The Battle of Alcatraz

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When we aren't actively engaged in some kind of conflict or war, the military is what is called a force in readiness.

They are always preparing and training, waiting for something to happen.

And far from being exclusively sent overseas, the military is often utilized for quick responses to handle problems locally, natural disasters for one.

As mentioned in previous stories, soldiers could be sent out to set up roadblocks to stop civilians from driving back to their homes during a forest fire.

They might even be sent off base to investigate reports of little green men harassing a local family.

But they also get called in for violent situations like riots.

And while you'd normally expect this sort of thing to happen on the streets of a city, this story is unique.

Smack in the middle of the San Francisco Bay is the tiny island known as Alcatraz.

Having started as a military stronghold in the mid-1800s, Alcatraz was slowly converted to a military prison during the Civil War.

It was further expanded when new prisoners entered during the Spanish-American War three decades later.

It was ultimately converted into a federal penitentiary in the 1930s, and you could imagine the kind of guys that the Department of Justice wanted to send to a desolate rock in the middle of the water.

The inmates housed at Alcatraz were said to be some of the most dangerous men from any prison anywhere in the United States.

convicted killers, gangsters, outlaws, and various other violent offenders that couldn't be contained anywhere else.

Al Capone, George Machine Machine Gun Kelly, Alvin Creepy Karpis, and James Whitey Bolger all called Alcatraz home at one point or another.

But flying the coop at Alcatraz was far easier said than done.

In fact, it was said to be impossible.

Even if an inmate managed to get out of the cell block, they were then faced with having to swim up to two miles across the San Francisco Bay.

If the frigid waters didn't kill them, the powerful tidal currents would.

That didn't stop a number of inmates from trying.

This is one of those stories.

And honestly, you couldn't write a story like this without it sounding like Hollywood made it up.

On May 2nd, 1946, a small group of inmates made a break for it.

They seized weapons, took hostages, and attempted to shoot their way to freedom.

The only thing standing in their way were the guards and two platoons of U.S.

Marines who had recently returned from the front lines of the Second World War.

This is the incredible story of the Battle of Alcatraz.

I'm Luke Lamana,

and this is Wartime Stories.

Lights out, sweethearts.

Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Bite me, Warden.

All right, who's the smartass?

As the clock struck midnight on December 31st, 1945, the world celebrated the start of 1946 with a renewed sense of hope.

So much had changed in the last six years, and millions of people were still adjusting to peacetime life after the hardships of World War II.

There was a lot of uncertainty.

Things already seemed to be heating up between the United States and the Soviet Union as the two superpowers raced to develop their atomic arsenals.

But this wasn't enough to dampen the spirits of many Americans as they rang in the new year.

Their loved ones were finally coming home from their tours overseas in Europe and the Pacific.

The United States had emerged from the war as an economic powerhouse, and opportunities seemed endless.

But this didn't apply to the roughly 260 inmates held within the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.

For them, the first day of 1946 was the exact same as the last day of 1945, and the day before that, and every other day.

Things didn't exactly change in Alcatraz.

Every morning, at exactly 6.30, the prisoners were roused by the guards for the day's first headcount.

From there, daily life was a strict cycle of labor with only short breaks being granted for meals.

Free time was a luxury and privacy was practically non-existent.

There wasn't much that escaped the watchful eyes of the guards and wardens.

The routine was constant, consistent, and horribly mundane.

enough to drive anybody crazy.

And one of the men who was sick of it was prisoner number 415,

better known to the inmates and officers as Bernard Coy.

Coy was born on February 13th, 1900, in the town of Anthertonville, Kentucky.

At around 16 years old, he lied about his age to join the U.S.

Army.

He was then shipped overseas and served his country with distinction during the First World War.

He apparently earned a reputation for being an expert marksman.

But after the war, things suddenly went downhill.

After re-enlisting sometime in the 1920s, Coy was written up for desertion and dishonorably discharged in 1926 after being arrested for burglary in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

From there, Coy's life evolved into a series of stints in and out of jail, and things only got worse with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

In March of 1937, Coy was fresh off of a two-year burglary sentence when he and his 23-year-old cousin held up the Bank of New Haven in Louisville, Kentucky.

Armed with a sought-off shotgun and a pistol, the duo made off with a little over $2,000, but not before the bank teller got a good look at both of their faces.

The law caught up with Coy about a month later, and this time, he wouldn't be getting off so easily.

On top of the recent bank robbery and his long record of burglaries, Police were also able to connect Coy to a recent liquor store robbery.

As a result, he was sentenced to 26 years in the Atlanta Federal Correction Institution.

But Coy proved himself to be a troublesome inmate.

He regularly got into fights, disobeyed the guards, and was busted, along with a few others, for planning a breakout.

There was a saying within the corrections system familiar to both officers and prisoners.

Those who broke the rules went to prison.

Those who broke the rules of prison went to Alcatraz.

By 1946, Alcatraz had had been Coy's home for the past nine years.

Much to the surprise of the guards and wardens, familiar with his violent past, it looked as if the career criminal was starting to turn things around.

By all accounts, Bernard Coy was the closest thing Alcatraz had to a model prisoner.

He didn't start fights, did what he was told.

and even used his own experience with the legal system to advise some of his fellow inmates, a kind of cell house lawyer, if you would.

In what little downtime he had, Coy took to reading and even became known as a gifted artist.

The walls of his 5x9 cell were often decorated with paintings depicting the Kentucky countryside he grew up in.

After so many years of his demure behavior, guards felt as if they could trust Coy.

Well, at least a bit more than the other prisoners.

And this is exactly what the seasoned criminal was aiming for.

The inmates sent to Alcatraz were the worst that the American prison system had to offer.

As a result, outlets for the prisoners to entertain themselves were often revoked.

But the one thing they did have was an in-house library with over 15,000 books and magazines.

Thanks to his good behavior, Coy became the library orderly.

So while most of the prisoners spent their days working in the kitchens, gardens, laundry, or one of the island's many shops, Coy enjoyed regular access to the main cell block.

As he wheeled his cart around, collecting and distributing reading material, Coy began taking note of certain weaknesses in the guards' patrol routes.

Security was usually very tight, but on weekdays, most of the inmates were out on their various work details.

This left the main cell block almost entirely empty, and what few guards remained seemed to be a little bit more lax.

During the day, Coy observed that the main cell block was watched by at least three officers.

One stood by the entrance to the dining hall to observe the comings and goings of the kitchen staff.

This guard carried the keys that allowed greater access to the prison as well as the outside yard.

Although this officer was unarmed, he was covered by two other guards who were equipped with rifles.

They were stationed in elevated gun galleries that ran the length of the cell block's east and west ends.

But Coy noticed that there were moments in their patrol that left the officer on the main floor with the keys unobserved and vulnerable to an ambush.

Coy began working on a plan.

Over the course of several months, Coy worked alongside three other inmates to plot out every aspect of their escape.

While the general hierarchy of the group is debated, It is thought that Coy's primary confidants were inmates Joseph Kretzer and Marvin Hubbard.

Kretzer was a West Coast gangster who was currently serving a life term for bank robbery and second-degree murder.

Hubbard was sent to Alcatraz after being involved in a prison riot and for repeated escapes from other jails.

His charges included kidnapping, grand theft auto, and stealing guns.

The fourth member of the group was Clarence Carnes.

otherwise known as the Choctaw Kid.

At just 18 years old, Carnes was the youngest inmate in Alcatraz history and was already a stone-cold killer.

He was serving a life sentence, plus an additional 104 years, for first-degree murder, assault of a federal employee, and kidnapping.

These four men were a far cry from the A-team, but their planning was meticulous.

Step one would see Coy and Hubbard wait for the opportunity to overpower the lone officer guarding the cell block.

Once he was unconscious, they would take his keys and free Kretzer and Carnes.

From there, Koy would climb his way up to the western gun gallery and find a way to pry open the bars just enough for him to squeeze through.

He'd probably have to lose a few pounds to pull this off.

Once up in the gallery, Coi would somehow have to get the drop on the lone guard posted there.

When this guard was incapacitated, Koi, now armed with the guard's rifle, would move along the gun gallery towards the sealed-off isolation wing where the last guard was on patrol.

With this final officer subdued, they'd have full control of the cell block, at least for a few minutes.

Taking the guards with them as hostages, the inmates would use the keys to gain access to the prison yard.

On paper, it all seemed pretty straightforward.

And on May 2nd, 1946, Coy and his men finally put their plan into action.

But, being a former soldier, Koy should have known that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.

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At around 1.30 p.m., Corrections Officer William A.

Miller found himself patrolling the primary cell block.

With most of the inmates out and at various workstations, there really wasn't much for him to do, not that he was complaining.

Standing guard over some of the most dangerous men in America was a stressful job, and he was grateful for any lulls in the action.

A prisoner then approached him from the other side of the barred dining hall door.

It was the familiar face of Marvin Hubbard.

As a kitchen orderly, it wasn't uncommon for Hubbard to run errands between the dining hall and the cell block.

So, just as he had done a hundred times before, Miller let Hubbard through the security door and proceeded to pat him down.

But before he knew it, Miller was rushed from behind and slammed into the ground.

Koy and Hubbard started laying into him with their fists and boots until he stopped moving.

Hubbard grabbed his set of keys and went off to free Kretzer and Carnes.

Koy stayed behind, standing guard over Miller, breathing deeply as he prepared for the next step of the plan.

Stripping off his shirt, Coy smeared himself in axle grease that he had swiped from one of the shops.

Then he started to climb up the bars towards the West Gun Gallery.

His accomplices looked on anxiously, praying that the guard posted on the gallery wasn't on his way back.

Once in position, Koi stuck an improvised spreading device between the bars and began prying them apart.

It worked, but only gave him a few extra inches to work with.

For this part of the job, Koi had deliberately starved himself for a number of weeks.

He hoped that the weight loss combined with the axle grease would give him just enough leeway to slip through the bars.

He was thrilled when it actually worked.

Coy entered the empty gun gallery and gave his pals down below the signal to start a commotion.

As they hollered in the cell block, Coy took up an ambush position as Officer Burt Birch hustled back to the gallery.

Coy caught the man flat-footed, wrestling Birch to the ground and strangling him into unconsciousness with his own necktie.

He then handcuffed the limp officer to the bars.

After looting Birch of his weapons, Coy raided the rest of the gallery.

When he reappeared through the bars, he dropped an M1911 pistol to his accomplices, as well as ammunition and several gas billy clubs.

Coy then shouldered Birch's Springfield rifle and moved south along the gallery.

towards the isolation wing in D-Block.

Bursting through the steel door that separated the wing from the rest of the cell block, Coy quickly overpowered Officer Cecil Corwin and forced him to open all the cells in the prison.

As the door slid open, what few inmates remained in their cells stepped out into the cell block to see what all the commotion was about.

When they saw four armed convicts shoving two officers into cell C-402, They immediately knew what was going on and wanted no part in it.

While most of the men quietly stepped back into their cells, two of them saw this as their opportunity to escape.

They eagerly joined the group of four, bringing their number to six.

One was a convicted cop killer named Myron Thompson, and the other a low-IQ bank robber named Sam Shockley.

For the convicts, the plan was going well, maybe even too well.

They had the keys, weapons, and hostages.

Now they just had to break out into the yard, down to the boat launch, and they would be home free.

But this is when things started to quickly fall apart.

None of the keys they had stolen worked on the door that led out to the yard.

Although it was against regulation, the guard they had knocked out, William Miller, had previously taken the yard key off of the ring and kept it in his pocket.

He would often do this so he could open the door for the kitchen staff without bothering the galley guards on their break.

Now that he was conscious and had been forced into a prison cell by the convicts, Miller watched the men frantically trying to open the door to the yard.

When they realized the key wasn't on the ring, he knew they might come back to him and find the key in his pocket, so Miller quickly hid the key in the cell's toilet.

Sure enough, growing more anxious and desperate by the second, Kretzer returned to the cell and demanded that Miller tell him where the key was.

Miller said he didn't know.

Furious, Kretzer, Shockley, and Thompson started pummeling him.

To make matters worse, the other prison guards were beginning to notice the absence of the first three guards.

One by one, six more guards came into the cell block searching for the missing men, only to be caught at gunpoint by the convicts and tossed into cells C-402 and 403.

Eventually, Kretzer managed to locate the missing key, either finding it in the toilet by luck or beating the answer out of Miller.

But by that point, the lock had been so badly jammed by the prisoner's previous attempts to open it that the key was totally useless.

The men were completely trapped inside the cell block, and it was only a matter of time before the warden got wise to what was happening.

Coy unslung his rifle and checked the chamber.

As had so often happened on the front lines, It was time for a change in strategy.

Taking up a position in the West Gun Gallery, Coy started firing out of the D-Block windows towards the nearby guard towers.

His reasons for this aren't entirely clear.

Maybe he intended to pick off the tower guards to clear a path for a mad dash to the boat, or perhaps he knew the jig was up and resolved to just fight it out to the end.

After receiving word that some of his men were taking accurate gunfire from D-Block, Associate Warden Ed Miller took hold of a gas club and went to investigate.

He was soon chased away from the cell block by a barrage of gunfire and reported the situation to Alcatraz's warden, James A.

Johnston.

The attention of the people walking along the San Francisco waterfront was, at that point, drawn towards the distant prison as the eerie wailing sound of an alarm echoed across the bay.

Soon they could see smoke, flashes of tracer rounds, and could just make out the faint crackle of gunfire that seemed to be growing more and more intense.

It was as if a battle was being fought inside the prison walls.

As Koi traded fire with the ever-increasing number of officers, Kretzer, Thompson, and Shockley turned their attention to the eight captured guards being held in Seablock.

The initial plan was to use them as leverage for safe passage to the boat launch, but now that that plan was out of the window, Shockley Shockley and Thompson urged Kretzer to kill them.

Speaking to the Marine Corps publication, Leatherneck Magazine, in a later interview, one of the hostages, prison guard Robert R.

Baker, described what followed as Kretzer took hold of his 1911.

He ran up to where we were in a cell and poked his pistol through the bars and started firing.

No one could count the shots or had any time to think.

I fell to the floor when I was hit and I heard the others hit the floor around me.

It really was terrifying.

Bullets struck all eight of the officers.

William Miller, who on top of being brutally beaten several times, was now bleeding profusely from two gunshot wounds.

But even as their blood pooled on the concrete floor, the men stayed calm and did their best to fake being dead.

The only thing they could do was hold on and pray that help was on the way.

Fortunately for them, it was.

Not long after sounding the alarm, Warden Johnston sent word of the crisis to the nearby Treasure Island Naval Station.

The Coast Guard had already been mustered, and now the Marines were on the way.

Sounds like the welcome committee is getting ready for us boys.

Say, don't this kind of remind you of Iwo Jima?

Nah, Iwo is hell.

This I think we can handle.

Geez, talk about a homecoming, eh, Skipper?

We were just blasting the Japanese out of their holes a few months ago.

Now we're helping to clean up the Fed's prized looney bin.

Who do you think's crazier?

The Japanese or the guys trying to bust out of this place?

Odds gotta be a million to one easy, and they still went for it.

They're either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.

It's just another island, boys.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Don't go underestimating these guys just because they're cons, though.

They've done their fair share of killing as well.

All right, I want everyone squared away and ready for anything when we land.

Aye, sir.

Aye, sir.

As Warrant Officer Charles Lafayette Buckner landed on Alcatraz and led his Marines up the northern slopes toward the main cell house, he couldn't shake the sense of unwelcome familiarity.

It wasn't long ago that this veteran officer was leading his men against the Japanese at places like Guam, Bougainville, and Okinawa.

He had seen some of the worst the war had to offer and had been awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his troubles.

Now, back on American soil, the air was once again filled with the crackle of gunfire coming from the far side of the island.

Just another beautiful day in the Corps.

Buckner's first order of business was to touch base with the warden.

in order to get a sense of the tactical situation and where he should deploy his troops.

When later speaking to reporter Stanton Delaplane of the San Francisco Chronicle, Johnston recalled the moment the Marines came ashore.

The Marines asked if we wanted help.

And when I said I could use 20 men to guard the prisoners of the yard, they came over zigzagging like it was Ziwojima or something.

They helped a lot.

As the Marines aided the officers' guard and set up sleeping arrangements for the displaced inmates, Johnston began to organize a rescue mission for the eight officers being held somewhere in the cell block.

A little after 7 p.m., the Marines looked on as an assault team of heavily armed officers made their way to the ground floor entrance of the West Gun Gallery.

As the rescue team entered the gallery, they found themselves on the ground floor of D-Block.

As they began to ascend the stairs to the upper levels, they noticed everything had fallen strangely quiet.

They gripped their weapons tight and pressed on, unaware that Coy and Kretzer were watching from concealed firing positions.

D-Block suddenly exploded with the sounds of gunfire and screams as the officers walked straight into a kill zone.

Tightly packed together in the narrow gun gallery, they made easy targets.

The officers that weren't immediately gunned down attempted to shoot back or drag their wounded buddies down the stairs toward the exit.

Covering his fellow officers as they made their retreat, was senior officer Harold Stites.

Unlike some of the younger guards, this wasn't Stitz' first rodeo.

He'd served with the Federal Bureau of Prisons for over 23 years and was a veteran of the First World War.

He was even credited with putting an end to a previous escape attempt in 1938, single-handedly killing two of the three rogue inmates, who had just mortally wounded a fellow officer.

As he returned Coy and Kretzer's fire, Stites was struck several times.

He fell lifelessly on the steel catwalk and was among the last to be dragged out of the cell block.

The scene unfolding outside the prison was horrific.

Every member of the rescue team was badly wounded.

Harold Stites, veteran officer, soldier, beloved husband, and father of four children, was now dead.

The sight of the bloodied men mourning their fallen comrade brought back painful memories for the Marines.

It also filled them with a powerful resolve.

Buckner was tired of being on the sidelines.

Both he and his Marines were itching to do what they did best.

That night, they'd get their chance.

After the failure of the first rescue mission, Warden Johnston cut power to the main cell house and suspended all further attempts until after dark.

Later that evening, a second rescue team made their way into the prison.

Instead of entering via D-block, where the convicts had likely dug in, The officers took advantage of the dark and quietly entered the main cell block.

As they searched cell by cell for the eight captive guards, the rescue party was covered by Marines and guards posted up in the east gun gallery, as well as the narrow visitation windows directly beneath them.

Making their way through the dark cell house, the officers finally located their missing colleagues in C-block.

Though they were all badly wounded, they were miraculously still alive.

The next few minutes were tense as the officers attempted to remove the eight wounded hostages without rousing the attention of the convicts.

Unfortunately, the men did hear them moving through the cell block, and a pitched gunfight broke out.

Covering the officers alongside his Marines, Buckner was moved by the courage displayed by the guards attempting to save their friends.

He expressed his thoughts in a later radio interview.

In the best Marine tradition, Those guards braved the fire of convicts to rescue their wounded comrades.

They'd all make good Marines.

As soon as the hostages were safe, the Marines and guards covering them pulled back.

Buckner then gave the order for his men positioned on the island's southern slopes to open fire on D-Block with everything they had.

And boy, did they ever.

From sunup to sundown on May 3rd, the Marines let loose on the convicts.

M1 rifles, Browning automatics, Thompson submachine guns, firepower far far greater than anything the guards had.

Buckner's strategy was simple and was one he and his men had used countless times against entrenched Japanese soldiers.

Using overwhelming firepower and plenty of grenades, the Marines hoped to dislodge the convicts from their de-block positions.

Once this was done, they would work to back the Khans into a corner where they could be bombarded into submission.

or annihilated altogether.

Over the course of this day-long siege, it's thought that the Marines lobbed or fired around 500 grenades into the cell block.

The bombardment was so intense that those watching from across the bay thought the convicts must be being pummeled by bazooka or mortar rounds.

Overkill or not, it worked like a charm.

The convicts abandoned D-Block under fire and took up new positions along C-Block.

in the main cell house.

By this point, things really weren't looking too good for Coy, Kretzer, and Hubbard.

After seeing the hopelessness of their situation, Shockley, Thompson, and Carnes abandoned the fight and returned to their cells.

But Coy and his pals remained defiant.

The situation only got worse when the Marines, led personally by Buckner, made their way up onto the prison's roof and chiseled several small holes into the concrete ceiling above Seablock.

Grenades rained down on the cons,

exploding midair, on the ground, and among the catwalks.

Some Marines even stuck the barrels of their weapons through and opened fire.

The near-constant explosions ruptured pipes, and water was now flooding the cell block.

Time and time again, the officers and Marines called on the convicts to surrender.

But as Private First Class Robert Prosser recalled in Leatherneck magazine, the men had no interest in giving up.

We surrender, we surrender, don't do that again, don't were

among the cries that echoed back through the hole in the roof.

A guard approached cautiously to receive the surrendered weapons and received instead a defiant shot, which had apparently been fired blindly by a now frenzied Khan.

Unable to hold on to their elevated sea block positions, the convicts once again retreated.

This time they squeezed their way into a narrow utility corridor that ran through the middle of the Seablock cells.

They were now better shielded from the grenades, but there was nowhere left to run, just as the Marines intended.

The corrections officer once again took the lead, securing Seablock and sealing off both ends of the utility corridor.

Armed with shotguns, the two groups took turns spraying the narrow corridor with gunfire.

They kept this up until the early morning of May 4th.

The convicts had stopped returning fire, and all attempts by the officers to call out to them were met with total silence.

Cautiously, they made their way into the corridor.

Spaced out along the narrow hall, riddled with bullets and shrapnel, were the bodies of Joseph Kretzer, Marvin Hubbard, and Bernard Coy.

Coy was said to be frozen in rigor mortis, his hands positioned as if he was still gripping a non-existent rifle.

The Battle of Alcatraz was over.

When silence returned to Alcatraz, three inmates had been killed and 14 officers were wounded.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons laid two of their own to rest, Officer Harold Stites and William Miller.

Miller would succumb to his injuries not long after being rescued, but not before naming Kretzer as the man who shot him and his fellow officers.

Miller was survived by his mother, his wife, and two children.

Despite abandoning the escape, Myron Thompson and Sam Shockley were sentenced to death on the back of damning testimony.

According to the officers they held captive, it was Shockley and Thompson that encouraged Kretzer to go through with his attempted execution of the hostages.

They would both meet their end in the gas chamber of San Quentin Penitentiary on December 3, 1948.

Clarence Carnes, the Choctaw kid, was allowed to live out the rest of his life sentence.

He would pass away behind bars in 1988 from AIDS at the age of 61.

The Battle of Alcatraz is surprisingly a little-known chapter of the prison's history.

Even as a Marine, I'd never heard about this until recently.

And there's very few parts of our Marine Corps history that we don't find a reason to get hyped up about.

This event seems to have fallen to the wayside in the wake of higher-profile escape attempts, like the 1962 breakout that was later immortalized in the 1979 Clint Eastwood film, Escape from Alcatraz.

Alcatraz closed its doors as a prison in 1963, but it's now a must-see tourist attraction for anyone visiting San Francisco.

You can actually still see the impact and fragmentation marks from some of the grenades that were thrown into the Seablock cutoff.

At the time, the Marines didn't get much recognition for their part in the battle.

There's no record of any awards or official citations being made, but they took the whole thing in stride.

Some of them joked that they should have all been awarded Alcatraz campaign ribbons.

And for the design, they suggested black and gray horizontal stripes resembling prison uniforms.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive produced by Mr.

Bollin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt.

Written by Jake Howard and myself.

Audio editing and sound design by me, Luke Lamana, and Alex Carpenter.

Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stiddum.

Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Production supervision by Jeremy Bone.

Production coordination by Avery Siegel, additional production support by Brooke Lynn Gooden, artwork by Jessica Clogson Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada.

If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartime stories.com.

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