Of the 14 attempted escapes from Alcatraz during its 29 years as a federal penitentiary, the best known, most detailed — and most successful — was in June of 1962, when inmates Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin broke out, never to be seen again.
They’d spent a year planning, chipping away at cell walls during lights-out with tools made from spoons swiped from the dining hall. They’d mapped out routes along service crawl spaces, obtained a tide schedule from a newspaper and glued together a makeshift raft made from stolen raincoats for the mile-and-a-quarter trip through treacherous currents across the bay. No bodies were ever found.
But could they have made it?
“People swim it all the time, thousands of people in the annual Sharkfest Swim and various triathlon contests,” says National Park ranger John Cantwell, a day ranger on Alcatraz for the past 25 years. He and his wife have made the crossing themselves. “So if you knew the tides, the currents, and you were physically fit for it, it’s definitely possible.”
Indeed, hundreds of theories abound in books and documentaries. Some say the men might still be alive — they’d be around age 90 now — and still on the run. Some say they met their final sentence at the bottom of the bay.
