Flag on Devil’s Island by Francis Lagrange and William Murray 1962

Good condition.  See photos.

This is the actual book from 1962, not the pdf sold online and not one of the later reprints and not one of the later softcover editions.

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Devil's Island. Hell on earth. A place where many men, unjustly convicted and outcast by society, were subjected to the daily brutalization of torture, disease, starvation, and murder. Many went in, few came out. Devil's Island - an iconic memorial of man's inhumanity to man.

But today, due to the many sensational exposeés, documentaries, films, and now the electronic media, we know the TRUTH and the horrors of the dreaded Devil's Island.

Well, not quite, said Francis "Flag" Lagrange, art conservator, stage set designer, art forger, counterfeiter, and finally inmate for 15 years in le penitencier de Guyane francaise. For one thing, Devil's Island is really only one small island about 10 miles off the country's coast and only held prisoners convicted of treason. These prisoners were few and far between, and at any one time there were no more than a handful in residence on Devil's Island proper. And far from being ill-treated, abused, and starved, they were better housed, better clothed, and better fed than most of the other inmates. For the most part, they were left to themselves.

But as far as the overseas penitentiary in French Guiana itself - the infamous bagne - it was not just one, but a series of prison camps. The largest of these was at St. Laurent-du-Maroni across the river from Dutch Surinam. That's where the inmates arrived on board the transport ship La Martinière. There they were sorted and dispatched to their assigned camps.

A number of prisoners remained in St. Laurent or were sent to the sister camp at Cayenne, the territorial capital about a hundred and sixty miles east-southeast and along the coast. Less fortunate convicts were sent to the work camps in the jungle. Admittedly, these were not nice places. The individuals who were considered particular escape risks were sent to the islands of Royale or St. Joseph, two of the three Îles du Salut - the Islands of Salvation. The Île du Diable, or Devil's Island, was the smallest, which as we said, was reserved for prisoners convicted of treason.

What was life like in the bagne? Flag was specific and emphatic. It was no worse than any other prison for the era, and in some ways it was better. But it was, he said, a penitentiary, not a summer camp - pas une colonie des vacances. Measures were needed to control large numbers of men, many of whom were not particularly nice. And as in prisons then and now, much of how the men fared depended on the manner, philosophy, and honesty of particular officers and guards. Even then, having a martinet in charge did not mean the prisoners suffered. One no-nonsense commandant - who was really had a cul refractaire - nonetheless treated the men fairly, Flag said.

That doesn't mean there were not cases of brutality. But they were, Flag insisted, individual acts by individuals and were the exceptions, not the rule. The only time Flag encountered institutional ill-treatment was during World War II. After Hitler began his marches, the part of France that was - quote - "unoccupied" - unquote - and run by the French Vichy government remained in charge of Guiana. This pro-German government dispatched a gung-ho commander to run the prison. Actually he had been sent to Guiana because his superiors found him so incompetent they thought that was the best way to get him out of their hair. He overworked everyone and punished even minimal infractions (real or imagined) severely. All in all he made life hell. However, when French Guiana switched allegiance to le grand Charlot (i. e., Degaulle) the tin-plated mini-dictator was shipped back to France where Flag believed - or at least hoped - he suffered the fate of other German collaborators.

The bagne was not, Flag admitted, a model for prisoner rehabilitation or penal professionalism. In the 1930's few prisons were. Black marketing was universal and usually operated in collaboration with the guards. The guards, it should be remembered, were generally from poor familes and took the jobs in Guiana as a way to achieve some measure of prosperity and security. But personal problems between the men - guards and convicts - often created very tense situations. Inmate-on-inmate violence was common (as it is today), and yes, there were cases when guards abused and even murdered inmates. The reasons were varied. Sometimes the guard was simply a sadist. Other times the guard and prisoner may have been in cahoots in some skullduggery and getting rid of one or the other was the way to keep things under wraps. Then there was always the pesky little problem where the guards' wives easily found the prisoners a bit more to their liking than were their husbands. It wasn't unheard of that a guard would come home unexpectedly to find his sweetie and a bangard in flagrante delicto. In such encounters, the prisoner almost never (no joke intended) came out on top.

And escape? Actually that was the easy part, Flag said, at least for prisoners kept in St. Laurent. As long as you behaved you were likely to be assigned a job in the town. Furthermore, the labor was largely unsupervised. Working at the leisurely "colonial" pace, the men swept the streets, trimmed the trees, tended the gardens, painted houses and fences, and more or less kept the town looking like a charming overseas departmental paradise. And just across the river was Dutch Surinam.

So the easiest way to escape was to simply walk out of town and pay one of the river boatmen 100 francs to row you across the river. Then the usual procedure was the Dutch police would arrest you and return you to Guiana. Getting away was easy. Staying away was something else again. Very few managed that.

Despite Flag's fairly mild assessment of Guiana, it gives the reader pause when you hear the prison population was fairly stable, and yet 1000 - 1500 prisoners arrived each year. Population of the convicts in 1901 was about 4000 active prisoners and about half that many freed convicts - the libérés. But being freed didn't mean a return to France. You still had to serve out your doublage - that is a time equal to your sentence - in French Guiana. If your sentence was more than eight years, you had to remain in Guiana the rest of your life.

The biggest killer, though, was certainly disease. Malaria, scurvy, and leprosy were commonplace. Although there was an honest attempt to provide the prisoners with medical care, during the early to mid-Twentieth Century, treatment of disease and injury was still often rudimentary. In these pre-antibiotic days even small cuts and scrapes could develop into life threatening infections.

Whatever the reason attrition was clearly high, with around 20 % of the men somehow disappearing per year only to be replenished with fresh transportees. Flag's information is consistent with this estimate. He said probably 25 % of the inmates were under medical care at any given time and maybe 25 % were in the bush trying to escape (and dying or being recaptured). So that would require somewhat less than half of each group to disappear.

There were also the incos or incorrigibles, and Flag put their population at about 25 % as well. These men were kept chained in barracks during the day - a very unpleasant existence in the tropics, and these were also the men among which inmate murders were highest. But, Flag added, the incos had been so classified mostly because they were rebellious and refused to obey the guards and other officials. So their lot was largely their own doing. That left the remaining 25 % who were "normal" prisoners and who, if they wished, could make life bearable by doing what they were told and avoiding confrontations.

Flag's book appeared in 1961 and later accounts by others have suspicious similarities. For instance Flag tells of how during one of his escape attempts he was given assistance by an Indian tribe. These were not, by the way, the unspoiled, isolated "noble savages" of popular legend. The tribe traded with local villages and marketed game and fish in St. Laurent and other towns along the river. The chief was a knowledgeable and savvy leader who spoke French. The tribe took to Flag and invited him to remain. When he declined, they rowed him upriver to where he could move into British Guiana where he was captured under rather amusing circumstances.

Flag also told how some prisoners tried to craft makeshift rafts to escape from the Îles du Salut. In particular he told the story of a Russian prisoner (note, that's a Russian prisoner) who constructed a raft by stuffing a bag full of coconuts and then floated to the mainland. He was captured immediately, but if this sounds familiar, it should.

Which brings us to the most famous account of "Devil's Island", at least to American audiences. In 1969, Henri Charrière published his best seller Papillon and told of unspeakable horrors where guards would beat inmates to death free of any fear of punishment, inmates would be placed in solitary cells up to eight years, kept locked up 24/7, denied medical attention, and not permitted to speak to anyone. He also told how in his own escape he was aided by an Indian tribe and how he was invited to stay. And as all the world "knows", Henri escaped from Devil's Island by floating away on a bag of coconuts.