U.S. DEVIL’S ISLAND

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18900, 30 December 1935, Page 12

U.S. DEVIL’S ISLAND

ESCAPE -PROOF FORTRESS “ONE OF WORLD’S WORST” SPIRITS MADE THERE PLYMOUTH, Nov. S. *'■ A shy, tired-looking little man stood by the rails of the liner President Roosevelt as she approached Land's End from the Atlantic and smiled with relief. ‘‘Gee! It’s good to be back in England a free man after all these years,” he said. He was Harry Johnson, once a famous ice-hockey player, a Londoner from the East End, now a deportee from America. In his pocket was a pardon from President Roosevelt for the alleged murder of two women in Alaska, for which he received a life sentence. He has served 13 years in all, first in Leavenworth prison, Kansas, and later in the rock-bound escape-proof fortress of Alcatraz off San Francisco. Twenty-two years ago he left the East End of London a boy of 10, and emigrated to Canada. Two years later he was in the trenches with the Canadians, and at 18 he was a machine-gun instructor. “I had four years over there,” he said, “and got five medals, including the Mons Star. “WITHOUT A DIME” “I went back to Canada with 2000 dollars and a wound pension. I lost that when I went to prison. I am landing in England to-night without a dime. Not even my street-ear fare, and I won’t take a penny. “I’m going to start work. They turned me out of Alcatraz with a suit, | a shirt, a handkerchief, and a pair of hoots, but no underclothes and no overcoat. An emigration officer in New York gave me a pair of socks. “That prison is the world's worst. They drive men mad there. Fortunately they didn’t get me. “After a turn in the cells in solitary isolation they put me in the kitchen. “That’s where I lost my finger.” He showed his right hand, the “trigger” finger of which is missing. CHICKEN FOR CAPONE . • “One of my jobs was to wait.on A 1 Capone. We were good friends. He’s one of the finest fellows I ever met. “I used to smuggle pieces of chicken for him from the kitchen. “For that I got put in the ‘hole,’ which is an underground dungeon where they used to torture Spanish prisoners long ago. “Then they put the third degree over me because they knew I had found out some secrets of the prison. I knew how stuff was smuggled in and out, how spirits were actually made and drunk in the prison. “I thought I would have been released from Leavenworth. My sister came over from London in order to do it, but although she spent a lot of money she was unsuccessful. I got the President’s pardon three weeks ago- . “When I left I was asked not to tell what I knew about the prison, and I promised I wouldn’t until I got over this side. ’'