Little
Bohemia
Banks were having miserable public relations problems in the
Depression. Many of them failed, sweeping away the life savings of
millions of hard working people. Those that stayed in business
foreclosed on people's homes, farms and businesses as the economy
went from bad to worse.
So bank robbers were not particularly viewed as terrible
criminals by the average American. There was even a touch of
Robin Hood when bank robbers destroyed all of the mortgage records
at the banks they hit. The daring daytime robberies and
skillful getaways were glamorous and exciting, especially if the
robbers were handsome, polite and photogenic.
And so, John Dillinger and Harry Pierpont, Baby Face Nelson and
the rest of the Dillinger Gang were celebrities whose exploits were
followed closely by a Depression-weary American public that followed
their every adventure like a running television series.
Of course, not every one was equally entertained by the new
American outlaw folk heroes of this Midwestern crime spree.
Back in Washington, D.C., old fashioned J. Edgar Hoover was outraged
that America seemed to idolize Handsome Johnnie and was so
completely absorbed in the vicarious excitement of their adventures.
Harry Pierpont's self-serving rationale -- "I stole from the
bankers who stole from the people" -- did not go over at Mr.
Hoover's straight-laced FBI. Hoover saw Dillinger and his gang
as a threat to the national morals. Quickly enacted new
anticrime laws made bank robbery, the transport of stolen goods or
flight of a felon over state laws to avoid prosecution a national
crime which came under the enforcement jurisdiction of the FBI.
Hoover's big chance came in early March of 1934 when Dillinger
broke out of an "escape-proof" jail in Indiana, stole the
sheriff's car and drove across the Illinois state line, putting
himself in the jurisdictional sights of the FBI.
Hoover mounted a special operation to capture Dillinger.
Young Melvin Purvis, the son of a well-connected wealthy southern
aristocrat, was in charge of the Chicago office of the FBI.
Dillinger became his project. What "Little Mel"
lacked in height and weight, he made up for in ambition and
intelligence. But Purvis was up against a wily group with the
Dillinger Gang. These men were real professionals.
For more than a month, Dillinger escaped the traps that were set
for him. In April of 1934, the gang needed a place to
hide out. One of them suggested a summer resort in
northern Wisconsin called Little Bohemia. The lovely lodge had
been built a few years earlier by Emil Wanatka, an emigrant of
Bohemia, who became friendly with bootleggers and gangsters during
Prohibition.
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John Dillinger with Emil Wanatka
(Wide World Photos) |
On April 20, Dillinger and his gang, along with wives and
girlfriends showed up at the lodge. It was off season and
rooms were available. After dinner, Wanatka sat down with his
guests to play cards. It was then that he noticed the guns and
the shoulder holsters. He and his wife Nan figured out who the
guest really were and they were terrified.
Finally, Wanatka confronted Dillinger, who did what he could to
put his host at ease.
"Don't worry," Dillinger told him. "I want
to sleep and eat a few days. I want to rest up. I'll pay
you well and then we'll all get out."
The gangsters turned the lodge into an armed fortress.
Every time the phone rang, one of the gangsters eavesdropped.
Every time a car came, Wanatka had to explain who it was.
Every time someone from the lodge went into town, a gangster went
with them. He was afraid for Nan and his ten-year-old son.
"Baby Face" Nelson was a really dangerous psychopath and
made Wanatka particularly afraid for his family and staff.
Wanatka had enough. He wrote a letter to a man he knew in
the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago. Nan slipped the letter
into her corset and got permission from Dillinger to go to her
brother's birthday party. Dillinger, surprisingly, didn't
insist that a gang member go with her.
Intensely relieved, Nan and her son got into the car and drove
away. Then she noticed that a car was following her.
When she slowed down, she almost panicked -- the most frightening
man in the gang, Baby Face Nelson, was following her.
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Nan Mercer
with watchdogs (Wide World Photos) |
John Toland in his book The Dillinger Days tells the
story of her daring plan. Nan drove slowly up to the S curve
in the road before her brother's house. As soon as she was out
of Nelson's sight, she raced into her brother's driveway and picked
him up and got back on the highway before Nelson knew what she had
done. She gave the letter to her brother and pulled the same
trick at the next S curve where she dropped off her brother, just
outside the town of Mercer.
She went to a grocery store in Mercer and bought some
candy. Nelson pointed his finger at her as a warning.
Nan saw her brother, who had mailed the letter, picked him up and
the three of them drove to her older brother's birthday party in
Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. There she confided in her family
about the Dillinger Gang at Little Bohemia.
They came up with a plan. Realizing that the sheriff's
office was not up to handling the Dillinger crowd, they would
contact the Chicago office of the FBI. This was chance Melvin
Purvis was waiting for. Unlike other FBI agents, he liked
publicity.
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"Little Mel" Purvis (Wide
World Photos) |
Toland describes the hard-working young bachelor: "He was
a small man with bright, alert eyes who dressed fashionably and was
so fastidious he often changed shirts three times a day. A law
graduate of the University of South Carolina, he spoke with a
polite, pleasant drawl. One might have thought he was a successful
young bond salesman perhaps -- but certainly not a G-Man. He
was a competent executive, a man of unquestioned courage despite his
excitability, and was well liked by those who worked under
him."
As soon as he got the news about Little Bohemia, he called Hoover
who promised to fly in reinforcements from the St. Paul office.
Along with them came Assistant FBI Director Hugh
Clegg. Clegg, an FBI superstar, would be first in command,
Purvis, second. The agents from Chicago would meet them at the
airport in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, which was the nearest airport to
Little Bohemia.
Just as the federal forces were gathering for the attack,
Dillinger and company were getting ready to move on. Dillinger
asked for an early dinner so that they could all get on the
road. It was a Sunday afternoon and the bar was filled with
patrons. Upstairs, Dillinger was studying a road map.
Around 4 P.M., Nan's sister, Mrs. Voss, drove up to tell her
sister that her husband Henry had gotten in touch with the
FBI. Nan whispered that the gangsters were leaving early that
evening. Mrs. Voss left soon after to relay the information to
her husband who was going to meet the FBI forces at Rhinelander
airport.
It was past 6 P.M. when the FBI agents landed at
Rhinelander. They had planned to conduct the raid at 4 A.M the
next morning, but now everything changed and the attack had to
proceed immediately.
"Three agents wearing bullet-proof vests would storm the
main door of the lodge. A group of five would flank the
lodge on the left in a line all the way to the lake and intercept
anyone who tired to break through. A similar group would do
the same on the right. Thus the gang would be trapped on three
sides. The fourth side, the lake, was impassable.
"The plan was good but it did not take into consideration
three key terrain factors, all missing from Voss's map: a ditch on
the left of the lodge, a barbed-wire fence on the right, and the
steep bank near the lake which could mask an escape along the
shore. Nor did it occur to Voss to warn Purvis about Wanatka's
two watchdogs." (Toland)
As the agents quietly approached the brightly lit lodge, they got
a real surprise. The two watchdogs barked
furiously. The agents ran to their positions, believing that
the element of surprise was gone. But as it turned out, the
dogs barked frequently and the gangsters were used to the noise.
Three of the bar's customers chose that particular moment to pay
up and go home. At the same time, two bartenders went
out on the porch to see what was bothering the dogs. The three
customers walked to their car in the parking lot.
The agents assumed that the five men were Dillinger Gang members
who had been alerted by the dogs. The agents called out for
them to halt, but the sound of the car starting up and its loud
radio drowned out the warning.
The agents shot the tires and smashed the glass windows of the
car. One, a salesman, was wounded and crept into the
woods. The second one, a cook, staggered out of the car, with
four bullets in him. The third customer, a young man, lay dead
in the car.
If the dogs didn't alarm the Dillinger gang, the gunfire surely
did. Machine gun fire erupted almost immediately from the
lodge. Soon Dillinger and several of the others jumped from an
upstairs window and escaped along the hidden bank of the lake
shore.
The federal agents in pursuit fell into the drainage ditch and
became entangled in the barbed-wire fence. Last to leave was
Baby Face Nelson, who, during his escape shot three of the agents,
killing one of them.
Hoover had promised the newspapers some thing special. It
was special all right. It was one of the worst public
relations fiascoes in FBI history. Will Rogers summed it
up: "Well, they had Dillinger surrounded and was all
ready to shoot him when he came out, but another bunch of folks came
out ahead, so they just shot him instead. Dillinger is going
to accidentally get with some innocent bystanders some time, then he
will get shot."
Repairs after the Battle of Little Bohemia
(Milwaukee Sentinel)
