Alcatraz For more than 54 years it has been a controversy In America and other parts of the world. The Great Escape. Alcatraz was the harshest of the harsh, the meanest of the mean, and only three escaped out of the many who tried ( Alcatraz Escape wiki). During WWII the island Alcatraz was a tactical military base. It was chosen because of its unique placement just off the edge of San Francisco. After the war ended there was a huge crime run. Almost too many criminals were being sent to prison. All of the jails and prisons were filling up with some of the worst criminals. If someone broke the law in the first place they went to jail, if they tried to escape from jail they were sent to Alcatraz. The big controversy is whether Frank Morris…show more content… Very clever too , and that's how they discovered a weakness in alcatraz. They found a air vent that lead to the roof that wasn't sealed by concrete. None of them wanted to try and get past the steel bars in front of them so they went through an air vent in the back of their cells. They spent months digging holes around them. The reason it took them so long was because they had to use only nail clippers and some spoons and other utensils to dig through about a foot of concrete. By the time they finally dug the vent out they realized the guards would probably notice if the vent was missing. So they took up a painting hobby so there were no suspicions. They put together cardboard and chips of concrete to make lookalike vent to hide the big hole. On the night of june 11, 1962 they crawled out of their cells to the roof and were…show more content… They even made life preservers so they wouldn't use up all their energy swimming and keeping afloat. One man had almost made it to the bay but was hypothermic in his legs by the time he got there. The great escapees had life preservers and a raft to go on for awhile. Even if they did fall out or jump they had a better chance than most because they didn't have to be in the water most of the time. Some had even swam to alcatraz to prove it was true and most did make it. Info from “scholastic
