It is known that all four team members were jailed at the penitentiary in Atlanta at one time. There is a possibility that they knew each other from their time there. John and Clarence Anglin definitely met Frank Lee Morris while they were in Atlanta.
The four men also had adjoining cells while they were locked up in Alcatraz, and a long long time to think up their grand plan of escape. The plan they came up with would demand every ounce of their bravery and all the resources they could possibly collect. The escape program became the only thing they talked about or thought of. It became their existence.
The Team
During their incarceration at the Atlanta Penitentiary, the Anglin brothers were caught trying to escape numerous times. All they wanted was to get out, and it didnt matter how. This led to them being sent to Alcatraz, which was a maximum-security prison. While there, they met Frank Lee Morris, the team leader.
The group of four, which also included fellow inmate Allen West, had plenty of personal experience on how to escape or try to escape from various prisons. They pooled their knowledge and started working on a plan to achieve the impossible – an escape from “The Rock.”
The Escape Plan
The plan for the escape was quite simple, but the means to pull it off were nearly impossible. They would need the perfect coordination of the whole team to make it work. This was not a one-man's job. This was not the first escape attempt of this kind, and there was no room for mistakes.
It had to work, and it had to work smoothly. Over 30 inmates had tried to escape Alcatraz island over the years, and none had succeeded. What would make this attempt any different? What guaranteed that this was the right time to make history?
Collecting the Materials
Alcatraz at that time was not just a prison but also a factory, which was great luck for the group. The inmates worked as part of their sentence, giving them access to the materials at hand. And there were a lot of them because Alcatraz worked for the US military making furniture, clothing, and shoes.
The four-man team had another advantage, making the plan even more likely to execute. They were non-violent offenders, something which was extremely rare in Alcatraz. This gave them the advantage of slightly less scrutiny from the guards, allowing them more freedom to operate.
The Props
The team started putting their strategy into action bit by bit, making sure every step of the way was planned to perfection. It was complicated, and some would even say ingenious. They would not only escape the virtual fortress of Alcatraz but also make look-alike dummies to leave in their place.
Getting out of the prison was not enough; the gang had to find a way to escape the island and avoid the guards. Prison guards back then did not have the same compassion as today; their orders were to shoot on sight, and any escape attempt was a deadly gamble.