On April 22, 1934, acting on a tip, FBI agents surrounded a lodge in northern Wisconsin where the Dillinger gang was believed to be staying. The subsequent raid was a catastrophic failure. When agents moved in, they opened fire on a group of men leaving the lodge — men who turned out to be local civilians who had been eating dinner. One of them, Eugene Boiseneau, was killed. Two others were wounded.
The actual gang members, alerted by the dogs barking and the gunfire, escaped from the back of the building. During the escape, gang member Lester Gillis — known as Baby Face Nelson — encountered three law enforcement officers on a road near the lodge. Nelson opened fire, killing FBI Special Agent W. Carter Baum and wounding two other officers. Dillinger, Van Meter, and others escaped into the Wisconsin woods.
Little Bohemia was a public humiliation for the FBI. Editorial cartoonists depicted Hoover’s bureau as incompetent. The director, who had been building the FBI’s public reputation carefully, had to defend his organization against accusations that it was unable to catch a bank robber from Indiana. He was not permitted to forget the failure.
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## The Plastic Surgery Decision: Desperation and Disguise
After Little Bohemia, Dillinger understood that the pressure on him had reached a qualitatively different level. The FBI was now fully committed, and his face was appearing on wanted posters and in newspapers across the country. Local police in every major city had his photograph. The celebrity that had made him famous was now a liability.