‘The Rock’ Revisited : Ex-Guard Helps With Tape Explaining Alcatraz

“I feel like I’ve come home. I love this island,” declared Phil Bergen, 82, as he stepped ashore Wednesday on “The Rock” in San Francisco Bay, once America’s most famous prison.

Bergen spent 16 years on Alcatraz as a correctional officer--1939 to 1955--five years as captain of the guards. He was here this time to help produce an audio tape for visitors to the penitentiary that for 14 years has been part of the National Park Service’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Since 1973 more than 15 million visitors have taken a boat from San Francisco to Alcatraz to spend hours wandering through the prison and cells that housed the likes of Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz.

Self-Guided Tours

Beginning this summer, in addition to taking ranger-guided tours, visitors will be able to strike out on their own, guided by Bergen, other former guards and ex-Alcatraz inmates who will relate on tape what happened and how it happened at various places in the institution.

“We will dispel many myths about this place as well as describe some of the dramatic events that occurred and give an insight into the better-known inmates that called Alcatraz home,” said Bergen, who now lives in Beverly Shores, Ind., population 300.

After serving 25 years as a correctional guard, captain of the guards and assistant warden of federal penitentiaries, Bergen moved to the small Midwest town, where he served as police chief before retiring.

The former captain of the guards walked briskly through the old shops, the cellblocks, the exercise yard and “officers’ country” on the 12-acre island. He wore black shoes, a three-button black suit and a black overcoat, appearing much as one would expect an old Alcatraz captain of the guards to look. Memories of “the old days” flooded Bergen’s mind.

He told how Alcatraz was established in 1934--after it had been a military prison for 23 years--as a place to house troublemakers from federal penitentiaries throughout the nation.

“We got the people who couldn’t be controlled. We did something no other institution--state or federal--was able to do at that time. We controlled these men, turned them around and returned them back to other institutions in three to five years and we did it in a decent, humane way.

Outbreaks of Violence

“Sure there was violence at times,” he admitted. “There were half a dozen murders while I was here. I was bruised and battered on many occasions. One time a con hit me in the mouth and all my expensive bridgework was all over the floor. But we reacted to violence. We didn’t create it.”

Like many of the guards, Bergen lived on Alcatraz with his wife and family. His two daughters commuted to school in San Francisco every day on prison boats.

“There were 60 families on the island. We had our own store, post office, club with bowling alley. We had this marvelous view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate. We didn’t have any criminals in our community. They were all locked up on the hill,” he laughed.

He told how the men worked in the various shops, making Navy uniforms, doing laundry for military bases in the area. There was a glove factory. They were paid less than 10 cents an hour, but received other benefits, like being able to see a movie twice a month.

There was an Alcatraz band. Al Capone played the banjo. “Some of the cons were good musicians. Some drove you out of your skull,” Bergen recalled.

And he remembered several prisoners who tried to escape by swimming the mile to San Francisco. “We presume they drowned, but to this day their names are carried on the FBI open list.

“I get butterflies coming back here. I really liked Alcatraz. It was the most interesting place I ever lived. I hated to leave, but I was pushed upstairs to become assistant warden at La Tuna Penitentiary in Texas,” he said as he sat back on a bench beneath a cellblock reminiscing about the good old days on San Francisco Bay’s dreaded Rock.