Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [149]
Floyd Garland Hamilton
Floyd Garland Hamilton
The third accomplice in the 1943 escape attempt was one of the most famous inmates ever to inhabit a small five-by-nine-foot cell at Alcatraz. He had reached the top of the FBI’s most wanted list, and had chauffeured one of the most well known crime couples of the 1930’s, Bonnie and Clyde. His brother Raymond had been a member of the Barrow-Parker Gang and later met his death by electrocution for his role in an escape from a Huntsville prison, which had ultimately resulted in an officer’s death. Floyd and his brother Ray had grown up with Bonnie and Clyde in a small town near Dallas, Texas. Newspapers of the era characterized Floyd Hamilton as a suspect in almost every act of violence that occurred in the Dallas area during the 1930’s.
Floyd Hamilton was born on June 30, 1908 in Henrietta, Okalahoma. He was the second in a family of six children, and his parents were divorced. Records indicate that he was raised in a normal family setting, attended Sunday school, and left home at the age of nineteen to marry a young woman named Mildred Stract. During the early years of his marriage, Floyd worked as a pipe fitter in an oil refinery, but he later lost his employment when the plant closed down.
Floyd then began a crime spree that would eventually place him at the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. He worked as a getaway driver for Bonnie and Clyde, and later teamed up with Alcatraz alumnus Ted Huron Walters, who would himself attempt to escape from The Rock in another incident. Both men would engage in several other robberies, with targets including a Coca-Cola Bottling Company. This was the heist that would ultimately lead to Hamilton’s arrest in Dallas on August 21, 1938.
Hamilton was incarcerated at Leavenworth, and would be recommended for transfer to Alcatraz in January of 1940, after attempting to enlist a released inmate to smuggle weapons and hacksaw blades into the institution. His Leavenworth report also stated that he and a few other inmates had attempted to have a shotgun and shells fabricated in the machine shop for use in an escape. He arrived at Alcatraz several months later on June 9, 1940, as inmate #AZ-523.
Floyd Hamilton’s conduct reports from Alcatraz.
Fred Hunter
Fred Hunter
Fred Hunter, another “public enemy” and former member of the Karpis-Barker Gang, was also an accomplice to the planned escape. Hunter was serving twenty-five years for his involvement in the kidnapping of William A. Hamm Jr., the president of Hamm’s Brewing Company, and Edward G. Bremer, a prominent community leader and the President of the Commercial State Bank in Minnesota. His criminal history is covered in the chapter describing the Barker Escape of January 1939. There were rumors from Hunter that the group of inmates had been prepared for an escape attempt nearly two weeks earlier, but Boarman had allegedly insisted that they wait for the right fog conditions so that they could enter the bay without being seen.
The Escape
The Model Industries Building.
At approximately 10:00 a.m. on April 13, 1943, conditions seemed ideal for the escape, with densely layered fog enveloping the island. It was later speculated that the inmates had cut through one of the steel-mesh window guards in the old Mat Shop during the previous weeks, hiding their work by using grease mixed with other agents to fill in the tiny sawed gaps. Custodial Officer George Smith was busy supervising the inmates who were mixing concrete. He was called to the yard gate to escort four other inmates who were reporting to their work assignments. When Smith returned only a short time later, he noticed that Hunter was the only prisoner at his position near the entrance to the Mat Shop. Officer Smith was quickly intercepted by Hamilton, who forcefully grabbed him by the arm, while Boarman stepped into