He spent more than half of his life behind bars and was the last man to be shackled inside a Scottish prison cell – but Johnny Ramensky will always be remembered as a gentleman.
A safecracking specialist, he was as agile as he was cunning, with a healthy dose of both guts and guile. Stealing may have been his talent but it was the hearts of the public which was this unique Monklands man’s greatest treasure.
From criminal to commando, and then back again, Ramensky was as famous as he was infamous, loved by the public as much as he was loathed by financial institutions. He had an immense sense of nobility and courage, qualities – coupled with his safecracking skills – which would play a major role in the Allied Forces securing crucial Nazi secrets as World War II raged across Europe.
READ MORE: The time a prisoner escaped Glasgow's notorious Barlinnie 'in Governor's breeks'
Born in Glenboig to Lithuanian immigrants in 1905, Ramensky lost his father at an early age but followed in his footsteps by working in the local mines, where he learned how to use explosives – a skill which would prove useful, albeit illegally, in his adult years.
When his mother uprooted the family to the Gorbals area of Glasgow, 11-year-old Ramensky, then a pupil of Rutherglen Academy, soon fell into a life of crime and it wasn’t long before he found himself imprisoned – something he would get rather used to – when he was sent to Borstal at the age of 18.
However, Ramensky was no ordinary prisoner, nor was he an ordinary criminal. He was a safecracker with a speciality for explosives. His small frame and superb agility allowed him to break into the most complex of business premises and banks, but never homes. The public were never a target of his daring raids.
Ramensky loathed violence, offering no resistance when caught red-handed by the law and immediately would plead guilty to his crime. Even the police tasked with stopping his one-man crime spree couldn't hide their respect for him, eventually coining the nickname 'Gentleman Johnny' for Ramensky.
James Binnie, a former detective constable with Strathclyde Police in Govan, Glasgow, described the first of many encounters with Ramensky. He said: “A uniformed constable called me in to say he had caught a man with £100 in cash. In the early 40s, this was a lot of money.
“I went to speak to this small, squat man with blue eyes who told me his name was John Ramsay from Rutherglen.
“He insisted the money was winnings from a bookmaker’s but I told him I didn’t accept his explanation.
“Then he said I’d probably know him better as Johnny Ramensky and that the money was from a Post Office.
“I went to the Post Office in question and asked the keyholder to open the safe. He told me it was a waste of time as everything was in order.
“But when we opened the safe, the door swung open and it was totally empty.
“We kept Johnny in custody overnight and the next morning we discovered that he had removed the bricks from his cell wall and had managed to get into the next cell. Luckily it was locked, but that was Johnny for you.”
It was Ramensky’s cunning which would attract the attention of the Army during World War II. Between sentences, Ramensky had married and become a father but it wasn’t long before he was back behind bars, this time inside the notorious Peterhead Prison.
During this spell in jail, in 1934, tragedy struck when his young wife died. After being refused permission to attend the funeral by prison bosses, an enraged Ramensky made the first of five attempts to escape. Wearing only his underpants, Ramensky fled Peterhead and even swam across a freezing river before being discovered in Aberdeen more than a day later.
Upon returning to the prison following his attempt at freedom, Ramensky was shackled inside his cell as punishment before MP John McGovern, of Shettleston, campaigned for the shackles to be removed. Ramensky was the last man to be shackled inside a Scottish prison and was the first man to ever escape from Peterhead Prison.
It was from his prison cell in 1942, as WWII raged across Europe, that Ramensky’s life took a curious turn. His prowess as a safecracker brought him to the attention of the Armed Forces, who offered him pardon if he used his skills to benefit of the nation.
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He agreed and enlisted with the Royal Highland Fusiliers, where he was given commando training to complement his already well-honed expertise at infiltration.
Ramensky was a key weapon for the British as part of a crack commando unit, dropped behind enemy lines and breaking into Nazi strongholds to steal important German documents. During the war in Italy, he famously blew open the safes of 14 foreign embassies – all in one day! That feat earned him a military medal of honour.
“Johnny was the bravest man I’ve ever met,” recalled Dennis Whitcombe, a Welshman who was part of the commando unit with Ramensky.
“He was one of our number, a pleasant bloke you never would have guessed was one of the most notorious safebreakers in British history. From time to time, he would disappear for several days. Most of the time, we didn’t know precisely what he had been asked to do, although it wasn’t hard to catch the general drift of things. They called him ‘Gentleman’ and so he was. But he was a hero, too.”
However, Ramenksy’s criminal past may have been hard to shake off as he infiltrated German strongholds. While successfully obtaining key documents, there are claims he also helped himself to some Nazi treasures. Rumours persist to this day that some loot plundered by Ramensky from the Nazis was stored in a Royal Navy supply depot in Carfin.
Sonny Leitch, a famous underworld figure known as the ‘Saughton Harrier’ for his repeated attempts at breaking out of the Edinburgh jail, gave credence to the claims.
While serving as a soldier, Leitch was asked to clear out a cell in Shepton Mallet military prison and in there he stumbled across a stash of boxes which aroused his curiosity. Opening them, he found artwork – believed to be portraits of Hitler and other Nazi figures – and a hoard of ammunition boxes that he couldn’t unlock.
Years later, during a raid on a Royal Navy supply depot in Carfin, Leitch claims he and his gang stumbled across the same ammunition boxes he spied in Shepton Mallet. Inside, he found a treasure trove of jewellery and gold before being arrested by police.
Robert Jeffery, author of Gentle Johnny Ramensky, said: “It is rumoured that statues and other valuable objects had been taken from Rome near the end of the war in order to stop them being looted and taken back to Germany by the Nazis.
“It is not too much of a leap of the imagination to suggest that these might have been some of the artwork and jewellery taken by Ramesky when Rome fell to the Allies? Gold is said to have disappeared from Rome, so who knows? It is one of the many mysteries surrounding Johnny’s life.”
Leitch would eventually spend time in jail with Ramensky years after his Carfin raid, and he recalled: “Johnny just gave me a look and said: ‘So that’s where it ended up?’
“He said he had seen the same valuables during his break-ins in Rome during the Allied push. It was clear that Johnny hadn’t only had his eye on the documents during these raids, but also helped himself to a few treasures along the way.”
The end of the war also brought with it a new stage in Ramensky’s life. From crack commando to civilian seemed a difficult transition for the 40-year-old and it wasn't too long before his old habits began to kick in again.
It seemed his compulsion to break into whatever he could was not quelled by his dangerous feats in the Armed Forces and he flitted in and out of jail until, in November, 1955, he was hit with 10 years’ “preventative detention” at Peterhead Prison, which offered him few privileges.
Two years of exemplary conduct brought no reward and Ramensky responded to the "preventative detention" the only way he knew how – by escaping.
His attempts at freedom were more protests against the prison authorities. Each time he escaped, he would be recaptured in the hope that his civil liberties would be returned. In all, Ramensky escaped from Peterhead Prison five times during his criminal career, three of those attempts in 1958. His fifth attempt evoked widespread sympathy from the public, illustrated in the song, “The Ballad of Johnny Ramensky”, by Norman Buchan MP.
Soon after beginning a sentence in Barlinnie Prison, Ramensky threw off his boots in the exercise yard and scaled the wall using the cracks in the mortar as toe-holds. He reached the roof but could get no further, yet the wardens could not get him down either. He demanded to see the chief of prisons as a large crowd gathered outside Barlinnie’s walls to watch the drama unfold. He eventually came down after five hours as temperatures plummeted.
A version of this article was originally published in our sister title the Daily Record in 2011.
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