How To Escape From Alcatraz In 10 Easy Steps

7. Build A Raft Out Of Raincoats

Getting out of their cells was only a small part of the escape and was one of the easier and safest components of the plan. The real difficulty was going to be getting off the island and across the waters of the San Francisco Bay. A few attempts had been made in the past to swim off the island but these had all ended in drowning or recapture. However, West, Morris and the Anglin brothers found their own solution to this in the prisons library where they found a book detailing how to make life jackets and an inflatable raft.

To construct their raft, the men stole dozens of raincoats from around the prison and stitched them together, as demonstrated in the book. Building a raft in their cells was a sure way to attract unwanted attention from the guards and so the men had to come up with a way to conceal their creation. The way they did this is both ingenious and borderline unbelievable. There was an area on top of the cell block that West was tasked with cleaning and painting as part of his maintenance job, however the area was sat in plain sight of the guards. To counter this, West convinced the guards that he needed to hang curtains to prevent paint and dust from falling down into the cell block. Amazingly, the men were able to work behind these curtains for months and contract their raft without ever once being disturbed by the prisons guards.