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Revision as of 23:46, 30 March 2009
 Headstone of Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto at Fort Lawton military cemetery, Seattle | |
| Date | August 14 1944 |
|---|---|
| Location | Fort Lawton, Washington, United States (U.S.) |
| Participants | United States Army soldiers and Italian prisoners of war (POW) |
| Outcome | 1 Italian POW killed, 28 U.S. soldiers convicted and imprisoned |
Overview
The largest and longest U.S. Army court-martial of World War II took place at Seattle's Fort Lawton. 43 U.S. soldiers—all of them African-American—were charged with rioting; three were also charged with the lynching death of an Italian prisoner of war named Guglielmo Olivotto. A 2005 book, On American Soil convinced the U.S. Army's highest court of appeals that prosecutor Leon Jaworski had committed "egregious error," and that all convictions should be reversed. President George W. Bush signed legislation allowing the Army to disburse back pay to the defendants or their surviving relatives.
Riot
The night of August 14, 1944, an all-black port company at Seattle's Fort Lawton was under orders to ship out to the war zone the next morning. Anxious soldiers packed their bags, wrote letters and read the Bible. Others played cards, shot craps, visited girlfriends and drank beer or bootleg liquor. Just after 11pm, an intoxicated black soldier and his three companions crossed paths with three Italians, who may have also been drinking. Words were exchanged, the black soldier rushed forward, and with one punch, an Italian knocked the American out cold.
As the Italians retreated to adjacent barracks, the call went out: US soldiers had been attacked by one or more enemy prisoners. A small contingent of black soldiers, including Pvt. Samuel Snow, ran after the Italians, but were quickly wounded by frightened Italians wielding boards. Hearing the commotion, dozens of black soldiers poured out of their barracks and saw at least three of their comrades on the ground, each bleeding from the head, each under the care of Luther Larkin. A rumor flew that one American was dead. Assuming they were under attack, and responding to months of military training, dozens of black soldiers headed into the Italian area, armed with rocks, fence posts and a couple of knives.
Clyde Lomax, a white military policeman, was responsible for patrolling the area known as the "Colored Area," and was on the scene almost immediately. He loaded the most severely injured American into his jeep, but delayed transporting him to the fort’s hospital. As the melee grew, several witnesses—white, black and Italian—reported seeing Lomax contributing to the fray. Rather than restore order or call for reinforcement, Lomax instead encouraged black soldiers to attack, even handing weapons to some.
More than forty minutes passed before a contingent of military policemen finally arrived. By then, dozens lay injured. The MPs restored order, but chose not to take anyone into custody. Later, every single MP claimed it had been too dark to identify even one of the participants in the riot. After belatedly bringing the injured American to the post’s most remote hospital, Pvt. Lomax disappeared for at least two hours.
At 5:00 the next morning, Lomax drove his jeep to a distant gully at the base of the fort’s Magnolia bluffs. In the dark of the pre-dawn night, he walked through brush and purported to discover the lifeless body of Guglielmo Olivotto, lynched from a noose tied to an obstacle course guywire.
Investigation
By sunset on the day Olivotto’s body was discovered, Fort Lawton commanding officer Col. Harry Branson (1890-1963)had ordered all evidence destroyed. No fingerprints were secured, no footprints saved, no weapons properly catalogued. When Branson tried to quickly ship the black soldiers to San Francisco that same day, he was countermanded after a subordinate reported his attempt to the Pentagon.
The riot and lynching was front page news in Seattle, and became a major story across the nation. The Army sent its best young prosecutor, Leon Jaworski (1905-1982) of Houston, to conduct a two-month investigation. Jaworski would eventually distinguish himself as one of the most powerful American lawyers of the 20th Century, culminating in his appointment as special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation and the winning litigant in U.S. v Nixon.
During weeks of interrogations, Jaworski’s investigators threatened several black soldiers with harm—even with lynching—if they refused to testify against their fellow soldiers. Most did refuse, including Samuel Snow and Roy Montgomery. Five black soldiers agreed, however, to testify for the prosecution in exchange for immunity. Six decades later, all five were shown to hold unrelated grudges against many of the men they fingered.
Most Italian POWs were unable to identify a single black soldier, citing the darkness and confusion. Two, however, offered confident identifications of dozens of the Americans; those two became Jaworski’s star witnesses. Decades later, both were found to have been previously identified as unreliable security risks by Army Intelligence officers.
As reports of the riot and lynching reached the Pentagon, the Army sent Gen. Elliot Cooke (1891-1961) to Seattle, charged with determining whom, if anyone, had failed to prevent the riot and lynching. Cooke was not responsible for helping Jaworski with the criminal investigation, but Jaworski was given access to all of Cooke’s interrogations and conclusions.
In a scathing classified report to the Army Inspector General, Cooke concluded that Fort Lawton commander Col. Branson had utterly botched the initial criminal investigation, and demanded Branson’s demotion and/or reassignment. He characterized Pvt. Lomax a “coward,” and ordered that he be court-martialed for abandoning his post during the riot and lynching.
Defense
After weeks of investigation, Jaworski decided to charge 43 US soldiers—all of them African American—with rioting, a crime with a maximum penalty of life in prison. Three of the men—Luther Larkin (1921-1948), Arthur Hurks (1921-1991) and William Jones (1924-1992)—were also charged with the first-degree murder of Guglielmo Olivotto, and faced death by hanging if convicted. It was the largest number of defendants in a single US Army trial during all of World War II.
The 43 defendants were forced to share just two lawyers between them, and those lawyers were given just ten days to prepare their cases. The lead defense attorney, William Beeks (1906-1988), was a brilliant Army lawyer who would later become a renowned, if cantankerous, federal judge. He was assisted by Howard Noyd, a former football player from Iowa.
With barely time to learn the names of their clients, defense lawyers decided to focus most of their energies on trying to keep the soldiers from the gallows.
Trial
The nine-member panel of court-martial judges—all officers, all white—convened on November 16, 1944. Trial was held six days a week and all day on Thanksgiving. Beeks and Noyd raised dozens of objections; most were overruled.
On December 8, 1944 Beeks discovered for the first time that Jaworski had gained access to Gen. Cooke’s lengthy confidential report. Citing concerns about wartime security, Jaworski repeatedly refused to turn the report over to the defense, despite a prosecutorial obligation to do so, and the court refused to intervene. Beeks never learned about Cooke’s blistering attacks on Branson, Lomax and others, information which would likely have discredited most of Jaworski’s central witnesses. Jaworski even called Lomax to testify against the black soldiers.
Verdicts
After five weeks—the longest US Army court-martial of World War II—the court found 28 of the defendants guilty of rioting, and two—Luther Larkin and William Jones—guilty of manslaughter. Sentences ranged from six months to 25 years at hard labor. All but one defendant were issued dishonorable discharges at the completion of their prison sentences.
Because it was a capital case, an automatic appeal was sent to the US Army’s Board of Review. Despite the huge trial record and dozens of Beeks’ objections, all appeals were summarily rejected without elaboration.
In 1945, at war’s end, President Harry Truman was eager to help heal the nation’s wounds. Because so many servicemen were behind bars, he began issuing annual “Christmas clemencies,” reducing the sentences of thousands of soldiers, including the Fort Lawton defendants. By 1949, the last Fort Lawton defendant left prison, although it remains a mystery why Luther Larkin and William Jones were released long before the term of their remaining sentences.
Investigative journalism
In 1986, journalist Jack Hamann came across Guglielmo Olivotto’s headstone in the Fort Lawton cemetery. After months of research, most of it relying on secondary sources, Hamann produced an Emmy Award winning one-hour special program for Seattle’s NBC affiliate, KING-TV. The program raised some questions about the prosecution, but offered no substantial evidence to refute Jaworski’s case.
In 2001, Hamann and his wife, Leslie Hamann, began a four-year effort to locate primary sources, including documents and witnesses. During several weeks of research at the National Archives in College Park, MD, the Hamann’s came across Gen. Cooke’s newly-declassified report. The revelations in that report became the basis for their book, On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. In 2006, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE) named On American Soil the nation’s best investigative book of the year.
US Congress
On July 1, 2005, U.S. Rep Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced HR 3174, a bill demanding that the US Army reopen the Fort Lawton case, based on the evidence disclosed in On American Soil. The bill, with dozens of co-sponsors, languished in the House Armed Services Committee until the chairman of that committee, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) received a letter from constituent Julianna Hamann, mother of author Jack Hamann. After committee staff vetted the book, Rep. McDermott and Rep. Hunter agreed on June 8, 2006 to exercise a Congressional privilege allowing them to insist that the US Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR) review the decades-old convictions.
US Army Board for Correction of Military Records
On October 26, 2007, the ABCMR ruled unanimously that Leon Jaworski had committed “egregious error” in his prosecution of the Fort Lawton case, particularly by refusing to make the Cooke Report available to the defense. The court, calling the trial “fundamentally unfair,” overturned the convictions and ordered that defendants be issued retroactive honorable discharges. In addition, the surviving defendants—or the estates of those who have since died—were deemed entitled to “all rights, privileges and property lost as a result of the convictions,” including “all due pay and allowances.” By all accounts, it was an extraordinary, unprecedented remedy.
$725 check
On November 29, 2007, Samuel Snow received a check … for a mere $725. An Army spokesman explained that the Board’s order was so unusual and sweeping that Army regulations contained no provision for payment of interest in such cases. The small checks received by Snow and by the families of other Fort Lawton veterans spurred a flurry of stories in the national media about the unfairness and inadequacy of the regulations.
On January 23, 2008, Rep. Jim McDermott introduced HR 5130 in the House, authorizing the US Army to pay interest on the Fort Lawton awards. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) introduced companion bill S 2548 in the Senate. The bills sailed through the Armed Services Committees of both houses, and included testimony from Secretary of the Army Pete Geren, who called Snow’s small check “a travesty of justice.”
Tribute
By the summer of 2008, the Army had only been able to locate two living defendants (Samuel Snow of Florida and Roy Montgomery of Illinois), plus the families of just ten others who had since passed. King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels organized a tribute to the Fort Lawton defendants and surviving families, featuring a dinner, a parade, a formal military ceremony and a Catholic mass honoring the memory of Guglielmo Olivotto. At the military ceremony, Assistant Army Secretary Ronald James offered a moving tribute, including an apology and the presentation of belated honorable discharges.
Death of Samuel Snow
On the morning of the Seattle military ceremony, Samuel Snow took ill. Hours later, his family brought his honorable discharge to his hospital bedside, where he held it to his chest and smiled broadly. That same evening, he died of heart failure, with his wife and son at his side.
Snow’s death was worldwide news. The consensus of his family, his doctors and outside observers was that Snow had willed himself to stay alive long enough to see justice served. His funeral in Leesburg, Florida, drew hundreds of mourners; he received a full military burial.
Bill becomes law
On October 14, 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2009. The bill included the legislation authorizing the Army to add tens of thousands of dollars in interest to the Fort Lawton veterans’ awards.
References
Notes
Books
- Hamann, Jack (2005). On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books. ISBN 0295987057.
{{cite book}}: Text "New York" ignored (help) - Hamann, Jack (2007). On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0295987057.
- Moreo, Dominic W. (2004). Riot at Fort Lawton, 1944. iUniverse <self-published>. ISBN 0595662544.
Media
- Yardley, William (October 28,2007), "1944 Conviction of Black G.I.'s Is Ruled Flawed", The New York Times
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Yardley, William (December 12,2007), "Army Pays $725 in Set-Aside World War II Case", The New York Times
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Yardley, William (July 30, 2008), "Wrongly convicted WWII vet dies after apology", The New York Times
- Yardley, William (October 22, 2008), "Back pay for soldier's widow", The New York Times
- Murphy, Kim (July 27, 2008), "Justice, 64 years later", The Los Angeles Times
- Fredrix, Emily (January 20, 2008). "Court-martial voided, late black WWII veteran honored at his gravesite" (Newspaper article). Boston Globe. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - MacIntosh, Heather, Priscilla Long, and David Wilma (July 6, 2005). "Riot involving African American soldiers occurs at Fort Lawton and an Italian POW is lynched on August 14, 1944" (Essay). HistoryLink.org. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Martin, Jonathan (October 26, 2007). "U.S. Army overturns convictions of Fort Lawton soldiers court-martialed in 1944 after riot, lynching" (Newspaper article). Seattle Times. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Ortega, Tony (April 22, 2008). "A Staten Island Trombonist Breaks a 64-Year Silence About a Military Race Riot" (Newspaper article). Village Voice. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)