50 Years Ago, A Man Flew Over Tihar Jail And Dropped Cigarettes And Cookies! This Is His Story

For 50 years, the legend of American smuggler Daniel Hailey Walcott, Jr, has continued surfacing in Indian media. He is said to be the first man to escape from Tihar Jail. He is also said to have dropped chocolates, cookies and cigarettes over the jail for the other inmates before stealing away to Pakistan in his Piper Apache plane on September 26, 1963. But did he?

On June 27, 2015, two petty thieves escaped from Delhi¡¯s Tihar Jail after crossing four walls, one of which they dug through. Not really a tunnelling job, but that¡¯s what the papers made it out to be. The jailbreak was also a big deal because, apparently, there had been only five at Tihar until then.

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Most papers reported that the first man to escape from Tihar was an American smuggler named Daniel Hailey Walcott, Jr.

The Times of India:

¡°The first person to make an unauthorised exit from Tihar was an American smuggler, Daniel Walcott. In 1965, he managed to escape from Tihar in a police vehicle, reached the Safdarjung Airport hangar, boarded his impounded plane and flew out of the country before the jail authorities could react.¡±

Mint:

¡°In 1962, Daniel Walcott, a swashbuckling Texan who¡¯d won a contract from Air India to carry freight from Afghanistan to India was caught smuggling ammunition in his DC-4s. He was freed after some time in jail, but one of his planes at the Safdarjung airport was impounded. However, he was given access to the airport to pour a little fuel into his plane and run the engines. He managed to do that often enough to accumulate enough fuel for an escape. And escape he did, despite five airport guards hanging onto the tail of the plane. He headed to Pakistan, but not before, as legend has it, circling over Tihar Jail to drop a packet of cookies for his fellow inmates.¡±

TOI

The Tribune:

¡°35-years-ago, Walcott, an international smuggler, landed at Safdarjung Airport. He was arrested and locked up in Tihar Jail and his plane was impounded. A few days later Walcott escaped from the jail, drove straight to Safdarjung Airport hangar, bluffed his way through and flew off in his impounded aircraft. By the time the authorities woke up and alerted the Air Force, Walcott¡¯s aircraft had crossed the Indian airspace. Walcott¡¯s small propeller aircraft would have taken at least an hour and a half to fly across the Indian airspace but, that was not adequate time for India¡¯s security authorities and the Air Force to thwart the smuggler¡¯s escape.¡±

The Hindu:

¡°In 1962, Walcott flew into India in a DC4 craft. Caught smuggling ammunition, he was arrested, tried and sentenced, being lodged in Tihar. Released conditionally, he would periodically attend to his impounded aircraft at Delhi¡¯s Safdarjung Airport. One afternoon, he simply took off in it. Having circled over Tihar and dropped cigarettes and chocolates as gifts for the inmates, he flew off to Pakistan.¡±

And this from the late Khushwant Singh in ¡®More Malicious Gossip¡¯:

TOI

¡°No one knows how he escaped except that he did so in a leisurely style. He simply strolled out of the gates and took a taxi to Connaught Circus where he bought packets of cigarettes and chocolates. He took another taxi to Safdarjung Airport. The constable guarding his plane sprang to attention and saluted the Sahib. The Sahib put gas into his airplane, taxied down the runway and without as much as a ¡°by your leave¡± from the control tower, was airborne. He flew over Tihar, dropped packets of cigarettes and chocolates for his friends and turned westwards. By the time alarm signals were sounded, Walcott was halfway towards Karachi.¡±

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So, did such an audacious jailbreak really happen? Did Walcott veer over Tihar to drop chocolates and cigarettes/cookies for the other inmates? The case seemed so interesting that I pored over parliamentary debates of that period to get at the truth, and this is what I have found.

a) Walcott did not escape from Tihar. He was a free man on September 26, 1963, the day he flew out.

b) He did not drop any goodies over Tihar. There is no mention of such an audacious act in the debates. Can¡¯t imagine the Opposition leaving a chance to make the government look silly in such a sensational case. Mind you, the case was important enough to merit a half-hour discussion in Rajya Sabha on December 9, 1963. Altogether, Walcott came up for discussion in the upper house 14 times between 1963 and 1970.

This is what really happened: Daniel Hailey Walcott, Jr was a smuggler, but also the president of a small airline¡ªTransAtlantic Airways Corporation. He owned five planes: a small Piper Apache for personal use, and the rest Douglas Skymasters (DC-3s and DC-4s). He came to India often, and in 1962, Air India contracted him to fly unscheduled freight services between Delhi, Lahore and Afghanistan.

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On one of his trips to Delhi, Walcott was found carrying a cache of undeclared ammunition: ¡°10,000 rounds of 12-gauge ammunition,¡± according to an LA Times article, and ¡°an item that fetches six times its U.S. price on India¡¯s black market,¡± according to a 1966 article in Time magazine

Walcott was arrested and two of his planes¡ªthe Piper and a Skymaster¡ªwere seized. Both were placed under guard at Safdarjung Airport. Walcott fled Delhi in his Piper, leaving behind the Skymaster. By 1967, the parking charges for the Skymaster added up to Rs 151,042.50 (yes, 50 paise also mattered).

A sub-judge had placed an order of restraint on Walcott¡¯s planes on January 31, 1963. After a brief trial he was sentenced to six months¡¯ jail. Although Walcott was under arrest, he was treated generously and allowed to go out of India repeatedly ¡°on business¡± during January, February, March, April and June, 1963.

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He was permitted, even while serving time, to visit Safdarjung and service the Piper to prevent it from turning into junk because of disuse.

But there¡¯s no question of a jailbreak because Walcott was released from jail on September 23, three days before he flew out of Delhi. The order of restraint on the planes was vacated on September 25 after Walcott paid up his penalty for violating customs regulations. The police guard was removed from the planes. That same day, the New Delhi magistrate, N L Kakkar, lifted the freeze on his account containing Rs 35,000.

However, in the evening, Tata Sons moved court to prevent the release of the planes and a sub-judge issued directions for Walcott to not fly out of Safdarjung Airport. A copy of the order was sent to the aerodrome officer the same day. As a result, when Walcott came to the airport in the morning of September 26, the aerodrome authorities denied him permission to fly. Still, Walcott made his ¡°unauthorized flight¡± at 12.17pm. He flew towards Karachi keeping below 3,000 feet altitude to avoid detection by radar. IAF scrambled its Hunters after him, after a delay of 55 minutes. They had orders not to shoot him down. It was a hopeless chase as the fighter pilots were told Walcott was heading for Lahore, not Karachi.

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The government maintained that it had served an order on Walcott to not remove his plane from Safdarjung Airport, but on landing in Karachi he told Morning News in an exclusive interview published on September 29, 1963 that if any such order was served when he was already in the air, he was not aware of it. Walcott said, ¡°The cartridges I was carrying were at best worth ?200. The most I could have made by selling them in India was about ?400. Can you imagine any smuggler flying all the way from America to India and running an enormous risk for such a ridiculously paltry sum?¡±

Unanswered question: Where did the legend of Walcott air-dropping goodies over Tihar arise? Perhaps in this Time magazine profile of him in 1966.

¡°Five airport guards tried to stop him by hanging on his tail. He blew them off with a blast of prop wash and headed for Pakistan, but not before circling over the jail to drop a packet of cookies to his fellow inmates. Flying low, he eluded the Indian Air Force jets that were scrambled to bring him back.¡±