Jobs oj the Week

Jobs of the Week

After midnight one night last week, three cars sped up to the gate of the high-walled U. S. Naval Base in Brooklyn, N. Y., where are stored the Atlantic fleet's supplies. Out leaped six men. A guard felt the tickly touch of revolver muzzles, swung open the gate. Into the wide Naval Depot yard swept the cars. The guard was forced to unlock the door of the eight-story main building. Then the raiders trussed him up, plastered his mouth with adhesive tape, locked him in the Depot detention pen.

Obeying sharp military orders, a score of the raiders ranged through the corridors of the big building. Soon five other rope-bound, writhing watchmen--the whole force on duty at the Depot--were jammed into the brig with the gate guard. To them came muffled clanks and booms from above. The commanding Naval officer on duty, yanked from his bed, remembered that in the big safe on the top floor was $84,500 pay for the 300 Depot employes. For five hours robbers held the Navy's great supply base out of U. S. control.

Toward daybreak the gunmen took a grumpy departure. One of the prisoners had wriggled free, released his companions, spread the alarm. Police, detectives, Naval officials hastened to the scene. Roundabout the safe room were strewn nitroglycerine cans, percussion caps, crowbars, electric drills, gloves, an acetylene torch. The outer door of the massive safe, its lock drilled and mangled, was open. The inner door, dented, drilled, wrenched on its hinges, was shut. For three hours a safe expert knifed the steel door with an oxyacetylene torch, at last swung it open Potent though the raid had been, the $84.500 was intact.

Detectives pondered the clues. The marauders' organized precision reminded crime-wise officials of the methods of James Nannery, "Bronx Badman." When some of the witnesses identified his picture in the rogues' gallery, imperative orders went out for his capture, dead or alive.

For many reasons police wanted sly-faced, little 24-year-old Badman Nannery. A year ago he and his pal Edward ("Snake") Ryan escaped from Sing Sing by clambering through a transom in the prison kitchen, scaling the wall, swimming away down the Hudson river. Ryan was recaptured and returned to Sing Sing. From the underworld came word that Nannery has sworn to get Ryan out again.

If police surmises were correct, Badman Nannery had two disappointments last week. Added to the failure of the Naval Base raid was the frustration of a jailbreak plot at Sing Sing, in which Pal Ryan was embroiled. Warden Lewis Edward Lawes of Sing Sing keeps the most desperate of his charges in the thick-walled, century-old cellblock (TIME, Nov. 18). From an outside "wire" (tipoff) he learned that Ryan and three others in old Sing Sing were concocting a plot. Slyly he watched them. Suddenly the four were seized, their cells searched. In one were found draftsman's designs of implements to be used in an escape. In another was discovered a wooden key model from which a duplicate of the keeper's key was to be made. In the power-house was unearthed a tomahawk-shaped utensil for short-circuiting all the lights in the old cellblock. Said Warden Lawes: "This was a scheme for a general jail delivery. . . . If it had succeeded we might have another riot like Dannemora's."

Police hinted that Badman Nannery did outside jobs for the plotters. Perhaps he had tried for the Naval Base payroll to finance the venture.

P: Under the Colorado State Penitentiary at Canon City, Col, officials last week discovered a ten-foot tunnel dug by convicts since last month's deadly riot (TIME, Oct. 14). In the tunnel were found sledges, drills, crowbars, powder. Alarmed, the officials searched the entire prison, found 300 lbs. of daggers, stilettos, blackjacks, clubs, saws, knives made from files --all the makings of another violent outburst.

P: At Buffalo, N. Y., seven bandits, masked with white handkerchiefs, interrupted a dinner party long enough to obtain jewels valued at $400,000 from assembled socialites. Mrs. Philip Metz, daughter of Norman Edward Mack. New York's Democratic National Committeeman, lost $60,000 worth. Mrs. Raymond Allen Van Clief was bereft of a $200,000 pearl necklace. Frank Burkett Baird, builder of the Peace Bridge between Buffalo and Canada, uncle of one of the 100 guests, offered a reward of $5,000 each for the robbers alive, $10,000 each dead. His explanation: "If authorities are forced to resort to gunfire then the reward should be greater."

P: Like the Buffalo robbers, four masked bandits stalked in upon a party at the Champaign, Ill. home of Metalman Henry H. Harris. At first mistaken for jokesters, they lined up 100 celebrating socialites, stripped them of $50,000 worth of jewelry and cash. Among the divested guests were Dr. David Kinley, president of the University of Illinois, and his daughter.