"Machine Gun Kelly"

This is the story of an incident that happened in Atlantic City when I was about 3 years old. One afternoon my cousin Bill and I were playing in the front yard and my Aunt Mad was hanging clothes in the back yard. All of a sudden we heard sirens, screeching tires and the drone of a small airplane circling the block Three burley men with drawn guns ran through the backyard and told our Aunt “lady, get in the house right away” and she grabbed us and we all ran in the house. Because of our curiosity, we climbed up to the attic and peeped through a tiny window to see what was going on across the street.
On the corner was a tavern, a hang out for local mobsters, where my grandfather got his daily pail of beer. There were cops with pistols and shotguns everywhere; city, state police and G-men all surrounding the place. All of a sudden they battered in the door and charged inside. We could hear gun fire and after a few minutes out came about a dozen men in hand cuffs which they loaded into the paddy wagon. We were scared to make a sound.
Much later my Papa went over to where a crowd had gathered and found out that “Machine gun Kelly”a notorious mobster had been holed up there, but had escaped just before the police arrived. In the 1930’s he, “Baby Face Nelson” and John Dillinger were the America’s Most Wanted.
We found out later that the men in our yard were G-men.