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9 ESCAPE FROM ALCATRA Z As I mentioned, Joe Cretzer was finally released from the hole around April 1946, and soon he brought up the subject of escape. From that point on, the idea took hold with Bernard Coy, BlackieThompson, Clarence Carnes, Marvin Hubbard, me, and a few others. From the beginning, the key aspect of the plan centered on the possibility of climbing out of the main cell house through one of the skylights in the ceiling. These were constructed of large panels of glass fitted together and positioned to form a slight arch over the opening in the roof. The prison designers must have foreseen that the skylights offered a possible means of escape, because a steel grille was welded to the ceiling, preventing access to the skylight. The grille created a space beneath the skylight similar to a small attic. Supposedly a source of light in the cell house, the skylights’ effectiveness was limited to only those cells high up on the third tier of each cellblock. Getting up to the grille, some sixty feet above the floor, would be relatively easy using the tall rolling scaffold that was used to change burned-out ceiling lights. When not in use, the scaffold was chained to a screen fence of heavy-gauge steel that separated the library from the cell house. The screen could be cut with a hacksaw in just a matter of seconds, and it would then be simple to pull the chain free. The initial problem we faced was getting to the steel grille and being able to work on it without being spotted. There were two guards in the cell house who kept watch during the day, when most men were out working in the shops. Onewas Dean Burch, the armed guard patrolling the gun gallery that ran along one side of the cell house. The other was William Miller, the guard stationed at a desk on the first floor between the entrance to the dining room and the doorway leading to the yard. Miller could see the scaffold from where he was stationed, so there was no choice but to divert his attention to another part of the cell house or to grab him and lock him in a cell. We were not likely to able to divert his attention long enough to give us time to cut the steel grille, so the plan was to grab Miller and lock him up. Before this could be considered, Burch, the armed guard on the gunwalk, would have to be taken out of the picture, at least temporarily, until Miller could be subdued. The guard in the gun gallery left the main cell house only when he was summoned to D block to provide gun coverage for the guard in isolation who was about to open a prisoner’s cell. On these occasions, the guard in D block would signal with a buzzer that the guard on the gunwalk could hear in the main cell house. Since D block was completely separated from the main cell house by a thick wall, the guard in the gun gallery had to push open a swinging door to enter the block. Once he was inside D block, the door swung shut behind him, preventing him from hearing anything in the main cell house.This would give us the opportunity to jump Miller.We had no way of knowing, however, exactly how long the gunwalk guard would stay in D block. If he were to come back before we could position the scaffold under the skylight, cut through the steel grille, slide out one of the glass panels, and climb through to the roof, he would spot us and cut us down with automatic rifle fire. Clearly the guard in the gun gallery also had to be subdued. This seemed impossible: he was caged in the gunwalk behind bars that ran vertically from the steel floor of the gunwalk to high above a second gunwalk that was almost never used. Just above the second gunwalk, the bars curved in toward the wall, where they were secured. There seemed to be no way to get into the caged walk in order to subdue the guard. After considering this problem for a few days, Coy figured out a way to breach the gun gallery. He told us his plan when we next met out on the yard. He explained that the gunwalk guard could...

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