10 Things You May Not Know About John Dillinger

Evan Andrews and History.com present 10 Things You May Not Know About John Dillinger.    Here are three of the most interesting things and my thoughts on each…

Dillinger helped bust his fellow gang members of out of jail.
Dillinger committed a string of high profile heists during the summer of 1933, but he was desperate to reunite with some of his old prison buddies to form an ace bank robbing gang. That September, he began plotting to break his would-be accomplices out of the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. Dillinger conspired to have three .38 pistols hidden in a crate of thread bound for the jail’s shirt making factory, allowing 10 convicts—including experienced stickup men “Handsome” Harry Pierpont, Charles Makley and John Hamilton—to get the drop on their guards and escape. The timing couldn’t have been better. Dillinger had been arrested at a girlfriend’s house only a few days before, and was languishing in jail in Lima, Ohio. On October 12, the newly liberated Pierpont and two other men waltzed in the front door and busted him out, gunning down the county sheriff in the process.
Craig: The fact that Dillinger was able to bust his crime partners out of prison and they in turn able to free him from a jail started the legacy of John Dillinger.

He robbed police stations.
While most criminals stayed as far away from lawmen as possible, Dillinger was willing to march right into their headquarters with gun in hand. Shortly after being sprung from jail in October 1933, Dillinger and his band carried out a pair of audacious heists on the police stations at Auburn and Peru, Indiana. As bewildered deputies looked on, the gangsters emptied their gun cabinets of Thompson submachine guns, shotguns, rifles, tear gas guns, bullet proof vests and more than a dozen pistols. The crooks immediately put the arsenal to use committing a wave of bank heists that left two police officers dead.

Craig: Dillinger did have guts and a tendency for flash.  How many other criminals have you heard of who would dare rob a police station?

He escaped from jail using a wooden gun.
Dillinger was arrested in Tucson, Arizona in January 1934, after locals recognized a few of his heavily wanted accomplices. Following a flurry of media coverage, he was extradited to Indiana and confined to the jail in Crown Point to await trial. Authorities boasted that the jail was escape proof, but Dillinger would only remain a resident for a little over a month. On March 3, 1934, he forced his way out of the main cellblock by brandishing a phony gun. Dillinger claimed he had fashioned it from a block of wood, a razor handle and a coat of black shoe polish, but reports would later suggest it was smuggled into the prison by one of his attorneys. In any case, Dillinger used the wooden pistol to round up several guards and get his hands on a Thompson submachine gun. Once armed with real firepower, he made his way to the prison garage, stole the sheriff’s personal police car and motored to Chicago. Amazingly, Dillinger was back in action only three days later, teaming with gangster Baby Face Nelson and others to knock over a bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Craig: One of the things Dillinger is most famous for is his breakout from the “escape proof” jail using a fake wooden gun to round up several guards and get his hands on real fire-power.  Dillinger’s escapes and escapades made him a celebrity, but folks lose sight of the good people who ended up dead because of Dillinger before he met the same fate.