January 15, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, The History Guy shares the story about an escape attempt in the infamous Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco, California, that led to a standoff. The penitentiary the inmates called "the Rock,” was supposed to be escape-proof, but that did not keep some prisoners from trying.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
And we continue with our American stories, and up next
comes a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard here at our American Story Today, the History Guy
shares the story about an escape attempt in the infamous
(00:32):
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco, California that led to
a standoff. The penitentiary, the inmates called the Rock, was
supposed to be escape proof, but that did not keep
some prisoners from trying. Here's the History Guy with the
story of the nineteen forty six Battle of Alcatraz.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, built on an island in San Francisco Bay,
was open in nineteen thirty four to How's America's most
dangerous criminals. Built literally on an island surrounded by shark
infested waters, the prison was considered to be escape proof,
with that to keep the prisoners from attempting to escape
from the infamous prison that was most softly called simply
(01:14):
the Rock.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Welcome to the Rock.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
There were fourteen escape attempts in the twenty nine years
that the prison was in operation. And among those one
was particularly notable, both for its daring and for its violence.
The nineteen forty six Battle of Alcatraz deserves to be remembered.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Forty six year.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Old Bernard Barney Coy had been convicted by a federal
jury for robbing the bank of New Haven, Kentucky, in
March of nineteen thirty seven. He and a cousin held
a bank teller at gunpoint, with sought off Shaka made
off of two thousand, one hundred and seventy five dollars.
Sentenced to twenty five years, he was transferred from Atalanta
to Alcatraz in nineteen thirty eight. Nonetheless, Coi had by
nineteen forty six earned the position of cell House Orderly
(01:57):
Prison janitor, position that allowed him relative access surround the prison.
From that position, he had observed lapses in the security
of the notoriously strict prison that he thought he could exploit,
and he became the ringleader of a group determined to
escape the escape proof prison. Cooi had a plan to
overwhelm one guard and gain access to a weapons locker,
(02:17):
but he needed help to overwhelm another guard who he
thought would have the keys that he needed to escape.
It was a daring plan, and it required more men.
His list of accomplices started with thirty three year old
Marvin Franklin Hubbard at Alcatraz. He was a kitchen orderly
and late cleanup in the prison kitchen made him a
(02:37):
crucial part of Koi's plan.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
But Coi figured that he would also need some.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Muscle for his plan to work, and so he recruited
some other prisoners to his plan. Twenty nine year old
mire and Buddy Thompson was an armed robber who showed
skill at both getting caught and at escaping. In March
of nineteen forty five, he was arrested by an Ambarillo,
Texas police detective. Thompson had hidden a gun and shot
the detective. Clarence Carnes was just nineteen years old, the
(03:02):
youngest man in Alcatraz. A Choctaw from Oklahoma, he was
known as the Choctaw Kid. He had been given a
life sentence at just the age of sixteen after killing
a garage attendant during an attempted hold up. Thirty five
year old Dutch Kretcher had done his first stint in
prison at the age of sixteen. In the nineteen thirties,
It had been part of a gang of West Coast
bank robbers called the Kretzer Kyle Gang that had earned
(03:23):
him a spot as number four on the FBI Most
Wanted list. Kretzer then demanded that another prisoner, a friend
of his, be included. Thirty seven year old Sam Shockley
had been sentenced to life imprisonment for bank robbery and kidnapping.
Sent to the Federal Penitentiary at Levenworth. He was found
to have an IQ just fifty four and be prone
to violent outbursts and an unstable personality. Coy's plan started
(03:45):
with Guard Burt Birch. Birch portrolled an elevated gun platform
that overlooked the C and D blocks, which was armed
with a Springfield rifle and forty five caliber pistol. But
Birch had a routine so precise it could be timed.
He would leave the SEA block for a few minutes
as Pacific times and then go look over D block.
That meant that there were a few minutes when Sea
Block was not observed. Cooi had fabricated a bar spreader,
(04:07):
a device that would push two bars apart by turning
his screw with a pair of plyers. His plan was
to use the time when Birch went to D Block
to strip off his clothes, shimmy up the bars, used
the barspredder to make a gap big enough to slip
through and waylay Birch as he came back in taking
his guns and getting access to D Block to release
his co Conspiratorskoy had been starving himself for weeks in
(04:27):
order to make it easier to slip through the gap
in the bars, but he also needed to waylay guard
William Miller, who watched the Sea Block door. Because Miller
had a key to the prison yard, by prison rules,
he wasn't supposed to keep the key, but pass it
to the guard in the gun cage every time he
used it. That was intended to make it impossible for
the prisoners to take the key that would let them
out into the yard, exactly what Coy hoped to do.
(04:50):
But Coy noticed that Miller often did not follow the
rule because keeping the key allowed him to let off
the kitchen staff without disturbing the gallery guard during lunch.
As Hubbard worked in the ky kitchen, he would have
to overpower Miller when he let him out of the kitchen,
thus getting the key that Koy hoped would allow them
to escape the yard and get to the prison dock, where,
using the guns from the locker, they would hijack the
(05:10):
boat that carried supplies to the prison and make their escape.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Convoluted plan and much could go wrong, but men serving
life sentences are desperate men. They made their move on
May second, nineteen forty six. Koi was in the main
block sweeping up when Miller opened the door to let
Hubbard out, having finished his kitchen duties. He and Koy
jumped Miller, clubbing him over the head. Miller had no gun,
but he did have a gas billy billy club that
(05:36):
could also dispense tear gas. They threw Miller in a cell.
They then hurried to where they had stashed the Barspetter
and plyers. When Birch made his normal trip to D block,
Coy managed to strip down, shimmy up the bars, and
use the Barspetller to make a gaff wide enough to
slip into the gun gallery. Koy attacked Birch immediately he
opened the door. Caught by surprise, Birch was quickly subdued.
Koy yanked the rifle from his hands and beat him
(05:58):
unconscious with it. The plan was working so far. Koy
went along to the gun gallery to D Block and
threatened Guard Cecil Corwin with his rifle.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
He forced Corwin to.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Open the door to the main block, letting in Carnes,
Hubbard and Kretzer. They then opened the D block doors
and Freid, Thompson and Shockley. Other De Bloc prisoners were
also released, but they wisely decided to stay.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
In their cells.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
The prisoners were convinced their desperate plan was working, but
in fact it was already doomed. Guard Miller had figured
out what they wanted and had managed to slip the
key to the Saillard off the ring and hide it.
The gang had no way to get out of the
cell block. The escape attempt had failed. Now it was
a hostage situation. The group slowly waylaid other guards as
(06:39):
they came in for regular duties or was sent to
check on the other missing guards. Eventually they had nine
guards stashed in two sails, but prison authorities.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Were now well aware of what was going on. The
group decided that if there was no means for escape.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They would go down fighting. The groups started arguing with
the guards that they had waylaid. When one of the
officers told them they had no chance of escape and
would die they tried. Kretzer told him that the guards
would die as well. He shot into the cell. Then
Shockley yelled to kill all the hostages, saying they wouldn't
have anyone to testify against them. Krets Are emptied the
forty five into the two cells. Six of the officers
(07:13):
were injured. Officer Bill Miller later died of his wounds.
The guards, playing dead, were terrified that Kretzer would come
in and finish the job, but he walked away desperately.
One of the guards managed to write the names of
the six prisoners involved on a cell wall. Warden James
Johnson sent it a large and heavily armed force in
the afternoon. He managed to drive the prisoners back and
rescue the hostages, but a second guard, Harold's Styles, was
(07:35):
killed and three more wounded in the melee. The warden
now shut off the power and watered to the block,
which was surrounded with floodlights and wailing sirens. Guard shot
tear gas of the windows to keep them in Pinned down, Carnes, Shockley,
and Thompson decided the jig was up and went back
to their cells, hoping their involvement would be missed, but Koy, Hubbard,
and Kretzer decided to fight to the death.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Then Johnston took it up a notch and called into
the United States Corps.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
The Marines used tactics developed to the Pacific against Japanese
soldiers and bunkers, drilling holes in the roof and dropping
in hand grenades to drive the prisoners to a spot
where they could be captured. Three boxes of rifle grenades
and one hundred and fifty hand grenades later, the three
prisoners found a phone and called, asking about terms for surrender.
Johnston told them that the only terms would be to
throw out their guns and give up. When a guard
(08:23):
peeked into sea block, they shot at him. That was
their answer to the warden's demand for surrender. Guards moved
in and fired a dozen shots into the utility corridor
where the three were thought to be hiding. In response,
they heard three shots. They were the last shots of
the Battle of Alcatraz. Coy, Hubbard, and Kretzer had chosen
suicide overcapture. In an odd twist, Marvin Hubbard had filed
(08:49):
an appeal to his conviction and the hearing for that
appeal was held the monday after he had committed suicide.
A prosecute in the case said that Hubbard had a
fair chance that his conviction would be overturned. Clarence Karnes,
Mirn Thompson, and Sam Shockley had gone back to their
cells hoping to remain anonymous. Their hope was that Kretzer
(09:09):
had killed the hostages who could identify them as being
part of the attempt, but all but one of the
hostages had survived. Thompson and Shockley were executed in the
gas chamber of nearby San Quentin Prison December third, nineteen
forty eight. A judge found sympathy for Clarence Carnes, owing
to his age and the fact that the hostages reported
that at one point he had refused an order by
(09:30):
Kretzer to shoot them. His death sentence was commuted, but
another life sentence was added to his term.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Despite that.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
He did manage to eventually earn release in nineteen seventy three,
but he couldn't make it on the outside and violated
the terms of his parole. He died in nineteen eighty
eight in the Federal penitentiary in Springfield, Missouri. Alcatraz Prison
would see several more escape attempts, including the famous incident
in June of nineteen sixty two where prisoners Frank Morris
and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped and never found.
(10:01):
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closed March twenty first, nineteen sixty three.
The buildings were simply rotting due to all the exposure
to the salt air and was too expensive to repair,
but was already the most expensive prison in the federal
system to operate.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
The former prison was turned into a.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Tourist attraction and today attracts more than one and a
half million visitors a year.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And great job is always by Greg Hangler, and again
thanks to the History Guy for being a regular and
featured contributor here on our American Stories. The story of
the nineteen forty six Battle of Alcatraz here on our
American Stories
And we continue with our American stories, and up next
comes a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard here at our American Story Today, the History Guy
shares the story about an escape attempt in the infamous
(00:32):
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco, California that led to
a standoff. The penitentiary, the inmates called the Rock, was
supposed to be escape proof, but that did not keep
some prisoners from trying. Here's the History Guy with the
story of the nineteen forty six Battle of Alcatraz.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, built on an island in San Francisco Bay,
was open in nineteen thirty four to How's America's most
dangerous criminals. Built literally on an island surrounded by shark
infested waters, the prison was considered to be escape proof,
with that to keep the prisoners from attempting to escape
from the infamous prison that was most softly called simply
(01:14):
the Rock.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Welcome to the Rock.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
There were fourteen escape attempts in the twenty nine years
that the prison was in operation. And among those one
was particularly notable, both for its daring and for its violence.
The nineteen forty six Battle of Alcatraz deserves to be remembered.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Forty six year.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Old Bernard Barney Coy had been convicted by a federal
jury for robbing the bank of New Haven, Kentucky, in
March of nineteen thirty seven. He and a cousin held
a bank teller at gunpoint, with sought off Shaka made
off of two thousand, one hundred and seventy five dollars.
Sentenced to twenty five years, he was transferred from Atalanta
to Alcatraz in nineteen thirty eight. Nonetheless, Coi had by
nineteen forty six earned the position of cell House Orderly
(01:57):
Prison janitor, position that allowed him relative access surround the prison.
From that position, he had observed lapses in the security
of the notoriously strict prison that he thought he could exploit,
and he became the ringleader of a group determined to
escape the escape proof prison. Cooi had a plan to
overwhelm one guard and gain access to a weapons locker,
(02:17):
but he needed help to overwhelm another guard who he
thought would have the keys that he needed to escape.
It was a daring plan, and it required more men.
His list of accomplices started with thirty three year old
Marvin Franklin Hubbard at Alcatraz. He was a kitchen orderly
and late cleanup in the prison kitchen made him a
(02:37):
crucial part of Koi's plan.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
But Coi figured that he would also need some.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Muscle for his plan to work, and so he recruited
some other prisoners to his plan. Twenty nine year old
mire and Buddy Thompson was an armed robber who showed
skill at both getting caught and at escaping. In March
of nineteen forty five, he was arrested by an Ambarillo,
Texas police detective. Thompson had hidden a gun and shot
the detective. Clarence Carnes was just nineteen years old, the
(03:02):
youngest man in Alcatraz. A Choctaw from Oklahoma, he was
known as the Choctaw Kid. He had been given a
life sentence at just the age of sixteen after killing
a garage attendant during an attempted hold up. Thirty five
year old Dutch Kretcher had done his first stint in
prison at the age of sixteen. In the nineteen thirties,
It had been part of a gang of West Coast
bank robbers called the Kretzer Kyle Gang that had earned
(03:23):
him a spot as number four on the FBI Most
Wanted list. Kretzer then demanded that another prisoner, a friend
of his, be included. Thirty seven year old Sam Shockley
had been sentenced to life imprisonment for bank robbery and kidnapping.
Sent to the Federal Penitentiary at Levenworth. He was found
to have an IQ just fifty four and be prone
to violent outbursts and an unstable personality. Coy's plan started
(03:45):
with Guard Burt Birch. Birch portrolled an elevated gun platform
that overlooked the C and D blocks, which was armed
with a Springfield rifle and forty five caliber pistol. But
Birch had a routine so precise it could be timed.
He would leave the SEA block for a few minutes
as Pacific times and then go look over D block.
That meant that there were a few minutes when Sea
Block was not observed. Cooi had fabricated a bar spreader,
(04:07):
a device that would push two bars apart by turning
his screw with a pair of plyers. His plan was
to use the time when Birch went to D Block
to strip off his clothes, shimmy up the bars, used
the barspredder to make a gap big enough to slip
through and waylay Birch as he came back in taking
his guns and getting access to D Block to release
his co Conspiratorskoy had been starving himself for weeks in
(04:27):
order to make it easier to slip through the gap
in the bars, but he also needed to waylay guard
William Miller, who watched the Sea Block door. Because Miller
had a key to the prison yard, by prison rules,
he wasn't supposed to keep the key, but pass it
to the guard in the gun cage every time he
used it. That was intended to make it impossible for
the prisoners to take the key that would let them
out into the yard, exactly what Coy hoped to do.
(04:50):
But Coy noticed that Miller often did not follow the
rule because keeping the key allowed him to let off
the kitchen staff without disturbing the gallery guard during lunch.
As Hubbard worked in the ky kitchen, he would have
to overpower Miller when he let him out of the kitchen,
thus getting the key that Koy hoped would allow them
to escape the yard and get to the prison dock, where,
using the guns from the locker, they would hijack the
(05:10):
boat that carried supplies to the prison and make their escape.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Convoluted plan and much could go wrong, but men serving
life sentences are desperate men. They made their move on
May second, nineteen forty six. Koi was in the main
block sweeping up when Miller opened the door to let
Hubbard out, having finished his kitchen duties. He and Koy
jumped Miller, clubbing him over the head. Miller had no gun,
but he did have a gas billy billy club that
(05:36):
could also dispense tear gas. They threw Miller in a cell.
They then hurried to where they had stashed the Barspetter
and plyers. When Birch made his normal trip to D block,
Coy managed to strip down, shimmy up the bars, and
use the Barspetller to make a gaff wide enough to
slip into the gun gallery. Koy attacked Birch immediately he
opened the door. Caught by surprise, Birch was quickly subdued.
Koy yanked the rifle from his hands and beat him
(05:58):
unconscious with it. The plan was working so far. Koy
went along to the gun gallery to D Block and
threatened Guard Cecil Corwin with his rifle.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
He forced Corwin to.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Open the door to the main block, letting in Carnes,
Hubbard and Kretzer. They then opened the D block doors
and Freid, Thompson and Shockley. Other De Bloc prisoners were
also released, but they wisely decided to stay.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
In their cells.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
The prisoners were convinced their desperate plan was working, but
in fact it was already doomed. Guard Miller had figured
out what they wanted and had managed to slip the
key to the Saillard off the ring and hide it.
The gang had no way to get out of the
cell block. The escape attempt had failed. Now it was
a hostage situation. The group slowly waylaid other guards as
(06:39):
they came in for regular duties or was sent to
check on the other missing guards. Eventually they had nine
guards stashed in two sails, but prison authorities.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Were now well aware of what was going on. The
group decided that if there was no means for escape.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They would go down fighting. The groups started arguing with
the guards that they had waylaid. When one of the
officers told them they had no chance of escape and
would die they tried. Kretzer told him that the guards
would die as well. He shot into the cell. Then
Shockley yelled to kill all the hostages, saying they wouldn't
have anyone to testify against them. Krets Are emptied the
forty five into the two cells. Six of the officers
(07:13):
were injured. Officer Bill Miller later died of his wounds.
The guards, playing dead, were terrified that Kretzer would come
in and finish the job, but he walked away desperately.
One of the guards managed to write the names of
the six prisoners involved on a cell wall. Warden James
Johnson sent it a large and heavily armed force in
the afternoon. He managed to drive the prisoners back and
rescue the hostages, but a second guard, Harold's Styles, was
(07:35):
killed and three more wounded in the melee. The warden
now shut off the power and watered to the block,
which was surrounded with floodlights and wailing sirens. Guard shot
tear gas of the windows to keep them in Pinned down, Carnes, Shockley,
and Thompson decided the jig was up and went back
to their cells, hoping their involvement would be missed, but Koy, Hubbard,
and Kretzer decided to fight to the death.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Then Johnston took it up a notch and called into
the United States Corps.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
The Marines used tactics developed to the Pacific against Japanese
soldiers and bunkers, drilling holes in the roof and dropping
in hand grenades to drive the prisoners to a spot
where they could be captured. Three boxes of rifle grenades
and one hundred and fifty hand grenades later, the three
prisoners found a phone and called, asking about terms for surrender.
Johnston told them that the only terms would be to
throw out their guns and give up. When a guard
(08:23):
peeked into sea block, they shot at him. That was
their answer to the warden's demand for surrender. Guards moved
in and fired a dozen shots into the utility corridor
where the three were thought to be hiding. In response,
they heard three shots. They were the last shots of
the Battle of Alcatraz. Coy, Hubbard, and Kretzer had chosen
suicide overcapture. In an odd twist, Marvin Hubbard had filed
(08:49):
an appeal to his conviction and the hearing for that
appeal was held the monday after he had committed suicide.
A prosecute in the case said that Hubbard had a
fair chance that his conviction would be overturned. Clarence Karnes,
Mirn Thompson, and Sam Shockley had gone back to their
cells hoping to remain anonymous. Their hope was that Kretzer
(09:09):
had killed the hostages who could identify them as being
part of the attempt, but all but one of the
hostages had survived. Thompson and Shockley were executed in the
gas chamber of nearby San Quentin Prison December third, nineteen
forty eight. A judge found sympathy for Clarence Carnes, owing
to his age and the fact that the hostages reported
that at one point he had refused an order by
(09:30):
Kretzer to shoot them. His death sentence was commuted, but
another life sentence was added to his term.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Despite that.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
He did manage to eventually earn release in nineteen seventy three,
but he couldn't make it on the outside and violated
the terms of his parole. He died in nineteen eighty
eight in the Federal penitentiary in Springfield, Missouri. Alcatraz Prison
would see several more escape attempts, including the famous incident
in June of nineteen sixty two where prisoners Frank Morris
and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped and never found.
(10:01):
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closed March twenty first, nineteen sixty three.
The buildings were simply rotting due to all the exposure
to the salt air and was too expensive to repair,
but was already the most expensive prison in the federal
system to operate.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
The former prison was turned into a.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Tourist attraction and today attracts more than one and a
half million visitors a year.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And great job is always by Greg Hangler, and again
thanks to the History Guy for being a regular and
featured contributor here on our American Stories. The story of
the nineteen forty six Battle of Alcatraz here on our
American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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