It’s June 11th, 1962. I’m sitting in my cell, just after supper. The guard finished his rounds a few moments
ago, giving us our new packs of cigarettes, even exchanging our old razor blades for new
ones. And now the other inmates are playing their
instruments. It’s music hour, if you can believe it. But even though I’ve a squeeze box of my
own, I ain’t playin’ tonight. I’m on three hours of sleep - if that. And I’ll be lucky if I get any at all the
next 24 hours. That’s because I am Frank Morris, prisoner
AZ 1441, and tonight - I am escaping Alcatraz. It’s the most famous prison in the world. A fortress set atop 22 acres of rock. There it sits in San Francisco Bay, a mile
and a half across turbulent waters from Fisherman’s wharf. Maybe on a good day, you can make out the
Golden Gate Bridge, three miles away. If the fog has lifted, that is, and you ain’t
huddled up in your peacoat ‘cause even in June it’s 60 degrees Fahrenheit and the
wind is always blowing. It started as a fort to protect the San Francisco
Bay from foreign invaders. Then the Civil war broke out and San Francisco
had its share of Southern sympathizers. Some of them hatched a plan to raid Alcatraz’s
arsenal in the dead of night but the commander of the fort caught wind of it and his soldiers
were waiting when they arrived. They were the first prisoners of Alcatraz. And it wasn’t long before other forts started
sending their most dangerous inmates to do time on the isolated military base and by
the end of the war, Alcatraz was home to 49 prisoners. Then the 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged
so many jails on the mainland, they started shipping the civilian cons to the island. They were getting so many prisoners, they
finally decided to build something large-scale, something permanent. They made the convicts build their own prison,
a cellhouse 480 feet long with six cell blocks for 600 prisoners. The mess hall, the infirmary, the showers
- they were all in the same building as the cells, so we can be watched at all times. If you want to escape this place, you have
to make it out of your cell, then out of the cell block, then out of the building - then
down cliffs to get off the island - then across the freezing waves of the bay to the open
sea, or San Francisco, or nearby Angel Island - more than two miles away. Escape-proof? That’s what they say. Which is why it’s been the home of some
of the country’s most notorious criminals - Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Bumpy Johnson. The place has three metal detectors. One on the docks for the boats - which is
the only way on or off the island. One at the cellhouse entrance. And one on the main road, on the way to the
work areas. The cafeteria is set up with what looks like
ben picnic tables, ten prisoners to each, seated so it’s easy to keep track of our
movements. A new electronic system has been put in place
- instead of individual keys, a series of levers hidden behind locked doors operates
each individual cell door. That keeps the unarmed guards on the floor
safe - so do the armed guards patrolling the platforms suspended above each cell block. Alcatraz has one guard for every three inmates
- the standard ratio is one-to-ten. They built this place with a fancy new steel
for the bars that can’t be bent or sawed. And even if you did get outside, guard towers
with searchlights are set up on either end outside - and manned 24 hours a day. Surrounding the main prison is a fence topped
by razor sharp barbed wire. It keeps us away from the shore, and from
the families of the guards and staff who live on the island. But let’s say you do somehow get all the
way to the water, your only option is to swim for it. Boats have to maintain a 300-yard distance,
and no one is allowed ashore, or even to dock, without a pass. And if you do manage to swim out to a boat
that’s waiting for you - how are you gonna tell anyone to meet you? Mail is strictly censored - magazines are
delivered with articles cut out, and letters are retyped by guards to prevent any secret
codes from getting through in the handwriting. There’s no escape. But people still try. Before I came to the island, there were twelve
attempts - and not one was successful. There’s one from 1939 that’s pretty infamous
among us cons - five guys make it out of D-Block, the most tightly-secured block in the cell
house. But they’re discovered missing during the
count. A watch tower guard spots them on the shore,
trying to make a raft - and he opens fire. One’s killed, one’s wounded, the others
are sent to solitary. A lesson to always cover your tracks. Then there was one in 1943 - James Boarman
and three others jump their guards at the industries building. They should have planned it better - by the
time they make it to the water, one of the guards is up and alerting the rest of the
island. Boarman is shot; his friends try to save him,
but it slows them down. He dies, one is picked up in the water by
police; two others hide in caves for a while but eventually return. A lesson that it’s every man for himself. But the most famous is what’s called the
Battle of Alcatraz. Six men try to fight their way out after a
botched attempt to get the keys to the outside. Instead, they wind up taking control of the
cell house, with two of the guards as hostages. Two days later, the hostages have been killed
and the US Marines have shot three of the inmates dead. Of the remaining three, two get the gas chamber
and one gets a second life sentence. A lesson in what happens when you try to use
violence to get out. Otherwise, it’s pretty standard: guys try
to make a run for it - or even a swim for it - and are either shot, caught, or drowned. Twelve attempts, zero successes. But here’s the thing. I’m kind of an escape artist. From the age of thirteen, I’ve been in and
out of jail, and it’s the only home I’ve ever really known. My parents abandoned me at eleven and two
years later I was already a convicted thief. It was just the beginning of a long criminal
career. I served a stint in Louisiana’s Angola prison
for robbery, but after that, no prison would hold me. They sent me to Raiford Prison in Florida
for breaking and entering - and within a year, I’d broken out of there. Eventually, I wound up in the US Penitentiary
in Atlanta. Sentenced to 14 years for robbing a bank. Once again I broke out in less than one. I guess that was the last straw for the Feds. Once they recaptured me, they sent me to The
Rock. They must’ve figured it’s the only place
that could hold me for good. Within a week of getting there, I’ve got
a job in the library. Stay quiet, keep to myself. But it’s how I wind up reconnecting with
Allen West. I met West back in Atlanta. Like me, he’s escaped prison multiple times
- even some of the same ones I did. Allen’s a manipulator, knows how to talk
to people. It’s his second time in Alcatraz - and this
time he wants out on his own terms. He’ll plot with anyone who’ll listen. Well, I listen. He talks about the vents. There used to be eight exhaust blowers on
top of the cell block - attached to vents that opened up onto the roof. They never really worked, some were damaged
over time. Now there’s just one. Unused. Unsealed. Open. Problem is, you have to be on B Block to access
it. OK, no problem. I keep my head down at the library. Official reports describe me as shy, reserved,
blending in. So no one thinks twice when I request a transfer…to
B Block. So does West - now we’re rooming next to
each other. He gets a job in maintenance - repairs, paint
jobs, that kind of thing. He’s supervised, but it’s a job that sometimes
gets him behind the walls. That’s where he notices two things. First, a network of pipes leading all the
way to the top of the cell block, which is where we need to be if we want to get at that
vent. You could climb those pipes like a ladder. Second - decades of salt water plumbing have
corroded some of the pipes and flooded areas behind the wall. That’s worn down the cement, made the walls
porous and fragile. Easier to chip through. Our afternoons out in the yard give us more
ideas. We keep close - it’s always cold and wet,
so me and West huddle together with some other guys we met in Atlanta - the Anglin brothers,
John and Clarence. Backwoods Florida boys, no more than a third
grade education. But they’re on board with the plan, too,
and it’s one of them who first suggests the idea of a raft. Not one made quickly at the shore, like the
other escapes, but an inflatable one. If we could make one of those ahead of time,
we’d be golden. The Anglin boys get transferred to B Block
too, in cells right next to each other - even though their records say not to keep them
separated. It’s too perfect. I have to thank the new warden, Olin Blackwell
- easy-going, a reformer. Together with the new captain of the guard
he’s setting a new standard of living on Alcatraz, getting the harder-edged, more violent
guards transferred. That suits me just fine. And they change more than just the guards. Remember those ten-man tables in the mess
hall? Now they’re a cluster of smaller tables,
like some fancy cafe. Four men can huddle around one and guards
can’t even hear what we’re planning. Harder for them to see if we sneak any utensils
out, too. Take a spoon, break off the bowl, file the
handle to a sharp point, and you get a shank. Ours aren’t for stabbing though. We’re using ours to chip away at our walls,
right around the vent under the sink. A little bit at a time, one hour a night,
every night. We use the music hour after dinner as our
cover - that’s a new addition too, giving the inmates time to practice their guitars,
accordions, violins, saxophones. It’s a whole bunch of caterwauling, happening
all at once - the perfect cover for four guys chipping away at the walls. We use soap chips to hide our work, painting
them green with my art set to match the walls . I’ve also gotten an instrument of my own,
a squeezebox. A fella’s got to have an instrument for
music hour, don’t he? Except I never learn to play. I figure a way to use it as a pump to blow
up the raft we’re gonna make. And somehow no one notices. The prison is always understaffed. Other positions are either eliminated entirely,
or combined with other duties. That’s how the mail censorship got so sloppy. We wind up with an issue of Popular Mechanics
that shows how to design a life vest and survive cold waters. They never would’ve let that by a couple
of years ago. And the guard tower outside that’s supposed
to be manned 24 hours? Budget cuts mean it’s unmanned during the
night and the guy who’s supposed to do rounds on foot with a flashlight is more often night-fishing...with
the warden. The other guards get sloppy too. Too many of them are new, and they let West
paint the top of the cell block.That brings him face to face with the vent. There, he can take a look and survey what
we’re up against. The inside of the vent, leading up to the
roof, has two sets of bars. The first set is simple - just two rods that
can be bent. The second set is a grate held in place by
twelve rivets. We’re gonna have to drill those. West convinces them that he can’t finish
the paint job without kicking a lot of dirt and dust on to every guard and prisoner underneath,
and we don’t want that, do we? So he gets special permission to hang up blankets. All along the perimeter. Now he’s hidden from sight. It means I can work on that vent undercover. It’s also where we stash the supplies to
build our raft, made out of fifty raincoats - our own, plus others smuggled to us by fellow
inmates. Thanks, guys. That leaves one last tiny detail: how are
we gonna break through our walls, climb up three stories, disassemble the vent, glue
together a working raft, all without our absences being noticed by the guards when they do their
rounds? We make masks - dummies - out of soap, concrete,
and toilet paper. For the hair we use actual hair John’s kept
from his job at the prison barber shop. We make them up to look like they’re us,
sleeping in our beds. Every night, we put our dummies in place,
cover up the holes in our cells with painted cardboard, and climb up the pipes to the top
of the cell block. I bend the rods in the exhaust up top while
the Anglins work on the raft. Now I’ve just got twelve rivets to deal
with. Can’t unscrew them. And the makeshift drill we made from the motor
of a vacuum cleaner is way too loud. So I have to saw them. June 10th,1962, I never go back down after
music hour, keeping the dummy head in my bed so I can open up that vent and get us to the
roof. I work through the night, it’s risky, but
I manage to get the grate off without making a sound. The Anglins just finished making the raft. All that’s left now is to pop open the top. But it’s dawn. We’ll have to wait till the next night. It’s supposed to be business as usual throughout
the day, but Clarence Anglin actually spends his time on the yard shaking hands with all
of his pals, saying his goodbyes. Talk about subtle. We make it through dinner and back to our
cells. We’re there for the first round of checks
- and we ask that the lights from A Block be turned off. Can’t sleep with them on. And no one uses A Block anyway, right? Click - off they go. I open up my fake wall, crawl through to the
other side. Gotta be quick. I climb up the pipes ‘til I reach the top,
where the vent is. I lower our stash of dummy heads down through
the opening. Then climb back down. I arrange my dummy head on my bed. Roll up some blankets underneath the sheets. Looks good. Grab my cigarettes, put on my coat. Back out I go. I replace my wall from the other side. We use some plaster to make it look like it’s
still part of the wall, too. And up I go. The Anglins and I grab everything from their
hiding place. The raft made of raincoats, the bellows made
from the squeezebox, life jackets made from other raincoats, and paddles made from screwed
together planks of wood. Only thing left now is to get West. Well. Remember that plaster we made to disguise
the walls? West’s has hardened up. He can’t get out. He’s panicking, kicking his wall, using
his coat to muffle the noise. Wants us to wait. He made the paddles, after all. And he’s the one who told me about the vent
more than two years ago. But it’s now or never. I tell him to keep trying, we’ll wait as
long as we can, and I climb back up the pipes. It’s after 10 by the time I’m back in
the vent. Once again, all that’s left is to pop open
the top. It’s lighter than it looks. The wind on the roof blows it out of my hand
- with a THUD, it lands on the roof. Everyone hears it. Even the seagulls - they’re flying around
now, screaming in panic. But there’s no one at the guard tower. No one to immediately react. I climb out. John Anglin feeds me our stash through the
hole, everything we need to survive on the raft - plus the raft itself. Then he joins me. His brother Clarence follows. We leave a paddle and a life vest behind for
West. If he makes it in time, fine, but it’s not
my problem anymore. We run across the roof. I lead the way. We make it to the west end - right where the
bakery exhaust pipe runs the full length of the building. I toss our stuff over the wall. Hoist myself atop the parapet, grab the pipe. Shimmy down 45 feet to the bottom. The Anglins follow close behind. We pick up our bundle and run across to the
fence. Climb over - barbed wire and all. We crawl along the catwalk the guards use
to watch the yard. We cut a line of barbed wire so we can make
it to the other side - to the ten-foot drop. We’re out. But we’ve still got the rest of the island
to cover. We run for straight for the shore, right past
the Officer’s Club House in the residential area, lucky that there’s no one outside. We slide down a steep hill, all the way down
to the shoreline. We roll out the raft and inflate it with the
squeezebox. We blow it up until it’s fit to ride. It’s not even midnight - I can see the lights
of the cities across the Bay. John plugs up the valve when it’s all ready. This is it. The moment of truth. Maybe the raft isn’t seaworthy. Maybe one of the screws in the paddles will
pop loose. Maybe the current will drag us out to the
Pacific. Maybe one of us will betray the others. Maybe it’ll be me who betrays them. But for now, we’re in the raft and I’m
paddling away. No shots have been fired. No alarms rang. For now, I’m doing the impossible. For now, I am escaping Alcatraz.
