One of the persistent frustrations in reconstructing the June 1962 escape is the absence of any confirmed data point between the men leaving the northeastern shore of Alcatraz and whatever happened next.
The paddle at Angel Island. The wallet. The life vests. Each of these establishes presence in the water, movement consistent with the planned route. None of them establishes arrival anywhere.
The planned route — Alcatraz to Angel Island, rest, Raccoon Straits, Marin County — was described by Allen West. It was the plan as he understood it on June 11. Whether the men followed it, modified it in response to conditions they found when they were actually in the water, or were prevented from following it by failure of the raft or the onset of incapacitation — none of this is documented.
The Marin County shoreline is real. The Marin Headlands, Horseshoe Bay, the beaches north of the Golden Gate — they were there in 1962, and the evidence recovered near Cronkite Beach, outside the Golden Gate, suggests that some of the escape materials were carried to that area by currents. Whether any of the men were also carried there, reached shore, collapsed on a beach, or walked into the darkness of Marin County is unknown.
No one reported seeing three men in prison uniforms emerging from the bay that night. No car theft, no clothing store burglary, no report of three disoriented men on the shoreline — the absence West’s description of the plan made investigators expect, and found, is consistent with either not arriving or arriving and being more functional than expected.