Investigating the Tunnels of Alcatraz | Expedition Unknown Discovery

whoa yeah so Josh welcome to Alcatraz we’re in the main cell house here between cell Block B and C uh and this long Corridor is known as uh Broadway okay so other than the water out there which is pretty lethal yes what were these guys up against well I mean it’s it’s right before you steel and concrete right I mean when this place was built it was the the largest steel reinforced concrete building in the world okay wow designed with one purpose and that’s to keep you in and I’m imagining it was also pretty well guarded it had six guard towers with over 60 guards it had the highest ratio of guards to prisoners of any prison wow okay so let’s talk about our three guys where were they let me show you just around here the first cell we visit belonged to the Mastermind of the Escape here’s a cell of Frank Morris Okay so we’ve got one of our guys right here the cells have been preserved to look just as they did on the night of June 11 1962. and then what about the Anglin brothers and they’re a little further down same row so they’re not right next to you not right next to each other although the brothers are okay so here we are this is this this is John Anglin cell okay and brother Clarence right there wow so they’re side by side side by side you want to take a closer look can we open up Cell Block B level one perks of being a former FBI agent it has its perks this is the cell this is amazing close up Cell Block B well Stuart Stewart Josh you knew it would end up like this it was inevitable I I though now that I’m in here yeah it’s incredibly small I see in the back of all three of these cells a big hole in the wall guys had to Tunnel out of their cell right there was a ventilation hole there okay that with a small ventilation grate in it but they had to widen that they had to widen it they noticed that the concrete was somewhat brittle and could be chipped away so for six months they are carefully quietly toiling away at this and then what where where does that hole lead that leads to a utility Corridor so let me take you there now don’t make me crawl through will you open this thing up please open up Cell Block B level one I see the governor got my letter all right come on let’s go we’re about to walk the exact Escape path the prisoners took from their cells do not expect to see this on your standard tour of the rock riding with Stewart has gotten me exclusive access after half a year of meticulous preparation the prisoners exited their cells through the vent shafts and ejected into a seldom visited maintenance Corridor where the guards would not have been patrolling crazy there’s just this maze passages behind the cell blocks okay this is the back side of one of the vent holes so this is where they tunneled through right here look at that that’s unbelievable so once they punch through this where do they go from here so they go up yep the prisoners climbed the pipes of the utility Corridor to punch through into a large raw space above the cell block we come up here and we’re going to take a left okay [Music] as you can see kind of at the top of the cell block yeah we’re above everything here yes so they climbed up from the utility Corridor where we were earlier there’s a tarp up here that just gave them cover and they turned it into a workshop a workshop a workshop what are they working on up here so up here is where they’re making the raft and life jackets out of stolen raincoats okay yeah there were steam pipes up here that had enough heat that allowed them to fuse the rubber together of these life jackets and after they made the dummy heads that we saw in the cells earlier they could put those down and it would appear that they were sleeping and they had all the Time in the World to do this it’s really really clever it’s ingenious these guys were dialed in okay but all of this was Child’s played compared to what they had ahead of them so Josh if you look at the ceiling just across there there’s a hole oh that’s their escape time that is the escape tunnel that leads them to the roof and then they’re outside then they’re outside when they made their way to the roof they walked along this way all the way down and then there was a drain pipe that was at the end of the building that’s no longer there 30 40 feet they work their way down the strain pipe and it’s the middle of the night middle of the night pitch black carrying all the gear they’ve got with them right the raft their life jackets right you know they make their way down and then they work with all the skier then they work downhill toward the water after climbing down the vertical pipe and with most of the guards inside the prison after lights out the men most likely Scurry down the south side of the island toward the water and ferry dock from there who knows this is one of the actual fake vent grates handmade from cardboard layers of soap and paint it was used to cover the eroding concrete surrounding the air duct they match the paint color of the prison wall sure did crazy this is prison DIY crafting at its finest we talk about these guys working on this for like six months I mean you can see it you can see it right there yeah it’s evident spoons and discarded blades used for months to Chisel away at the concrete in their cells a handmade Periscope to discreetly check for guards these guys are so MacGyver it’s it’s ridiculous and here there is a small mirror if you can look inside there oh right so they would have looked through here and it’s literally a periscope for them to see around the corner I guess out of their cell what we think is that they wanted to see on top of the roof when they made the final push out they wanted to make sure that no one was on that route incredible a vacuum cleaner motor converted into a drill and many of the ideas like the life vests came right out of the prison library from old issues of Popular Mechanics like this one I love that one of the key items for their escape they learned how to make from literature that was in the prison right in their hand it was like a handbook for escape it’s unbelievable see further education it’ll set you free really well these men were bold smart and meticulous planners who took their shot when the moment presented itself there are a couple of items right over there that I think you’re going to want to see all right intriguing or more goodies what do we have oh my word wow so we partnered with the FBI to create these 3D scanned replica heads made from the original dummy heads used in the 1962 Escape wow and Josh looking at these heads is there anything that jumps out at you um there are four of them exactly so why are there four of them well there was a fourth conspirator in the Escape Plan a fourth inmate Alan West had been working with Morris and the Anglin Brothers but West was unable to get past his vent that night and the three others left without him in exchange for not being charged West gave up what he claimed was the escape plan to the FBI according to his confession the three inmates were going to paddle the raft 2.4 miles to Angel Island and from there cross the bay to the city of Marin but there’s just one problem the waters around San Francisco are as tough as any prison When the tide goes out as it was the evening the inmates escaped billions of gallons of water rush out of the bay and funnel under the Golden Gate Bridge the FBI maintains that the men must have been swept out into the Pacific the evidence in this room shows that the convicts covered every single angle of their escape so it’s hard to imagine that they didn’t have a plan to deal with the bay and get to shore foreign