Battle of Alcatraz

Alcatraz cellhouse shelled by mortars, May 3, 1946

Date	May 2–4, 1946
Location	Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, United States
Result	Escape attempt failed

Belligerents

Guards
U.S. Marines
U.S. Coast Guard
California State Police

Bernard Coy †
Joseph Cretzer †
Marvin Hubbard †

Casualties and losses

2 killed
11 wounded

3 killed
2 executed
1 non-participating inmate wounded

The Battle of Alcatraz, which lasted from May 2 to 4, 1946, was the result of an unsuccessful escape attempt at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Two guards—William A. Miller and Harold Stites—were killed along with three of the inmates. Eleven guards and one uninvolved convict were also injured. Two of the surviving convicts were later executed for their roles.

Alcatraz was a maximum high-security federal prison located on Alcatraz Island in the San-Francisco bay. It operated from 1934 to 1963 and had a reputation for being impossible to escape from. As a result, it housed some of the most notorious and high-profile prisoners, in particular ones who had a history of escape attempts.

The escape attempt was planned by Bernard Coy. Three other convicts were involved in the main plan: Marvin Hubbard, Joseph Cretzer and Clarence Carnes. Sam Shockley and Miran Thompson joined the escapees after the attempt had begun. Coy was a depression-era criminal who, in 1937, was sentenced to 25 years for bank robbery. He was moved to Alcatraz in 1938 from Atlanta, and was soon given the job of cell-house orderly which gave him a relative amount of freedom around the main cellblock. Joe Cretzer was a west coast gangster and member of the Cretzer-Kyle Gang. In 1940 he was sentenced to 25 years for murder. After two escape attempts in the first months of his incarceration, one of which resulted in another murder charge, he was transferred to Alcatraz. In May 1941, Cretzer, Shockley and two other convicts made an escape attempt from one of the prison's workshops. Carnes was the youngest prisoner to reside at Alcatraz, having been convicted of murder in 1943 at the age of 16. He made a number of escape attempts and by 1946, when he was transferred to Alcatraz, had accumulated both a life sentence and 99 years for kidnapping.

Through his role as a cell-house orderly, Coy noticed a flaw in the prison's security. Firstly that the gun-gallery at the west end of the cell-house was protected by bars, with no additional mesh or barriers. Secondly the guard in the gallery had set routines that allowed the convicts to predict when the main cellblock, and the gallery, would be unobserved.

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