Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [198]
Officer Bill Miller is shown being transferred to the Marine Hospital just hours before he succumbed to a fatal gunshot wound.
Officer Cecil Corwin was critically injured by a gunshot wound to the head. Luckily, Corwin would survive his injuries.
One of the injured officers is seen being wheeled into the Emergency Room following the historic rescue.
With the hostages rescued and large numbers of reinforcements swarming the island, the officers would now aggressively attempt to flush out the armed convicts. Warden Johnston and his staff sat with Officers Lageson, Sundstrom, Burdette, and Bristow, and exhaustively interviewed the men, attempting to extract every minute detail of how the escape had transpired. They were able to ascertain conclusively that Coy, Cretzer, Hubbard, Thompson, Shockley, and Carnes were the active armed conspirators. Other convicts were also named, mostly by individual officers, but their level of participation could not be precisely determined. It seemed possible that they might not even have been involved, and might have been present purely by coincidence. Johnston was also unable to pinpoint the conspirators’ exact location in the cellhouse. The group discussed the various possible origins of the gunfire, but the evidence was not conclusive, since the guards had heard gunshots from a variety of locations. Ed Miller was confident that Roberts had been shot with a rifle from on top of C Block, because he had seen the muzzle flashes as they were fired upon during the rescue.
Lieutenant Bergen had watched Miller’s team during the rescue and had helped to return Coy’s fire. He had already moved more men up to the top of the West Galley, and had situated them so they would have a sound vantage point from which to suppress gunfire. Officers O’Brien and Green used heavy sledgehammers to knock out the bullet-proof panes from the Visitors’ Gallery, and prepared to take aim on any of the armed convicts who might appear. Three other armed officers named Mowery, Jones, and Runnels entered the cellhouse and climbed to the top of B Block. They carefully watched for any movement on top of C Block, and fired whenever they saw a moving shadow. Bergen had left the gallery phone off the hook to maintain an open line, and he continued to convey updates on activities to the Armory. When the Armory officer needed to speak to Bergen, he would blow a whistle into the receiver, which would generate just enough sound to capture his attention. Warden Johnston had contacted Bergen personally as soon as he had confirmed the identities of the conspirators. He had asked Bergen and his men to maintain a careful lookout for these convicts.
By 2:10 a.m. Simpson and Weinhold were in surgery having the fragmented Colt slugs removed from their bodies. Miller and Corwin were scheduled next, and they initially appeared to be doing well. Miller had provided a sworn statement to FBI agents, positively identifying Joseph Cretzer as the gunman who had shot them one by one in cold blood. Reporters flooded the hospital waiting rooms, attempting to grab photos and any statements that they could get from the doctors and from the ambulance attendants who had transported the men. The city morgue had also sprung to life, with journalists lining the entryway, hoping to glean information on how Stites had met his fate. One of the morgue attendants who had transported Stites from the dock acknowledged that he had stayed to watch Stites’s uniform cut away, and had seen some of his wounds. However, he misinformed the hungry reporters, stating that it looked like Stites had taken “several machine-gun bullets” in his back. Meanwhile the battle continued through the night, with the officers and marines launching attacks on both D and C Blocks. Lieutenant Faulk managed to secure the entrance door