Gangsters' Last Hurrah

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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            Given that this week sees the 90^th anniversary of the bullet-riddled demise of Bonnie and Clyde, it is a good time to reflect on the peak and valleys for gangsters in 1934. The peak was a shootout that involved an entire town. The valleys were the deaths of many of the more prominent criminals.

Gangsters were 20^th-century outlaw cowboys riding rampant through middle America during the early years of the Depression despite the growing number of coppers trying to catch them. On June 30, 1934, it was any-town-in-Middle-America’s worst nightmare when a “super group” of gangsters led by Public Enemies #1, #2 and #3 – John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd -- descended on South Bend, Indiana, to rob the Merchants National Bank.

All three were at the height of their infamous, bloodstained careers that generated breathless headlines in daily newspapers. At Dillinger’s urging, they teamed up for one last big score – at least for him, as he planned to take the loot and leave the country. They would indeed escape the afternoon of violence with bags of cash . . . but before the end of the year, all three would be dead, as would the aforementioned Bonnie and Clyde, while other notorious desperadoes, like Machine Gun Kelly, would be behind bars for good.

          No other name in American history conjures up the image of gangster more than John Dillinger. He was the nascent FBI’s first Public Enemy. Soon to turn 31, the dapper dresser was credited with robbing 24 banks and four police stations as well as committing several murders.

          Baby Face Nelson: The 25-year-old Lester Joseph Gillis had already broken Dillinger out of prison once and had a special fondness for shooting people. He killed more FBI agents than any other gangster.

          The 29-year-old Pretty Boy Floyd had perpetrated the “Kansas City Massacre” that killed four lawmen yet he was viewed favorably by the public because during bank robberies he burned mortgage documents, freeing (at least symbolically) local people from debt.

          Homer Van Meter was a trigger-happy career criminal who had worked with both Dillinger and Nelson before who vied to make the Public Enemies list.

          J. Edgar Hoover, Melvin Purvis, and other lawmen were closing in on Dillinger and the other top criminals in 1934, especially after the South Bend Shootout.

          The killing of Bonnie and Clyde on May 23, 1934 by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer was a harbinger of what was to come. However, it did not deter Dillinger & Co. from trying for a big score.

          Meeting for a month late at night at an abandoned schoolhouse northwest of Chicago, the gang plans the operation. The escape route is driven several times. Six men are chosen to participate in the heist, with three going into the Merchants National Bank for its cash and bonds, two patrolling the street in front of the bank. Van Meter and Nelson, the two biggest gun-lovers of the group, are selected for the task. A driver will wait outside of town for the gang in a second escape vehicle. Bullet-proof vests are procured for $300 a pop, the inside of the bank is cased by a disguised Nelson, assignments are rehearsed, weapons cleaned and readied, and a tan Hudson four-door sedan is stolen from Butler Motors of Chicago to provide transportation into and out of South Bend. 

It is a warm summer morning when the gang pulls up in front of the bank at 11:32. Double parking the Hudson next to a 1928 Ford containing a local teenager named Alex Slaby, the outlaws get out of the car and take up their positions, dropping the pillowcases hiding their weapons.  Right away, things begin going wrong. Inside the Merchants National Bank, over 30 workers and patrons are going about their business when Dillinger enters and shouts, "This is a stickup! Everybody stand still!” The problem, though, is that some of the people inside the bank don't hear the warning, and others, believing the announcement to be a prank, ignore the outlaw.

Miffed, Dillinger unleashes a burst of fire from his machine gun into the plaster ceiling of the building. This causes an immediate response of arms being raised in surrender, screaming, and people dropping to the floor and running to areas that might be safe. A number will lock themselves in the bathroom and not leave until the gang is gone and well on its way back to Illinois. (A random ricochet wounds patron Bruce Bouchard in the hip, the only casualty that takes place inside the bank.) Dillinger and his two companions then begin looting the five teller cages, dumping cash and bonds into the pillowcases -- $28,000 in all, less of a haul than the outlaws were expecting.

Outside, a curious Slaby gets out of his car to investigate the vehicle now blocking him in and discovers the men have left its motor running. Thinking that a robbery is in progress, Slaby reaches inside the car and is about to remove the keys from the ignition when Nelson confronts the youth.  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" asks the bandit, pointing his machine gun at Slaby, who responds, “Nothing." But when he hears the gunfire inside the bank, Slaby immediately runs away and takes shelter in the nearby Colip Brothers Appliance Store, where he looks for a phone to call the police.

Walking his beat through downtown, 29-year-old South Bend patrolman Howard Wagner reacts differently to the popping sounds coming from the bank. He runs towards the noises, which brings him to the attention of Homer Van Meter, positioned in front of the Nisley Shoe Store with a Model 1907 Winchester .351 rifle modified to fire on full automatic. In the process of unsnapping the flap of his holster as he approaches the bank, Wagner is filled with lead from Van Meter's weapon. Collapsing in a pool of blood between two parked cars, Wagner bleeds out and is soon dead.

During the next 10 minutes bullets fly and up and down the streets of the Indiana town famous for being the location of the University of Notre Dame. Local meat market owner Samuel Toth has the windshield of his car blown out and is grazed in the head by a wild round. The jewelry store owner Harry Berg pops out of his place and shoots Nelson in the back, a hit that just pisses off the outlaw (his body armor saves him) and has him target the shop with bursts from his Thompson – the bullets miss Berg but hit a patron, Jacob Solomon, in the leg and stomach. Superior Court bailiff Charles Fisher has his car shot up driving through the intersection in front of the bank. Leaving the bank, one of the outlaw accomplices is hit by fire from Officer Neils Hanson in the shoulder and jaw. Used as a shield, banker Delos Cohen takes a slug in his left leg. Hostage Perry Stahey is wounded three times by police-fired bullets. Detective Edward McCormick seriously wounds Van Meter with shotgun blasts as the outlaw gets into the gang's escape car while his partner, Detective Harry Henderson, fires his service revolver at the bandit.

And there are fisticuffs too. Sitting in his family's car in front of the Strand Theater as slugs fly about, 16-year-old Joseph Pawlowski suddenly decides to take out Nelson.  As Baby Face is firing at the police, the youth approaches him from behind, jumps on Nelson's back, and tries to hold on while screaming to anyone who might be listening, "Shoot him! Grab him!” Already perturbed by being shot by the jeweler, Nelson grabs Pawlowski off his back, throws the tough teenager through a plate-glass window, and then unleashes a burst of automatic fire. One bullet passes through Pawlowski's palm and the shock and pain cause him to faint. Thinking him dead, Nelson turns away and begins firing at the police again. (By the way, the hand wound will not prevent Pawlowski from growing up to be a concert violinist and symphony conductor.)

After the gangsters have left town with a squeal of tires, the police attempt to chase them down. They are thwarted, though, by the outlaws possessing a much more powerful and faster ride. Pushing his motorcycle to its top speed of 80 mph, traffic officer Bert Olmstead gives up when his 1929 Harley fries its engine. Detectives Lucius LaFortune and Fred Miller make it 45 miles southwest to the town of Knox where roofing nails thrown in the road by the bandits blow out two of the pursuing car's tires. Patrolmen Peter Rudynski and Arden Kline don't even make it out of the downtown area -- their 1930 Studebaker cruiser has a gas line go bad and it dies in the middle of the street. Safe after changing to their other escape vehicle, the Dillinger gang makes it to Chicago.

For weeks afterward, visitors will marvel at the bullet-riddled downtown of South Bend. The outburst of violence in the Midwest coupled with the embarrassment of the bad guys escaping forces the FBI and other law enforcement to redouble their efforts. The feds, led by Melvin Purvis, finally catch up with John Dillinger in Chicago on July 22 and kill him outside a movie theater. (Pretty Boy Floyd ascends to Public Enemy No. 1.) Homer Van Meter's turn comes on August 23 when he is betrayed by the corrupt police he has been paying to keep him safe in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota – the coppers keep the $10,000 the outlaw has given them and in return perforate Van Meter with 27 slugs. Exactly three months after Dillinger got his, Pretty Boy Floyd meets his maker, also killed by Purvis, in Chicago. And in November, in a shootout in Wilmette, Illinois, in which two FBI agents are killed, Baby Face Nelson is riddled with bullets; his naked body is found dumped outside a cemetery the next morning.

The icing on the cake for Purvis comes in January 1935 when he finds and guns down another high-profile public enemy, Ma Barker.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books, including Throne of Grace (with Bob Drury), published this month by St. Martin’s Press. To purchase a copy, please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com.