The "Battle of Alcatraz" begins - May 2nd, 1946

On this day in 1946, six inmates at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary carried out the most violent escape attempt in the prison’s history. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show for those who can never know enough about history.
I'm Gabe Lusier, and today we're looking at the brutal
two day siege of Alcatraz Island that left five people

(00:22):
dead and fourteen others gravely wounded. As a warning, today's
episode includes descriptions of gun violence, which some listeners may
find disturbing. The day was May twi, nineteen forty six,

(00:46):
six inmates at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary carried out the most
violent escape attempt in the prison's history. The Rocky Island
Fortress was widely viewed as escape proof thanks to its
remote location more than a mile off shore of San Francisco.
Even if an inmate did manage to break out of

(01:07):
their cell and slip past security, they'd have to swim
through frigid water and strong currents to secure their freedom.
Such a feat would be possible with the right training,
but on a prison diet and exercise schedule, the inmates
of Alcatraz didn't stand a chance. Of course, that didn't
stop some of them from trying, and while most of

(01:29):
their escape plans relied on stealth and secrecy to reach
the water's edge. The one hatched in nineteen forty six
took a more direct approach. The mastermind behind the operation
was Bernard Coy, a bank robber from Kentucky who was
serving a twenty six year sentence for armed robbery. After

(01:50):
arriving at Alcatraz, he managed to earn one of the
cushiest prison jobs available, a cell house orderly responsible for
general upkeep and janitorial work. His duties required him to
move freely through most of the main cell block, which
also gave him ample opportunity to study the guard's routines.

(02:10):
Koi began searching for a weak point in the prison security,
and after a few months he found one. The gun gallery,
where all the guard's weapons were stored, was protected only
by bars, and there was no wire mesh in front
of them. Koi figured that if he pried the bars
a little wider, he could squeeze his way through. Then,

(02:33):
after arming himself to the teeth, he could take the
guard's hostage, negotiate his way to the prison boat dock,
and then sail to freedom. No swimming required. He knew
he wouldn't be able to do it alone, though, so
he enlisted the help of three accomplices, Marvin Hubbard, Joseph Kretzer,
and Clarence Carnes. Hubbard and Kretzer were lifelong bank robbers

(02:57):
themselves who had taken part in violent prison breaks at
Alcatraz before. Carnes, on the other hand, was the youngest
inmate in the island's history. Convicted at age eighteen, he
was imprisoned for killing a garage attendant during an attempted
robbery two years earlier. Another pair of inmates, Sam Shockley

(03:18):
and Mirn Thompson, would later join the crew in the breakout,
but they weren't a part of the initial planning. Once
Cooy's gang was assembled, and after he'd shed roughly twenty
pounds to better fit through the bars, it was time
to make a run at the gun gallery. The men
put their plan into action on May second, nineteen forty six,

(03:39):
at around one thirty in the afternoon. Hubbard distracted prison
guard Bill Miller, allowing Koy to sneak up from behind
and beat the guard unconscious. Koi took Miller's keys and
released his other accomplices from their cells. Then he climbed
to the top of the gun gallery, which he knew
was now unguarded, and used a makeshere device fashioned from

(04:01):
pliers and toilet pipes to pry apart the bars of
the cage. Once he had struggled his way through the bars,
aided by a coating of axle grease, Coy laid in
wait for the next guard and then took him by surprise.
He choked the guard unconscious with his own necktie, and
then helped himself to all the guns and ammo he
could carry, Armed and free the inmates, overpowered seven more guards,

(04:27):
and then locked all nine of them and cells. Everything
had gone smoothly up to that point, and it was
time to begin Phase two, using the hostages to commandeer
a prison boat. The first step was to open the
cell block door that led to the recreation yard, but
that proved easier said than done. Coy tried every key

(04:49):
they had confiscated from the guards, but none of them
unlocked the door. It later came to light that prison
guard Miller had pocketed the crucial key and hidden it
in the the toilet of his cell. The escapees never
managed to find it and were effectively trapped inside the
cell block. The entire prison was now on high alert, though,

(05:11):
and with emergency alarms blaring and guards gathering outside, the
crew began to panic. Convinced they would soon be captured,
Joseph Kretzer decided it was best to kill the hostages
so that they couldn't testify as witnesses. Later on, Clarence
Carnes is believed to have intervened on the guard's behalf,

(05:31):
but Kretzer still managed to fire a few shots into
a cell containing the captive guards. One of the bullets
struck Bill Miller, and he later died from the injury.
At that point, Carnes, Shockley, and Thompson called it quits.
The three of them went back to their cells and
waited for the inevitable siege, but the other escapees, Koy

(05:53):
Hubbard and Kretzer decided to go for broke. They headed
for the high ground of the cell block tower and
settled in for what would later be known as the
Battle of Alcatraz. Meanwhile, the prison's warden mobilized the Coastguard
and the Marines to help take back the cell house,
and fortunately they had a few points working in their favor. First,

(06:16):
the takeover had happened after lunch time, which meant the
majority of the inmates were at work, leaving the cell
block mostly empty. And second, Koi and his crew hadn't
brought the hostages with them when they moved to the tower.
This allowed the police and military to coordinate strike teams
to rescue the guards. It also freed them up to

(06:37):
use more than just small arms in their assault. When
the first team entered the cell house, the inmates opened fire,
killing one officer and wounding four others. The fire fight
that ensued lasted well into the night, with the Marines
eventually using machine guns and grenades to push Koi and
his crew back to a less defensible position. The barrage

(07:01):
continued all through the next day as well, and didn't
stop until the morning of May fourth, nearly forty eight
hours after the breakout began. When the guards finally stormed
the cell block, they found the three conspirators, Coy, Hubbard,
and Kretzer lying dead from bullet wounds and shrapnel. The
men who had returned to their cells and surrendered didn't

(07:23):
fare much better. Shockley and Thompson were sentenced to death
for the murder of Bill Miller and were later executed
in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison. Clarence Carnes
escaped the death penalty because he had tried to stop
the others from killing the guards, but he still had
ninety nine years added to his sentence for his role

(07:45):
in the breakout. Carnes remained at Alcatraz until its closure
in nineteen sixty three. He was one of twenty three
escaped inmates to be recaptured during the life of the prison.
The other thirteen who tried and failed to escape were
either shot and killed, confirmed drowned, or presumed drowned. Escaping

(08:07):
the island prison may not have been as impossible as
some people claimed that it was near enough. I'm Gabe
Luesia and hopefully you now know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to
keep up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

(08:28):
and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have
any comments or suggestions, feel free to send them my
way by writing to this day at iHeartMedia dot com.
Thanks to Kasby Bias for producing the show, and thanks
to you for listening. I'll see you back here again
tomorrow for another day in History. Class s