by Paul Buck
Various possibilities have been suggested about plans they had to get to Angel Island, and then to make their way from there. Some believed that, once they reached the mainland, they would be picked up by a contact, while others said they would steal a car and pull a robbery to obtain the money to keep travelling. Another story claims that, with the help of another resident of Alcatraz, the black gang boss Bumpy Johnson, they were to be picked up just a few hundred yards away. Indeed, given that all manner of sea-craft and boats are present around San Francisco Bay both at night and by day, they could easily have been picked up by a drifting boat waiting for a signal from a homemade light, then taken under the Golden Gate and put ashore to be picked up by a car. The raft and other materials may have been abandoned purposely, to give the impression they had followed the fate of others and drowned.
If they received no assistance but had still made the mainland, it would have been reasonable to assume they would either have resurfaced to commit crimes – though no unsolved robberies, car thefts or burglaries can be attributed to them – or to contact family and friends. Police and FBI monitoring over the years turned up nothing, though members of the family have admitted that signs had been received which led them to believe they survived. It was thought that they would go to Mexico, at least initially, all three of them having studied Spanish in prison.
West said that the plan had been to use the raft to make their way to Angel Island, and from there to re-enter the bay on the opposite side of the island and swim through a waterway called Raccoon Straits, before going on into Marin.
Saving face, as always, one officer later noted, “We never said it was impossible to escape from Alcatraz, only that it would be very difficult to escape from Alcatraz.”
And yet, periodically over the years, the theory has been put to the test in such a way as to prove it, if not impossible, then extremely difficult. Various teams try to construct rafts in the same manner as the escapees, waiting for the climatic conditions of that fateful night to be repeated, in an effort to disprove the escape. Each time they select strong volunteers (usually in wetsuits in case they get too cold) who make bold attempts and then retire to safety – probably to have a good stiff drink before a nice warm fire. Usually very fit and well-fed professionals, they all seem to fail so miserably. And yet two points keep recurring each time one reads about these attempts.
First, why is it that, since the prison has closed, it has become a regular sport for people of all ages – from children to old people, from professionals to amateurs with little swimming ability – to swim out to or back from ‘the Rock’? (Perhaps people are healthier today, but this is by no means universal.)
Second, even if the conditions were ice-cold and the currents strong (though it is believed they were not exceptionally strong on that night), men who are determined to escape are still in a cathartic state. These are men who have sat in their cells for weeks, months, years, with even more years ahead of them, and have thought long and hard about the risks of escaping; these are men for whom there is little else that life has to offer, little or nothing to lose; these are men who are at the limits; these are men who might walk on hot coals without burning their feet.
Some of these men may well flounder in the water, but others would override those factors and make it, whether to a waiting boat or dry land. If the raft should fail, then swimming and drifting would be their next recourse. The inadequacies of the ordinary person do not equate with the spirit, determination and ultimate recklessness of those hell-bent on escape.
They are not playing for the camera. They MUST escape. And things happen when MUST is the only option. If there is one thing that we can learn from the accounts in this book, and from those I have spoken to who have been on the E-List and escaped, it is the sheer force of that MUST that lifts the escapee beyond the limitations of possible and impossible.
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Index of Escapees, Would-Be Escapees, and (Named) Associates
Abagnale, Frank 1, 2, 3
Abbott, Brenden 1
Alboreo, Eric 1
Alincic, Oliver 1
Allègre, Antoine 1
Allen, John Edward 1
Allpress, Danny 1
Anderson, Dutch 1
Anderson, Robert 1
Anglin, Clarence 1
Anglin, John 1
Arden, John 1
Baader, Andreas 1
Bailey, Joyce L. 1
Balbi, Father 1
Ballew, William 1
Barrow, Clyde 1, 2, 3, 4
Bayless, John 1
Belbenoit, René 1
Bell, Mary 1
Benallal, Nordin 1
Besse, François 1
Biddle, Ed 1
Biddle, Jack 1
Biggs, Ronnie 1, 2, 3, 4
Bindon, John 1
Black, Ronnie 1
Blake, George 1
Blake, Joseph 1, 2
Blunt, Otis 1
Boal, Billy 1
Boarman, James 1
Bonney, William H. (Billy the Kid – see also Henry McCarty) 1
Bourke, Seán 1
Bowers, Joseph 1
Briley, James 1
Briley, Linwood 1
Bronson, Charles 1, 2
Brown, Bruce 1
Brown, Kevin 1
Brown, Ralph 1
Brown, Rebecca 1
Bryson, Jim 1
Bundy, Ted 1
Burns, Robert 1
Butterly, Archie 1
Campbell, Robert 1
Campbell, Séamus 1
Carlson, Wayne 1
Carnous, Abdelhamid 1
Cartagena, Orlando Valdes 1
Casanova, Giacomo 1
Chapman, Gerard 1
Charrière, Henri (Papillon) 1
Chrastny, Charlotte 1
Chrastny, Nikolaus 1
Clanton, Earl 1
Cole, Robert 1
Cole, Theodore 1
Coney, Hugh 1
Convery, Sean 1
Cordrey, Roger 1
Cunningham, Noel 1
Curion, Coelius Secindus 1
Currey, David 1
Dark, Vic 1
DeFriest, Mark 1
Dennick, Richard 1
Diaz, Hector Marrero 1
Diaz, Victor Gonzalez 1
Dickson, Scotch Jack 1
Dillinger, John 1, 2
Doherty, Joe 1
Donoghue, Albert 1
Doyle, Patrick 1
Draper, Sydney 1
Dudko, Lucy 1
Dunford, Terry 1
Dunn, Lennie 1
Durocher, André 1
Dutroux, Marc 1, 2
Edwards, Warren 1
Espinosa, Jose 1
Evans, Christopher 1
Exley, Billy 1
Fenlon, Micky 1
Ferdinand, Erik 1
Flambard, Ranulf 1
Fleming, Patsy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Flower, Eric 1
Foreman, Freddie 1, 2
Forma–Sari, Emile 1
Fraser, Frankie 1, 2, 3
Fraser, Ian 1
Frechette, Billie 1
Fryers, Gerard 1
Fusco, Angelo 1
Garcia, Joseph 1
Gardner, Roy 1
Garner, Roy 1
Gerard, John 1
Gerrard, Alfie 1
Gibb, Peter 1
Giles, John 1
Goergens, Irene 1
Goldstein, Lily 1
Gonzales, Freddie 1
Gonzales, Patricia 1
Goody, Gordon 1
Gorman, Tommy 1
Green, Mickey 1
Grotius, Hugo 1
Guerin, Eddie 1
Gurule, Martin 1
Hackett 1
Halprin, Randy 1
Hamilton, Floyd 1
Hamilton, Raymond 1
Harper, Larry 1
Hernandez, Mauricio 1
Heslop, Ronnie 1
Hewson, Glen 1
Hinds, Alfred 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Hinds, Bert 1
Hinds, Peg 1, 2
Hobbs, Clifford 1
Hoffman, Pablo Munoz 1
Hole, Tommy 1
Horning, Danny Ray 1
Hostetler, Steve 1
Hughes, Billy 1
Hughes, Brendan 1
Hutchinson, Arthur 1
Jeal, Ronald 1
Jeffery, Andrew 1
Jennings, James 1
Johnson, Bumpy 1
Jones, Ray 1
Jones, Willie 1
Kane, Tucker 1
Kendall, John 1, 2
Killick, John 1
Klinedinst, Clarence 1
Kramer, Benjamin 1
Kray, Reggie 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Kray, Ronnie 1, 2
Lang, James 1
Latimer, Robert 1
Latude, Jean-Henri 1
Laurie, John 1
Lecase, Jean-Philippe 1
Lefroy, Percy 1
Leonard, James Rodney 1
Leslie, Ronnie 1
Little, Joan 1
Llywelyn Fawr, Gruffydd ap 1
Lopez, Samantha 1
Lundy, Tony 1
Lyon, Elizabeth 1
Madson, Georgie 1, 2
Magee, Paul 1, 2
Maggott, Poll 1
Mahanay, Jack 1
Malden, Daniel 1
Mallon, Kevin 1
Marley, Larry 1, 2
Marsh, Alex 1
Martin, Joey 1, 2
Mathe, Annanias 1
Matthews, Raymond 1
May, Chicago 1
McAllister, Dave 1
McAllister, Tony 1
McAuley, Pearse 1
McCarty, Henry (Billy the Kid – see also William H. Bonney) 1
McCotter, Liam 1
McCulloch, Tom 1
McFadden, Steve 1
McFayden, John 1
McGale, Charles 1
McIntosh, Ronald J. 1
McKee, Michael 1
McMillan, David 1, 2
McNair, Richard Lee 1
McNamee, Gilbert 1
McVicar, John 1, 2, 3
Meads, David 1
Meinhof, Ulrike1
Mercier
, Jean–Paul 1
Mesrine, Jacques 1, 2
Mitchell, Frank 1
Mitty, Lee 1
Mone, Robert 1
Moody, James 1
Moore, Leslie 1
Morgan, Timothy 1
Morrell, Ed 1
Morris, Frank 1
Murphy Jr, Patrick 1
Nevison, John 1
Newbury, Donald 285
Nichols, Brian 1
Nixon, Jason 1
Nolan, Paddy 1
O’Connor, ‘Terrible Tommy’ 1
O’Duibhir, Liam 1
O’Hagan, J. B. 1
Ortiz, Patricio 1
Osborne, Georgie 1
Paleokostas, Nikos 1
Paleokostas, Vassilis 1
Parker, Bonnie 1, 2, 3, 4
Parker, Darl 1
Parker, Heather 1
Parker, Norman 1
Parsons, Jumbo 1
Payet, Pascale 1, 2
Peace, Charles 1, 2
Perletto, Franck 1
Perry, Oliver Curtis 1
Peters, Tony 1
Peterson, Derick 1
Pewter, Ronnie 1
Philipson, Andy 1
Phillips, Ralph 1
Pierpont, Harry 1
Pollock, Edward 1
Poole, Terence 1
Pottle, Pat 1
Prescott, Lisa 1
Price, Eric 1
Probyn, Walter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Progl, Zoe 1
Proll, Astrid 1
Pryor, Norris 1
Pyle, Joey 1
Quinlivan, Nessan 1
Quinn, Francis 1
Ramensky, Johnny 1
Randle, Michael 1
Redfern, Barry 1
Reeve, Alan 1
Reynolds, Bruce 1, 2, 3
Richardson, Charlie 1, 2, 3
Riordan, Joseph 1
Rivard, Lucien 1
Rivas, George 1
Rives, Carman 1
Rizai, Alket 1
Roberts, Harry 1
Rodger, Andrew 1
Rodgers, Peter 1
Rodriguez, Jose A. Perez 1
Rodriguez, Michael 1
Roe, Ralph 1
Rose, Keith 1
Russell, Andrew 1, 2
Russell, Steven 1
Russell, William 1
Ryan, Michael 1
