in isolation for the vicious murder of Alcatraz Officer Royal C. Cline in 1938. Corwin pleaded that he couldn’t open the cell because the locking mechanism for all of the isolation cells was controlled from the gallery. Since Coy had already made his way back down, and would thus be able to open the cell doors himself, Corwin was stripped of his jacket, hat, and keys, and placed into cell #404 along with Captain Bill Miller, who was still unconscious. Coy then racked open the cells in the top two tiers of D Block, and Shockley and the other inmates started to emerge, attempting to size up the situation.
Though Franklin was left behind because they had been unable to access the lock mechanism to release him from his cell, Cretzer ordered an inmate to open the outer steel doors to all of the isolation cells on the bottom row. It is suspected that Floyd Hamilton, former outlaw and driver for Bonnie & Clyde, had also been in on the plot, though he did not take part in the attempt. In Hamilton’s inmate file there was a notation that reads:
Although Hamilton received but one misconduct report, the testimony of Mr. E. Lageson, cellhouse officer, who was one of the hostages in the prison escape plot of May 2nd to 4th, 1946, was to the effect that Coy, #415-AZ, ringleader to the rioters, was trying to get Hamilton unlocked from his cell so that he could join in the plot. This, with the fact that Hamilton had secured a lay-in for that day indicates he knew something about the plot and may have been involved to a certain extent.
As Cretzer passed through the steel D Block access door, he observed Burch straining against his restraints and looking over the steel shield of the gun gallery. Cretzer yelled to Burch in the gallery while pointing the .45: “I’ll kill you if you try to reach that phone!” Coy and Cretzer then started shuffling through the keys on the gallery ring, trying to find Key #107, which would grant them access to the recreation yard. After several minutes of fruitless attempts, both became frustrated and tried to force the lock with any key that would fit, as their plan was starting to fall behind schedule. They had hoped to get into the recreation yard, snipe off the tower guards and then escape through the yard access door. They planned to get down to the dock area by using hostages, so the next item on the agenda was to secure captives, probably family members of the correctional staff. They would then hijack the prison launch to take them over to the mainland, where they would make their final escape. Everything had run smoothly, up until now...
The desperate inmates searched feverishly for key #107, but a brave correctional officer had concealed the key inside the hostage cell.
Standing at the recreation yard door, Coy and Cretzer methodically debated where the right key could be found. Cretzer seemed certain that it had to be one of the keys in their possession. Carnes called over to Cretzer and Coy from his lookout post, warning them that he had heard a gate inside the sallyport open and then close. About a minute later the main cell door swung open and Chief Steward Bristow emerged, walking briskly down Broadway towards the Dining Hall. Bristow was in charge of the prison’s culinary division and he was completely unaware that armed convicts were roaming the cellhouse. He approached the Dining Hall door realizing that something was amiss, as the gate was not secure and Bill Miller wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Attempting not to ma
ke any suspicious gestures, he turned quickly as if he had forgotten something, and headed back to the main gate, hoping Officer Phillips would be there to greet him. Carnes positioned himself in the cutoff corridor after quietly running up from Park Avenue, and he watched Bristow to see if he would enter the kitchen. Carnes was now armed with what an officer would later describe as a pair of sharp “artist’s dividers,” and he intercepted Bristow at the cutoff and led him to Cell #404 without any struggle.
Coy and Cretzer were now becoming very frustrated, as they had not anticipated being unable to locate the yard key. The two inmates walked up to cell #404 where Bill Miller was now fully conscious and sternly demanded to know where key #107 was hidden. Miller denied having any knowledge of the key’s location, since it was strict protocol to return it to the gun gallery officer after using it. He insisted that the key must be in the gallery, adding that the inmates had witnessed the procedure numerous times themselves, and therefore must know that this regulation was stringently followed by all correctional officers. Coy and Cretzer walked a short distance to the officer’s desk in D Block, and laid out all of the keys, searching for #107. What they didn’t know was that Miller had failed to follow protocol and for convenience sake, had slipped key #107 into his shirt pocket. It was a stroke of luck, but Miller’s act of mild nonconformity was in fact upsetting the entire escape effort.
Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years Page 40