Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [223]
The inmates used clever decoys to fool the guards during the late night counts. The amazingly detailed and lifelike dummy heads that were tucked under the blankets were fashioned primarily from scrap bits and pieces. The materials used included soap chips, concrete, wire, plaster, glue, paint, and hair that had been smuggled from the prison barbershop.
Thomas Kent (pictured) along with Darwin Coon were two of several inmates who helped to smuggle materials that were used in the escape.
Concealed contraband materials that were used in the escape, and were later found in one of the inmates’ cells.
Using glue stolen from the glove shop, the inmates then started to cut and bond the raincoats into a makeshift raft and life preservers. Each evening following the completion of their self-imposed work details, they would hide the materials on top of the cellblock to minimize any chance of being caught with the contraband goods. The inmates also acquired an elaborate array of forged tools. West was able to lift an electric hair clipper while working on a paint detail in the barbershop. He used the clipper, along with drill bits stolen from the Industries Building by another inmate, to fashion a makeshift motorized drill. The motor later proved too small, and the drill would require something more effective.
After months of preparation, the inmates had fashioned all of the gear they needed to aid them in their escape, and they had meanwhile continued loosening the ventilator grill on top of the cellhouse. John carefully completed the valve assembly on a six-by-fourteen-foot raft constructed from raincoats. Morris modified an accordion-type musical instrument called a concertina, which would be used to inflate the raft. While the others progressed well in their activities, West fell behind in digging out the ventilator grill at the rear of his cell. His primary role had been to construct the life preservers and special wooden paddles for the raft, which didn’t require him to leave his cell.
On the night of June 11, 1962, Morris indicated that the top ventilator was loose enough, and he felt that they were ready to make their attempt. At 9:30 p.m., immediately after lights-out, Morris brought down the dummies from the top of the cellblock and announced that the escape would take place that night. Clarence Anglin attempted to assist West with his grill from the utility corridor, but was unsuccessful. Applying great force and dealing hard kicks to the grill proved futile. In the end, Morris and the Anglins had no choice but to leave West behind. The inmates made their final thirty-foot climb up the plumbing to the cellhouse roof, traveled one hundred feet across the rooftop, and then carefully scaled down the fifty feet of piping to the ground. This would be the last anyone ever saw of Morris and the Anglin Brothers.
By 1:45 a.m. West was finally able to complete the removal of his grill and climb to the rooftop, but by then all of his accomplices had disappeared. With no raft or other means to escape, he was forced to return to his cell. Some of the inmates would later report that they had heard an unusual disturbance among the seagulls during the late evening hours.
A Photograph of Frank Morris’s cell taken on June 12, 1962. This view shows how the cell appeared as the officers conducted their counts on the night of the escape. After lights out at 9:30 p.m., the cellhouse was considerably darker, and the heavy blanketing likely made it difficult to discern the mannequin figures.
The cellhouse utility corridor where inmates Frank Morris and