CRIME: Revolt on the Rock

It was a lovely day to look at the view. The bright sun poured down on San Francisco’s blue bay and on the island of Alcatraz set in the middle of it, like a rough, unpolished stone. Private Jacob Weber set up a telescope on the Aquatic Park pier and let sightseers peer through it for 10¢.

Through Weber’s telescope the rocks of Alcatraz and the geometric concrete buildings showed clearly. You could even make out men in uniform standing on the walls, other men running along the cliffs. Puffs of smoke occasionally blossomed against a wall; then a “Boom” drifted across the Bay. Thousands of San Franciscans watched through field glasses.

Alcatraz, “The Rock,” was in revolt.

The Moment. The battle had begun on Thursday afternoon. Bernard Paul Coy, 46, bank robber, buried with some 280 other incorrigibles in the tomb of steel and concrete, had had plenty of time to brood in nine years of imprisonment. Alcatraz, with its electric eyes which searched men, its hand-picked guards, its isolation in the middle of the Bay, was supposed to be escape-proof.

Coy wanted to challenge the supposition. Sweeping the floors in A, B and C cell blocks, he watched Guard Bert Burch walk the gun gallery behind steel bars. The unarmed floor guards were out of sight. Guard Burch, on routine patrol, passed on along the gallery into D block.

Coy swarmed up to the gallery. With an instrument made from stolen brass toilet parts, he spread the bars, squirmed inside and stood against the wall, waiting. Burch came back. Coy slugged him, took his rifle, .45 pistol, keys and let himself into D block.

In the human zoo of the “world’s most dangerous men,” bedlam was let loose.

The Killers. D block is Alcatraz’ “solitary.” There Coy freed Joseph Cretzer; bank robber and murderer; Marvin Hubbard, kidnaper; Sam Shockley, Oklahoma badman; Miran Thompson, murderer; 18-year-old “baby” Clarence Carnes. They pounced on Guard William Miller, beat him, took his keys. They threw other guards in a cell. Cretzer, armed with Burch’s .45, stood outside yelling and firing at the guards through the bars. He wounded several, killed Miller.

The Rock’s siren wailed across the Bay. Outside the cell block, James J. Johnston, 71-year-old warden, known to the inmates as “Saltwater” Johnston, radioed for help to San Francisco police and the Coast Guard. Johnston’s remaining guards herded 150 prisoners out of prison shops and into the yard. Other prisoners crouched in their cells.

The Siege. Guards tried to get onto the gun gallery. They did, long enough to rescue their fellow guards. But Guard Harold Stites was shot, kicked and killed; two other guards were wounded. The convicts held D block. Now to escape.

But there had been one fatal slip. Guard Miller had managed to throw away the key to the yard door. When the convicts realized this Cretzer babbled: “Well, that does it up. San Francisco is just as far away.” With one pistol, one rifle, and less than 50 rounds of ammunition, Coy and his desperate men settled down to holding off the besiegers.

In the Bay, Coast Guard and police boats circled the island. A company of marines landed and mounted guard over the convicts herded into the yard. Johnston’s guards contented themselves with firing rifle grenades through the windows of the cell block. Night shut down and The Rock’s darkness was swept by searchlights, streaked by occasional tracer bullets.

The End. Warrant Officer Charles Buckner, Marine hero of the Pacific war, led a party to the roof of the cell block, drilled a hole and dropped grenades through. From inside came explosions, yells and rifle fire. Army planes dived over The Rock. The revolt was contained; Warden Johnston had only to wait for hunger and despair to end the whole affair. Some 45 hours after it began, it was over.

Inside block C, Bernard Coy lay in rigor mortis, his arms crooked as though holding a rifle. Two other convicts were dead: the killer, Cretzer; the kidnaper Hubbard. Shockley, Thompson, Carnes had crawled back into their cells.

A bleak-faced Warden Johnston walked through the dismal corridors. His charges sat on their bunks, some pretending to read, some staring through the bars, some jeering at him in defiance. One yelled: “Oh, Saltwater Johnston, are the streetcars still running in Frisco?”