Escape Attempts from Alcatraz: Plots, Failures and Mysteries

Alcatraz was built to be the one federal prison nobody could leave without permission, so it is no surprise that escape is the subject visitors ask about most. This page walks through the main attempts recorded during the penitentiary years, what went wrong for most of them, and why a handful of cases still spark debate.

The odds of getting away

Before the federal penitentiary opened, the older military prison on the island was fairly leaky. Paperwork errors freed a few soldiers, and others took to the bay on driftwood rafts, stolen boats or even large kitchen containers. The federal administration learned from that. Warden Johnston made sure nothing that could float was left lying around, and he reminded people that a man behind bars will naturally think about getting out.

Across the penitentiary years, 30 inmates took part in escape attempts, not counting the 1946 uprising. Twenty were returned to their cells alive, four were shot dead, and one drowned. Five more entered the water and were never seen again. Their disappearance is usually read as a sign they did not survive, since none of them had shown any talent for staying out of trouble, let alone for living for years on the run. Most plots, in fact, never got past the planning stage: alert officers and informers in the cellhouse ended them early.

The bay itself explains why bodies were not always recovered. On an incoming tide a swimmer may wash up on a beach or against a pier. On a strong outgoing tide the current carries anything in the water toward the open ocean at around six miles an hour.

The first attempt, 1936

The first man to try was Joe Bowers, in April 1936. He was working at the outdoor incinerator, which sat on a cliff above the water, and began climbing the fence beside it. An armed officer in the Road Tower, whose job was precisely to watch that spot, called out a warning and then fired. Bowers fell and died.

Violent breakouts

Four attempts involved serious violence.

May 1938. Three inmates killed Officer Royal Cline in the carpentry shop and went up to the roof to rush the Industries Building tower. They assumed the guard enclosure door would be open. It was shut, and the tower officer shot two of them. One was killed, another was wounded, and the third gave up. The two survivors received life terms for murder.
May 1941. Four inmates in the mat shop overpowered and tied up several staff members. They tried to drill through the window bars with a tool taken from the carpentry shop, but the bits could not cut the steel. A captive captain, Paul Madigan, who would later become warden, talked them into surrendering.
April 1943. Four men bound and gagged two officers in the mat shop, broke out through a window and jumped into the water. One officer worked his gag loose and blew a whistle, a tower guard opened fire, and the plot collapsed. One man was wounded and gave up, another died in the water, a third hid in a small cave at the shoreline. The fourth, cold and exhausted, walked back to the factory and fell asleep beside a radiator, where he was found two days later.
September 1958. Two men on a garbage detail overpowered their supervising officer and tied him in the bushes. One was recaptured by a Coast Guardsman, while the other was found dead in the bay two weeks later.

The 1946 “Battle of Alcatraz” was also violent, but it is not counted as an escape because no one left the cellhouse. It is covered on the page about riots and strikes.

Out of the cellhouse, 1939

In January 1939 five men in the isolation cells of the old D Block cut through bars left over from the military era. These were made of softer steel than the later fittings. With a homemade spreader, similar to a car jack, they forced the window bars apart and climbed down the cliff to a small rocky beach below the Road Tower, which is still nicknamed “Barker Beach” after one of the group. While they searched for driftwood, the next count revealed their empty cells. Searchlights and sirens came on, and the men were spotted. Arthur “Doc” Barker was shot and later died at the hospital, and the other four gave up when the prison launch reached them.

Other attempts

December 1937. Ralph Roe and Ted Cole slipped out of the mat shop between counts, went through a perimeter gate and entered the bay on a day of poor visibility and an unusually fast tide. Boats searched for hours and found nothing. They are presumed drowned, though some inmates said they floated off on oil cans.
September 1941. John Bayless jumped in the water from near the powerhouse and was pulled out shivering. Later, at a court hearing in San Francisco, he vaulted a railing and ran for the door, only to be tackled by a deputy marshal.
August 1943. A laundry worker nicknamed “Terrible Ted” Walters exploited thin staffing during wartime weekend overtime. He was found soon afterwards, too bruised from the cliffs to swim.
July 1945. John Giles spent nearly ten years on the dock quietly collecting pieces of an Army uniform. He wore the complete uniform under his overalls and joined soldiers boarding a boat. A headcount exposed him, and he was caught at Fort McDowell on Angel Island.
July 1956. Floyd Wilson left a dock work crew with a length of sash cord and went hunting for driftwood. Search parties found him before he found any.

The 1962 escape

The case that became a film involved Frank Morris and brothers Clarence and John Anglin. In June 1962 they left dummy heads in their beds and went out through holes they had dug in the backs of their cells. They climbed the utility corridor to the top of B Block, left through a roof vent, descended an exterior pipe and reached the shore near the powerhouse, where they inflated rafts made from raincoats. Their trail ends there, and they are presumed to have drowned.

Many people assume this was the event that closed Alcatraz. It may be closer to the truth that a prison already heading for closure was easier to beat. Budget cuts had removed the overnight officer in the east-end gun gallery, and fewer people checked the cellhouse roof. Rules had been eased, so musical instruments were allowed in cells, and the noise helped cover the digging. A painting crew was permitted to hang tarps over the cellblocks, which hid late-night work on the ceiling and gave the men somewhere to keep equipment. Cell searches missed crude patches over the holes. The warden was away, and the associate warden in charge came from a prison industries background rather than custody. Even the raincoats were easy to gather, because nobody counted the stock in the raincoat factory, and men could leave for work in the morning without a coat and come back in the foggy evening wearing one.

Plans to close the penitentiary were announced about three weeks later.

Reaching San Francisco

In December 1962 two kitchen workers, John Paul Scott and Darl Parker, cut through the bars of a basement window using a serrated spatula and butcher’s twine made abrasive with cleanser. They tied inflated surgical gloves to their bodies and entered the water. Parker was pulled back by the current and ended up stranded on a small rock called Little Alcatraz, where he was quickly recaptured. Scott was swept past the city by a very strong tide and washed up on the rocks at Fort Point beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Teenagers enjoying the view found him, military police recognised his uniform, and he was taken to the hospital with hypothermia before being returned to the island.