The Battle of Alcatraz

Some stories aren’t told until years later — passed quietly between friends, or remembered only after something brings them back to the surface. Within the Wartime Stories team, a handful of these experiences have stayed with us, each one difficult to explain. From abandoned buil ...  Show more

During a field exercise in the jungles of the Philippines, a unit of artillerymen responded to a nearby village reporting livestock thefts and the disappearance of a newborn child. What they encountered in the forest that evening would become one of the strangest stories ever sha ...  Show more

<div>In the 1940s, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in the San Francisco Bay was a state-of-the-art facility. Deemed to be completely escape-proof, convicts from all over the United States who were regarded as dangerous and incapable of rehabilitation were often transferred to the g ...  Show more

In 1962, three ordinary criminals transcended into folk heroes when they crawled out of their cells in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary took to the water in a homemade raft and were never heard from again. Could they have possibly survived? Find out more in this classic episode.See ...  Show more

Alcatraz was the jewel in the crown of America's prison system. The wind-swept island fortress was the final stop for the nation's most dangerous criminals, including the notorious gangsters Al Capone and George 'Machine Gun' Kelly. It was thought to be escape-proof - at least ...

In the late hours of June 11, 1962, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin executed an elaborate escape plan and vanished from Alcatraz Island. 60 years later, the case remains open, and speculation abounds. Did the men meet a watery grave or defy the odds and find fr ...