The Escape

Senior Officer Royal C. Cline was brutally murdered by Thomas Limerick during the escape attempt. In his final moment of bravery Cline refused to aid the escapees, and subsequently was killed.

The Model Shop Tower, where Officer Harold Stites was attacked by the would-be escapees. Stites opened fire on the inmates, fatally wounding Limerick.

The image labels indicate the sequence events of the escape: (A) shows where the inmates climbed onto the roof to execute their attack against tower officer Stites; (B) shows the barbed-wire where Franklin was subdued; (C) the tower where Stites was barricaded; (D) the area where Limerick was fatally shot. Lucas would be found cowering under the tower.

Warden Johnston described the escape in great detail in a formal memorandum to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, James V. Bennett. The memo, dated June 4, 1938, was written following an intensive investigation of the escape. It chronicled the following events:

Immediately following the attempted escape of prisoners Limerick, Franklin and Lucas, their assault on Senior Officer Royal C. Cline, their assault on the guard tower manned by Junior Officer Harold P. Stites, I reported the matter to you by telephone and followed it by making additional telephonic reports on the following day, informing you of the death of Officer Cline and death of prisoner Limerick.

At noon on that day I went to San Francisco to act as honorary pallbearer at the funeral of Jesse S. Cook, former Chief of Police of San Francisco. While I was in the Masonic Temple where the services were being held, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and told me I was wanted on the telephone. I went at once to the telephone and called my secretary who told me there had been some shooting on the lower end of the Island in the work area and apparently some prisoners had tried to escape, that Officer Cline had been hurt, but beyond that he could not give detailed particulars. I ordered the launch sent off and I proceeded immediately to the wharf and reached the Island shortly after Mr. Cline and Prisoners Franklin and Limerick had been moved to the Hospital.

As soon as I got on the grounds and questioned the Associate Warden, Lieutenant of the Watch and officers who had participated, I found that this is what had happened:

Junior Officer Harold P. Stites was on duty in the tower on the roof of the Model Shop Building. Junior Officer Clifford B. Stewart was patrolling the roof of the building at the northwest side where he could keep an eye on the ground below the rear and side of the building nearest the Bay where contractors' workmen were boring boles in the concrete building in preparation for the installation of tool-proof steel window guards, the workmen being under supervision of Junior Officer George D. Hoag.

At about 2 P.M. or even before that hour, Officer Stites was inside the tower and heard noises behind him and turning in the direction of the sound saw Prisoners Lucas, Franklin and Limerick on the roof to which they had ascended from the top floor of the shop building. Subsequent examination showed that they had reached the roof by standing on a window shoved out-ward which they held steady with a timber frame and making an aperture in the barbed wire guard around the roof, cutting the wire with pliers.

Almost as soon as Officer Stites saw the prisoners, they rushed the tower from several angles each of them firing iron missiles (note: these consisted of heavy metal objects including hammers and heavy wrenches), their apparent purpose being to try to knock him out and seize his arms.

Officer Stites endeavored to halt them by warning and by firing the first shot into the frame of the window but they kept advancing and then he kept dodging and firing shots through the glass in his tower. Several of the missiles they fired went through the glass in the tower but many others failed to go through, showing that the shatterproof glass is a very valuable protection. Only one of the missiles that went through hit Officer Stites. He did not leave his tower but fired through the glass.

The Associate Warden happened to be in his work area on the west side near the incinerator. Lieutenant Culver was making his regular afternoon inspection of the work area and at the time was in the laundry. Associate Warden heard the shots and went toward the Model Shop Building where he saw Prisoner Franklin laying on the barbed wire which goes around the edge of the roof, Model Shop Building. Lieutenant Culver coming from the Laundry also saw Franklin, as did several other Officers.

Associate Warden (Miller) used the emergency telephone to call all the officers from the front of the building and instructed the Armorer to get those that were on the island but off duty to go into the work area, and had the launch go to that part of the Bay back of the building, not knowing just whether or not anybody had succeeded in getting out.

When he learned that Officer Stites and Officer Stewart had the three men under control on the roof, Associate Warden Miller and Senior Officer Nickelson went up to the top floor of building to see if all of the other prisoners were there and had all of the shops in the building checked.

When they got to the fourth floor where Franklin, Lucas and Limerick had been assigned to work, they found the remaining prisoners assigned to that shop up at one corner and looking around for Mr. Cline they found him in a corner of the storeroom with his head battered in and bleeding.

He sent for stretchers and immediately moved Mr. Cline to the hospital, then went to the roof and removed Prisoner Franklin who still had the hammer in his hand with which he had been trying to hit Officer Stites, and from the blood appearing on it, it appears that this hammer was used in assaulting Officer Cline. Limerick was lying on the roof, shot in his head, unconscious. Lucas was held in corner, apparently in attitude of surrender, kept covered but not fired upon by Officer Stewart while Officer Stites was engaged in the battle with Franklin and Limerick.

Limerick and Franklin were then removed to the Hospital and Lucas was taken to the cell building and locked up. The Associate Warden interviewed both Lucas and Franklin. He secured a statement from Lucas which was reduced to writing and signed by the prisoner and afterwards he turned it over to the F.B.I. Agent.

At the request of Dr. Ritchey arrangements were made to move Officer Cline to the Marine Hospital, San Francisco, and he was moved over there at 5 P.M.

Dr. Creel, in charge of the Marine Hospital, telephoned to me during the evening and said that Mr. Cline's condition was very critical and it was doubtful if he would survive the night.

I telephoned to the United States Attorney and the San Francisco Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and arranged for their representatives to be at the Hospital so that in case Mr. Cline recovered consciousness and was able to talk they might secure a dying statement but he did not show any signs or consciousness during the night.

During the night Prisoner Limerick died and I immediately called the Coroner and arranged to transfer the body to him very early the morning of May 24, 1938. The afternoon of May 24, 1938, Mr. Cline died and the Marine Hospital notified the Coroner and arranged to transfer the body to him.