Braided in Fire

LONG NOTES For BRAIDED IN FIRE

The Notes below are an expanded version of what appears in Braided in Fire by Solace Wales. Notes preceded by a * contain additional information not included in the book.    

PART I

Chapter One  ▪︎ The Author Investigates

*1  Dario Giannini told me that in 1900 there were approximately 500 inhabitants. He writes that the parish, which then included a much larger area, counted about 1,000 participants: La Battaglia di Sommocolonia: 26 Dicembre 1944. Fornaci di Barga (LU): Tipografia Gasperetti, 2nd edition (English translation by Anne Leslie Saunders), 2011. p 69.

Bernard Moscardini confirms that at the beginning of WWII there were approximately 300 people living in the village proper, with another hundred or so in outlying hamlets (such as Lama) who also considered themselves Sommocolonians. Moscardini, Bernard. La Vacanza. Kennoway, Scotland: self-published by Spiderwize, 2009. p 59.

*2  Most sources agree with The Buffalo Soldiers National Museum (Houston, TX) whose web site http://buffalosoldiermuseum.com/bindex.php?linkid=400 states that the nickname Buffalo Soldiers “began with the Cheyenne warriors in 1867. The actual Cheyenne translation was Wild Buffalo.” Others attribute the name for the 9th and 10th Cavalries to the Cherokee or the Comanche. One source speculates that the name did not come from the resemblance of the men’s black curly hair to the mane of a Buffalo, but rather from the fact that the cavalrymen wore buffalo hide coats in wintertime so that when they rode into battle they looked like buffaloes charging. Whatever its source, it was clear that comparison to the animal held sacred by Native Americans was a compliment and a statement about ferociousness of the soldiers. 

Most of the soldiers in the original 9th and 10th Cavalries fought in the Civil War—they were two of four black regiments formed by an act of Congress in 1866. The 9th and 10th fought in the Indian wars to help settle the west. Whatever we think today about the US government sending people of color out to kill people of color, it is important to realize that, at the time, being a Buffalo Soldier was one of the few jobs a black man could hold with dignity and pride. Buffalo Soldiers engaged in battles with Native Americans but their primary purpose was to maintain peace in the western territories.

During WWII, the men of the 92nd Division wore an insignia on their right shoulder sleeve. It was a black-bordered circular patch with a black buffalo shown on an olive drab field.

*3  Sommocolonians shared their village with black GIs for nearly two months, November 1 to December 26, 1944. (From October 24 to October 31 Brazilian soldiers occupied the village.)

4  Excerpts from interviews I did with Sommocolonians about their wartime experience appear in my book in Italian: Wales, Solace (Sheets). La Battaglia e il Bombardamento a Sommocolonia: Testimonianze dal Vivo. Ospedaletto Pisa: Offset Grafica, 1996.

*5  Hondon Hargrove, who wrote the basic military primer on the 92nd Division, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy: Black Americans in World War II. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1985, referred loosely to the men of the 366th Infantry Regiment as “Buffalo Soldiers.” This is especially noteworthy because Hargrove himself had been a member of the 366th. He was later transferred to the 92nd Division. Along with writing a comprehensive military history, he worked tirelessly to see that John Fox received the recognition he deserved. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the Medal of Honor bestowed in Fox’s honor.

Chapter Two  ▪︎ Berto and Adelmo Biondi

6  From 1935–1940 women represented 52% of the workers at SMI. Savelli, Laura. L'Industria in Montagna: Uomini e donne a lavoro negli stabilimenti della Societa` Metallurgica Italiana. Florence: Leo S. Olschki editor, 2004. p 300.

7  Later on citizens were asked to give up their wool, including their wool mattresses. Sereni, Bruno. Barga: Paese Come Tanti. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, seconda edizione 1987, (prima edizione, Pescia, 1947). pp 31 & 38.

8  Five or six years earlier a SMI worker was found with a bar of soap at the factory gate and fired on the spot. On his way home, he hung himself. Pia, Gualtiero. La Revisione: Memorie del mio Novecento. Barga (Lucca): Tipografia Gasperetti, 1998. p 38.

*9  Mussolini’s announcement declaring war on Great Britain and France was broadcast in several gathering places in Barga—in the Fosso Piazza and at the schools. The Duce’s voice was heard simultaneously all across Italy. In 1940 it seemed a miraculous technological and unifying feat that Italy’s leader could speak to all Italians at once.

*10  There has never been an archeological excavation at Sommocolonia so the date of the Roman occupancy is not specific. However, Dario Giannini, expert on the history of the village, assured me there was almost certainly a Roman presence sometime during the second century BC. The very name Sommocolonia is Latin in origin—originally it was Summa Colonia meaning ‘highest colony.’

Chapter Three  ▪︎ Rothacker Smith

*11  The first Italian anti-Semitic laws, passed on November 17, 1938, restricted civil rights of Jews, banned their books, and excluded Jews from public office and higher education. This was during the time Fascist Italy began to ally itself with Nazi Germany. (Just six months later, on May 22, 1939, Italy formed the Pact of Steel military alliance with Nazi Germany.) With these laws, Mussolini appears to have been trying to appease his powerful German allies, rather than responding to a strong anti-Semitic sentiment among the Italian people. (Jews were generally well assimilated into Italian society.) Later on, Italian laws mimicked German ones, stripping Jews of their assets, restricting travel, and finally providing for their internment in concentration camps. Following news of the expanding discriminatory laws back in Detroit was not easy and often not believable. Unfortunately, many Italian Jews could not believe the news either until it was too late. For a fascinating study of the complex situation for Jews in Italy, see Alexander Stille’s Benevolence and Betrayal:  Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism (N.Y.:  Summit Books, Simon & Schuster 1991).

*12  There were 25,000 conscientious objectors serving as non-combatant medics or chaplains in the US military during WWII. The CO medics refused to kill another human being and so, unlike most medics, they went into battle unarmed. The anti-war film Lew Ayres starred in, All Quiet on the Western Front, had inspired some to become COs. Ayres himself suffered when he declared himself a conscientious objector: his films were boycotted, he was told he was finished in Hollywood, and his wife, Ginger Rogers, filed for divorce. Confined in an Oregon service camp, Ayres lobbied tirelessly to be allowed to serve on the front. His request was finally granted which helped pave the way for others to do the same. Having played the role of a doctor in the popular Dr. Kildare series, Ayres became a medic on the battlefields of the South Pacific. His three and a half years of service (earning him three battle stars) restored him to favor in Hollywood, and he went on to win an Oscar nomination and produce an award-winning documentary series on religions of the world.

The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It a documentary film which premiered on January 15, 2002 on PBS: www.pbs.org/itvs/thegoodwar/field.html

*13  The rumor cited in Lee’s book was “that a Negro woman had been raped and murdered by white soldiers after they had killed her husband. One version included military policemen among the murderers.” Lee, Ulysses. The Employment of Negro Troops. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1990, (first printed 1966). p 372. Since the riot may have been prompted by a rumor, I have used the version Rock remembered and reported.

The authorities may well have been telling the truth about there being no real incident causing the Camp Stewart riot. But the authorities at southern training camps did not always reveal their own involvement in crimes. One of my interviewees, Joseph Hairston, a captain in the Army and a lawyer later in civilian life, told me (in his 9/6/09 interview) about the unreported murders of black soldiers in 1941 in Alexandria, Louisiana (near Baton Rouge). At the time Hairston was stationed near Alexandria in one of the several black training camps in the area. When off-duty, the soldiers went into town to Lee Street, where there was about a two-block stretch crammed with beer bars. A big crowd was concentrated there when black MPs arrested a soldier for drunkenness. They had him under control and were about to take him back to camp when two white MPs came along and took the prisoner away from the black MPs. The troops didn’t like them interfering so they beat up the white MPs and sent them on their way. Fifteen minutes later a larger group of white MPs showed up. The troops beat them up also and ran them off. The white MPs returned with town policemen and shotguns at the ready. By then Hairston had moved to the corner at the beginning of the Lee St. saloon area. A policeman pushed him further to the side yelling, “Get outta my way, nigger!” Then they opened point-blank fire into the group. Hairston saw one man near him fall dead. He said that no one ever determined how many others died, but there were “a lot.” He kept looking for a newspaper report of the incident, but there never was one. B.O. Davis, Sr., (the one black general in WWII), ordered an official investigation and report. Hairston has researched army records and never found this report.

Carolyn Ross Johnston mentions in My Father’s War: Fighting with the Buffalo Soldiers in World War II (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2012. p 39.) that there were also race riots at: Camp Van Dorn, MI; March Field, CA; Fort Bliss, TX; Camp Breckinridge, KT; San Luis Obispo, CA. She adds (on p 45) “In July 1943, police in Beaumont, Texas, shot Private Charles Reid in the back. A similar incident occurred in El Paso when a policeman killed Private Willie Jullis. The stage had been set across the South for violent confrontations. Often African Americans faced courts-martial, beatings, and murder. In April 1941, a black soldier with his arms and legs bound was hanged in Georgia in a wooded area of Fort Benning. Racial violence erupted in Tampa, Florida; Fayetteville, North Carolina and Gurdon, Arkansas.”

*14  Though treated abominably, there may have been an administrative reason for Rock’s demotion since a February 7, ’44 Camp Atterbury Morning Report shows that three others were demoted to Private that day. Because Rock was a “technical” corporal, an officer could demote him as an administrative move with no questions asked. If he had been a “line” corporal, his superior could not demote him without a serious misdemeanor charge and a hearing.

Chapter Four  ▪︎ Irma Biondi on Living under Fascism

15  Voltoni is an invented name to protect the identity of the family who employed Irma.

*16  Giachetti, Cipriano. Article “Tutto pronto per la riappertura del Duomo.” (Everything ready for the reopening of the Cathedral) Barga (LU): La Corsonna, 29 agosto, 1939 numero 10. And Ibid. Article “Nel Duomo Risorto.” (In the Resurrected Duomo.) Barga (LU): La Corsonna, 17 settembre, 1939 (XVII) numero 11.

During his 1930 visit to Barga, Mussolini encouraged the Barga monsignore to pursue duomo renovations (probably including where to obtain funds). In 1939, with the completion of the renovations, the Barga Comune installed adjacent to the Cathedral a marker reading:

Qui sosto` il Duce nella sua visita memoranda—In ammirazione per tanto miracolo d'arte e di natura. (During his memorable visit, here stood the Duce admiring such a miracle of art and nature.) Under a magnificent Lebanese Cypress overlooking the Fosso Piazza, a second marble remembrance was erected in the form of a marble stand with an open book. The text visible on the book read:  Alla memoria di Arnaldo Mussolini l'apostolo della rinascita forestale nei segni del Littorio. (To the memory of Arnaldo Mussolini, apostle of the rebirth of the forest as evidenced in Littorio.) This may seem an odd message but trees are an abundant and important treasure of the Barga area. The La Corsonna article about the renovation ends with enthusiasm for the new gold mosaic background at the end of the apse to show off Barga's enormous iconic 9th century statue of St. Christopher il più fascista dei santi (the most fascist of the saints). [translations by Wales]

Chapter Five  ▪︎ Otis Zachary Meets John Fox

17  James Pratt, son of a 366th soldier, Captain Charles Pratt, and a retired research economist with Cornell University who has become an expert on the 366th Infantry Regiment, made the determination from officers’ rosters that Fox had been promoted from 2nd to 1st Lt. sometime in August, 1942. Pratt wrote me, “From the morning reports, I can determine that [Fox] was a 2nd Lt. on 1 July, 1942 and was a 1st Lt on 20 September, 1942. The officer roster for August, 1942 has a pencil change on his line from 2nd to 1st, so my best guess is that he was promoted in August, 1942, but I do not have a date.”

18  James Pratt informed me that the 366th had a high proportion of officers who had completed ROTC so it was unusual that few officers in Cannon Company had. Earlier on, in August 1941, all six of officers in Fox’s Anti-Tank unit were ROTC.

19  I was unable to verify Zachary’s story about a battery of the 54th Sea Coast Artillery firing from the California coast at a Japanese submarine, but generally his information proved true.

*20  John Fox’s MP duties began when the 366th Infantry Regiment was ordered to fulfill a special detail of military police duty on weekends in Boston because of a local riot which had embarrassed the Army. The riot was caused by black soldiers from two all black regiments, the 369th Coast Artillery stationed in Cape Cod and the 372nd Infantry, a National Guard unit with a battalion from Boston. The existing MPs and Boston Police had difficulty stopping the riot and several from both enforcement units were injured before it ended. Soldiers of the 366th Infantry Regiment had been away on a training exercise when the riot occurred and were not involved. There were no further riots in the area while the 366th detail was in operation.

Transcribed lecture on “The 366th Infantry Regiment and Lt. John R. Fox” delivered by (Ret) Captain Dennette Harrod on 9/9/92 at the US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA.                                                                                                               

*21  Knowing that James Pratt (see note #18 from this chapter) had done a presentation in North Yarmouth, ME about the 366th guard duty in that state, I asked him to research where John Fox was stationed in Maine. He very kindly obliged and I was not surprised by the thoroughness of his report gleaned from studying existing records (morning reports, ration accounts and other records of events). He wrote in an e-mail of 6/4/14:

Having experienced over 200 acts of sabotage by German agents in WWI, the U.S. Army was very aware of the potential threat at the time Germany declared was on the U.S. on December 11th, 1941.  By the beginning of 1942, elements of the 366th Infantry Regiment were deployed to over eighty locations in New England to provide security for essential infrastructure. By the end of 1942, all of these units had been returned to Fort Devens, MA to continue their infantry training.

2nd Lt. John Fox was in Company M at the time of Pearl Harbor. In April, 1942, Company M was deployed to Brownville Junction, ME to guard sensitive locations on the Canadian Pacific and Bangor and Aroostook railroads in that vicinity. Co M left Ft Devens on April 20th and arrived in Bangor, ME. On April 21, they left Bangor and arrived in Brownville, Jct. staying there until May 22, at which time they returned to Bangor’s Dow Field to provide security until July 1, 1942.

I believe that John Fox was with Company M until May 23rd, 1942 when he was sent on some unspecified Detached Service until July 1st, when he returned to the Company.  It may be that he spent this time in Brownville Junction with another company, [but I cannot] verify this.”

22  “If the troops had been organized on a proportionate basis, there would have been twenty all- black full divisions.” Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, p 127. (The emphasis on ‘full divisions’ is mine.)

23  Newsletter, “SIXES REVIEW” Vo. I No. 2 366th Infantry Veterans Association, NY. ARFA Nov. 5 [1945]. p 2.  

24  That Col. Howard Donovan Queen 366th was “tough but also fair” was confirmed by the veterans I interviewed and is also stated in the interview with Sergeant Willard A Williams 366th in The Invisible Soldier: The Experience of the Black Soldier, World War II, compiled and edited by Mary Penick Motley. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1975. p 341.  

Chapter Six  ▪︎ Anna, Adelmo and Berto

25  Savelli, L'Industria in Montagna, p 327: “In 1944 a specialized worker earned 3.4 to 3.5 lire an hour; others 2 lire an hour.” Berto was a specialized worker.

Chapter Seven  ▪︎ The 366th Is Shipped Overseas

26  Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, pp 44–45. Also Gibran, Daniel K. The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co, 2001. p 47.

*27  Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem with Alan Steinberg. Black Profiles in Courage. New York: William Morrow and Co, 1996. p 147. The first man to die in the revolutionary war was Crispus Attucks, an ex-slave sailor. In the Civil War, 37,300 black soldiers were killed, a disproportionately high percentage of the Union Army. The original Buffalo Soldiers, the 9th & 10th cavalries coming out of the Civil War, together with the African-American Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry Regiments, fought sixty battles with Native Americans. In the Spanish-American war these same troops saved the day at San Juan Hill. “. . . despite the fact that the Buffalo Soldiers saved the Rough Riders’ lives, and that black Private Augustus Wally won the only Medal of Honor that day, the papers back home reported that the [white] Rough Riders heroically took Las Guásimas.” Black troops were also critical in taking the fort El Visa and San Juan Hill but again they were given little credit. In WWI 40,000 black troops (in two divisions) joined the Allied Expeditionary Force in France. The AEF tried to prevent them from being used as combat soldiers, but the black Ninety-third did prove themselves by fighting valiantly. Its 369th regiment was so brilliant that it received more citations than any other regiment. “They were the first American unit to reach the Rhine and “fought for 191 consecutive days without losing a trench, giving an inch or surrendering a prisoner. Throughout American military history, no other combat unit ever fought so long nonstop. It earned 170 individual soldiers, as well as the 369th as a unit, France’s highest military award, the Croix de Guerre.” pp. 163–173.

28  Otis Zachary spoke about the stevedores. According to Ivan Houston, “The 9th and 10th Cavalry, the original Buffalo Soldiers, had been sent to North Africa in March 1944, inactivated, and returned as service troops. Houston, Ivan with Gordon Cohn. Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II. iUniverse, 2009. p 27.

29  According to Harold E. Russell Jr., the 366th was moved from AP Hill, VA to Camp Atterbury, Indiana because of racial tension in AP Hill. Russell, Harold E. Company I 366th Infantry. Pittsburgh: RoseDog Books, 2008. p 15.

30  Col. Howard Donovan Queen’s interview in Motley, The Invisible Soldier, pp. 336-337. Also Newsletter, “SIXES REVIEW” Vo. I No. 2 366th Infantry Veterans Association, NY. ARFA Nov. 5 [1945]. p 2. Also Newsletter, “SIXES REVIEW” Vo. I No. 2 366th Infantry Veterans Association, NY. ARFA Nov. 5 [1945]. p 2.

PART II

Chapter Eight  ▪︎ Receiving Political News

31  In 1930 Barga’s population barely exceeded the 10,000 required for it to become a Comune (a governmental seat). Today Barga’s permanent population remains not much more than 10,000.  In the summer with the influx of tourists, there is a lot of activity and the città (city) appears larger than it is.

32  Sereni, Paese Come Tanti, p 39.

33  Moscardini, La Vacanza, p 113.

*34  I know of two Barga families who helped in this extraordinarily generous way. Placido Biaggi’s family hid an English POW for some months. Dr. Mario Giannetti’s family harbored a Jewish family for more than a year. I knew these two personally (both now deceased). I regret that I am unable to cite the many I do not know who also helped.

*35  Without nursing training, Ida Nardini and her daughter Anna Grazia accomplished wonders with their courageous care. When arrested by Nazi authorities in December 1943, Ida Nardini was asked first for her name, address and profession. She startled her questioner by responding to the last question: “Sono una serva del popolo.” (I’m a servant of the people.) She was jailed briefly and then sent home. Sulla Linea Gottica: Diario di 1943 & 1944, unpublished manuscript, courtesy of Giovanna Nardini. p 20 (1943).

Chapter Nine ▪︎ The 366th Assigned to Service Units

*36  Black Americans were deservedly proud of the Tuskegee pilots—their record was truly stellar. George Lucas’ 2012 film Red Tails brings the Tuskegee Airmen story alive on the screen. African-Americans had tried to serve as pilots in WWI and were rejected. Under pressure, the War Department and the Army Air Corps finally constituted the first all-black flying unit in 1941. (Francis, Charles E. and Adolph Caso. The Tuskegee Airmen: The Men Who Changed a Nation. Boston: Branden Books, 1997. pp 38–39.) The budding flight program at Tuskegee received a publicity boost when Eleanor Roosevelt inspected it in March 1941, and flew with an African-American flight instructor. She then used her influence to help finance a loan to build Morton field for the outfit. (Moye, J. Todd. Freedom Flyers: The Tuskeegee Airmen of World War II. New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 2010. pp 52–54.) The Tuskegee program, which accepted only highly qualified African Americans (those with high test scores and higher education), began officially in June 1941. Black Americans were deservedly proud of the Tuskegee pilots—their record proved to be truly stellar.  Regarding their performance, see above sources and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee Airmen.

*37  Robert Brown said in an interview (of 5/24/95 tape one side 1 #205):“We went into a cantonment area up in the hill. [Some squadrons] from Tuskegee were already over there under the command of Col. Davis. They found out we were there and they went and got their stunt planes and started flying over us. We were bivouacked out in the open there—outside of Naples. . . We found out after we left that the Germans had found out that we were there and had bombed that area. Germans have got intelligence everywhere—even the Italian people, some of them go along with the program. Just like [us]—we had intelligence everywhere too.” (Brown became a battalion intelligence officer when the 366th reached Barga.)

38  See notes #26 and #27.

39  This incident occurred after June 15th because a morning Report (recovered by James Pratt) shows that Lt Fox was assigned to detached service in Foggia from May 26 until June 15, 1944.  It is unknown what Fox was doing in Foggia.

Chapter Ten  ▪︎ Entertainment and Danger

40  Dr. Piergiorgio Pieroni, local expert on the German Todt organization, confirmed the Todt prisoners’ arrangements.  Other information on Todt’s operations in Borgo a Mozzano is to be found in Rosi, Carlo Gabrielli. Le Fortificazioni della ‘Gotica’ Fra Lucca e Pistoia. Opuscolo (pamphlet) Lucca: 1986.

41  Berto’s story about SMI’s iron cartridge casings is confirmed in Savelli, L’Industria in Montagna, p 341.

42  The first Allied air incursion in the Serchio Valley hit the rail lines in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana on May 18th 1944. Federigi, Fabrizio. Val di Serchio e Versilia Linea Gotica. Roma: Versilia Oggi, 1979. p 30.

43  Pellegrinetti, Mario. Appunti per una Storia Della Guerra Civile in Garfagnana 1943–1945. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi editore, 2003. p 41.

Chapter Eleven  ▪︎ Zachary Sent to Rome

44  The town just north of Rome that Mussolini named Littoria is now called Latina. I found no corroborating evidence to Zachary’s report that 366th soldiers participated in liberating Mussolini’s Rome airport, but his information generally proved true.

Chapter Twelve  ▪︎ The Biondi Brothers Choose

45  Moscardini, La Vacanza, p 115.

46   Federigi, Val di Serchio e Versilia Linea Gotica, p 122.

47  Pellegrinetti, Mario. Appunti per una Storia Della Guerra Civile in Garfagnana 1943–1945. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi editore, 2003. p 63.

48  Berto did not remember who informed his squad of these events. Pippo may have sent a messenger instead of coming himself.

*49  Pardini, Giuseppe. LA REPUBBLICA SOCIALE ITALIANA e la guerra in provincia di Lucca (1940–1945). Lucca: Istituto Storico della Resistenza, Edizione S. Marco Litotipo Editore, 2001. pp 370–371. (translated here by the author). “Lucca was totally liberated by the patriots. Col. Sherman asked the partisans to lead an exploratory patrol into Lucca; then fifty men of the 370th under the command of Capt. C.F. Gandy followed. The Germans retreated.”

Cleveland Wells, with the 370th, was among the Buffalo Soldiers following partisans in liberating Lucca. He reported to me (in an October 2010 interview) that the first thing he saw upon passing through the gate of the walled city were sawhorses holding a large sign reading “OFF LIMITS TO” followed by the Buffalo insignia. Apparently white commanders found time during the offensive to identify segregated areas. Wells took the sign and carried it with him for much of his time in Italy, but finally lost it.

50  Pellegrinetti, Appunti per una Storia Della Guerra Civile in Garfagnana 1943–1945. p 73. Also Nardini, Sulla Linea Gottica: Diario di 1943 & 1944, p 14.

51  Rosi, Carlo Gabrielli. Le Fortificazioni della ‘Gotica’ Fra Lucca e Pistoia. pamphlet Lucca: 1986. p 5.

52  Arnold, Thomas St. John. Buffalo Soldiers. Manhattan, Kansas: Sunflower University Press, 1990. p 14.

53  Lombardi, Monsignore Lino. All’Ombra del Duomo di Barga. Barga: edizioni “L’ora di Barga” Tiporafia Gasperetti di Barga, 1986. p 159 Also Sereni, Paese Come Tanti, pp 65–66.

54  Moscardini, La Vacanza, p 117.

55  On September 26, German troops (42nd Jager) retreated north, the main command going to their garrison at Castiglione just beyond Castelnuovo.  Soon the main command moved again to the west at Perpoli and nearby Camporgiano.

Chapter Thirteen  ▪︎ Change in Status for the 366th

no notes

Chapter Fourteen  ▪︎ Berto’s Partisan Adventures

*56  Nardini, Sulla Linea Gottica: Diario di 1943 & 1944 (unpublished), p 6 of 1944. Ida Nardini’s son was taken in Bagni di Lucca by German soldiers on August 19, 1944 and sent to Dachau where he did heavy factory work and unloaded train cars under Allied bombardments. Miraculously he survived and returned home after the war.

*57  “The OSS was organized with 4 groups of officials & soldiers to be in contact with partisans.” Petracchi, Giorgio. Intelligence” Americana e Partigiani sulla Linea Gotica: i documenti segreti dell’OSS. Foggia: Bastogi Editrice, 1992. p 5.

 “Stephen O. Rossetti [became] responsible for the IV Corps Detachment, a section of the OSS/5th Army Detachment, with jurisdiction on the western section of the Gothic Line from the Garfagnana to the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. Oct 16th (when Gerald Sabatino entered the story) OSS was organized with 4 groups of officials & soldiers to be in contact with partisans.” October 23rd the cooperative rapport between Pippo’s group and the Americans was established formally.

Among the duties assigned to this unit:

• organize patrols of partisans to disturb enemy & obtain info

• provide Americans with guides to area

• create block points to control influx of civilians over the line

• use partisans as couriers

• furnish partisans with arms & other necessities

• encourage the collaboration between first Feb [Brazilians] then the 92nd Div

• obtain information including politics of the partisans

• prepare for coordination with the partisans during spring offensive”

Petracchi, Giorgio. Intelligence” Americana e Partigiani sulla Linea Gotica: i documenti segreti dell’OSS. Foggia: Bastogi Editrice, 1992. p 5. [Above translation by the author.]

58  Giannasi, Andrea. Il Brasile in Guerra: La partecipazione della Forca Expedicionaria Brasileira alla Campagna d’Italia (1944–1945). Civitavecchia - Roma: Prospettiva editrice, 2004. p 73. And, Federigi, Val di Serchio e Versilia Linea Gotica, p 125.

59  Federigi, Val di Serchio e Versilia Linea Gotica, p 128.

60  Ibid p 136.  Also Giannasi, Il Brasile in Guerra, p 78.

*61  In the early 1900s La Rocca tower had four stories and was 54′ tall. By the time of WWII the top story had been removed and the tower was approximately 46′ tall. (The tower had not been well maintained and had been damaged in the earthquakes of 1902 and 1920.) Giannini, Dario. “Sommocolonia before World War II.” This is printed together with Biondi, Vittorio. The Battle of Sommocolonia.) Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (LU Italy): Garfagnana Editrice, 2011. Pp 67–68. Translated into English by Anne Leslie Saunders.

62  Ibid, pp 65–66.

*63  I interviewed Bernard Moscardini in July 1987. (His English was impeccable—he vacationed in Sommocolonia but lived in England). In addition to my interview with Bernard, I learned many things that happened to Dina Moscardini’s basement group in interviews with Gina and Maria Marchetti. Moscardini later authored La Vacanza (Kennoway, Scotland: self-published by Spiderwize, 2009) about his wartime experience. Not wishing to be influenced, I purposely did not read his book until my own manuscript was complete regarding his family’s experience.

*64 Thanks to Alan Franklin (MA MCLIP) at the Manx National Heritage Library in Douglas, Isle of Man, I learned that records show that Moscardini, Giuseppe, #59482 (Birth November 14, 1894 in Barga) was still interned as of May 29, 1943 in House 18, “O” Camp, Onchan Camp: MNHL MS 11551/4 (TNA HO 215/475). But there is no record of the date of his release. By 1945 the number of Italians held at the camp was down to about ten percent of the original, so he may not have been still interned on December 26, 1944. His son, Bernard, did not know the release date but he wrote, “Although [my father] had never been a paid-up member of the Fascist party he had always been a very ardent admirer of Mussolini. He would never compromise in his beliefs and because of his stubborn stance in this matter he was in fact one of the very last internees to be released.” Moscardini, La Vacanza, p 194. The last internees were released in late spring 1945.

*65 A height of 16.5 meters is shown on Salvatore Bovani’s architectural rendering of the La Rocca tower done shortly after the war. However, Marino Vincenti, whose family owned the tower for some sixty years, thought it was 14 meters tall, which would make it forty-six feet instead of fifty-four feet tall. The difference in the estimates have to do with whether the calculation considered the tower to be four stories, as it was at the beginning of the twentieth century, or three stories, as it was in the 1930s and early 1940s. See Note #61.

*66  Berto kept his secret about being shot by a Brazilian for over sixty years. He told his superiors at the time, and everyone thereafter, that he was shot by a German. Knowing how exceedingly honest he was, I was astounded to learn that he had lied to me about this important fact over 15 years of intermittent interviews. But I quickly realized he was being loyal to his comrades (and protecting a man he didn’t know who had done him serious harm). The truth only came out because his son, Vittorio Biondi, a lieutenant colonel in the Italian Army was investigating the WWII military facts surrounding Sommocolonia. Vittorio asked him, “How could you have been shot on October 31st [1944] by a German soldier in Lama when RSI Fascist Italian troops had recently relieved the Germans there? There were no Germans in the immediate area on October 31st.” Berto was caught. He finally confessed that he was shot by a Brazilian.

Vittorio Biondi, named after Berto’s father, wrote a small, definitive military history of the Sommocolonia battle: La Battaglia di Sommocolonia: 26 Dicembre 1944. Fornaci di Barga (LU): Tipografia Gasperetti, edizione II, 2008. For two years prior to its publication, Vittorio and I carried on a running dialogue about WWII events in the village. He was most helpful to me in clarifying aspects of the military situation and, because of my interviews with the veterans, I was occasionally able to help him with information about the Americans involved. I refer to his book often in these notes, but always use the second edition because it includes an excellent English translation by Anne Leslie Saunders: The Battle of Sommocolonia. Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (LU Italy): Garfagnana Editrice, 2011. 

Anne Saunders, James Pratt (see note #17) and I submitted Biondi’s name for a US Army Commendation Medal for his efforts to pass on this history, not only through his book, but also through giving tours of Sommocolonia for American soldiers stationed in Italy. Lt. Col. Kevin Bigelman, then US Army Garrison Livorno commander, presented Lt. Col. Vittorio Biondi the Army Commendation medal on April 3, 2012. The army newspaper article about the event pointed out that a US military medal for a non-American is rare and that it is even more unusual for such a recommendation to be initiated by civilians.

Chapter Fifteen  ▪︎ Zachary Sent to the Front

67  ‘Lo Slavo’ Antonio Mrakic, the partisan who spoke both Russian and German, was in charge of the Russians. He told me their number in his interview of October 18, 1991.

Chapter Sixteen  ▪︎ Berto’s Recovery

*68  The identity of the Alpino food supplier who died in Sommocolonia’s piazza was unknown for many years. He had been buried in the Sommocolonia cemetery with a simple wooden cross reading ‘soldato ignoto’ (unknown soldier). It wasn’t until 2012 that a relative wrote the Giornale di Barga (Barga newspaper) inquiring about the burial place of Rocco Botta from near Salerno that the mystery identity was unraveled. The puzzle was complicated by the fact that the relative had an incorrect date of death, but eventually an obscure archival file was found in the Comune di Barga confirming that the Alpino who died in Sommocolonia’s San Rocco Piazza on October 31, 1944 was indeed Rocco Botta, age 20. His remains were removed to his family plot. On October 31, 2013, sixty-nine years after his death, there was a mass and a ceremony honoring him in Sommocolonia. Family members and Brazilian soldiers attended.

I remain astounded at the information regarding Sommocolonia’s wartime history which continues to be uncovered so long after the events. See #253

*69  In writing about the battle of October 31, 1944 in an article posted on www.associazionericreativasommocolonia.it, Vittorio Biondi gives a different version of how Paolo Biondi arrived home in his blinded state: “Paolo . . . verrà raccolto più tardi, dai paesani che sentono le grida di dolore.” (Paolo was collected later by villagers who heard his cries of pain.) This last seems more plausible, but when in doubt, I go with the version given me by my interviewee—in this case, Paolo Biondi, who said he eventually groped his way home.

*70  The list of supplies the US Army sent to Pippo in the first delivery:

• 48 pairs of wool pants, 63 wool shirts

• 40 pairs of wool underpants, 40 pr wool undershirts

• 23 rain coats

• 88 pairs of wool socks, 4 pr of service shoes

• 80 caliber-30 guns

• 56 caliber-30 rifles

• 29 BAR machineguns with 58 bullet loading

• 20 SMG sub machineguns

• 8 Browning light machine-guns

• 3 Bazookas (portable anti-tank rocket launchers)

• 1,000 carbine ammunition

• 20 Bazooka ammunition

• 1 case of “C” confection

•  6 batteries BA–42

• 4 cases of medicinal (jungle type)

• 10 cases of C rations

• 2 cases of K rations

Petracchi, “Intelligence” Americana e Partigiani sulla Linea Gotica, p 52.
[translation by the author.]

Chapter Seventeen  ▪︎ The 366th on the Gothic Line   

71  James Pratt found Morning Reports for Cannon Company showing that its location remained 3.5 miles south of Pisa until December 9, 1944, when it moved to the Barga Area at “Loppia di Sotto” (lower Loppia). It is called this on military documents because there is a Loppia di Sopra (higher Loppia). I will call it simply Loppia as the locals refer to the area.

*72  Harrod, transcribed lecture on “The 366th Infantry Regiment and Lt. John R. Fox.” (See note #20.) About the long period when units of his regiment were scattered around Italy guarding airfields, Col. Queen said, “A combat-ready infantry regiment that had an excellent rating was put out to pasture, so to speak. When morale was high and we were in peak condition for combat they could find no combat position for us. When the situation reversed itself, they threw the 366th into battle.” Col. Queen in an interview with Motley, The Invisible Soldier, p 339.

*73  My interviewee, Lloyd French, a 366th lieutenant, who had been sent to the frontline with troops who were given no ammunition, was convinced that it was a racially-based intentional “mistake.” He remained angry about the inexcusable situation for the rest of his life. French was later wounded in a fire fight near the Corsonna river shortly before the Sommocolonia battle and does not figure in Braided in Fire because he was in the hospital at the time of its central action. A mild mannered, non-confrontational man, French was able, at the very end of his life, to express his anger at the wartime unfair treatment of blacks by their white superiors. His wife, Barbara, (who, shortly after she was widowed, came in 2000 with their two sons to Sommocolonia for the La Rocca alla Pace event), spoke of her deep appreciation for his being able to verbalize some of this in a public venue, during a fundraiser I put on for the La Rocca monument held at the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco in 1999. It is impossible to know the truth, but even if the incident resulted from a stupid technical error, French’s anger was more than justified by all the other intentional injustices he and his comrades experienced.

I did later wonder about the ‘accidental' nature of French’s horrific frontline situation when I learned that his unit was not the only black outfit in the Serchio Valley to experience it. Veteran artilleryman, Joseph Hairston told me (on the phone 3/11/11) that on November 3rd, 1944, during “lock and load,” the white superior officer supplied no ammunition to the 371st Infantry troops when they replaced the 370th on the frontline near Seravezza. Then I came upon a startling statement of Colonel Queen’s in his interview with Mary Penick Motley. Queen said, “On December 2, I was informed by Major Arnold of staff command that my regiment would occupy the line, quote, ‘equipped or not equipped.’”The Invisible Soldier, p 339.

74 Arnold, Thomas St. John. Buffalo Soldiers. p 7.

75  Frank Cloud described the stuck truck incident upon arrival in Loppia and how he and Fox solved the problem. The December 11th Morning Report (see #71) is clearly mistaken when it says that Cloud and Fox arrived two days after the rest of Cannon Company.

76  Otis Zachary told me this patrol story during a recorded phone interview on July 30, 1995, side two #633.

Chapter Eighteen  ▪︎ Paolo’s Welcome Home Party

77 It was a common practice for partisans to shave the heads of women who had been with Germans, but it did not happen frequently in the Barga area. Nina and Silvia are fictitious names to protect the women’s identity.

Chapter Nineteen  ▪︎ The 366th’s Attachment to the 92nd Division

*78 General Almond’s “welcome” was mentioned by nearly every 366th vet I interviewed and is cited in numerous sources, including Col. Howard Donovan Queen’s interview in Motley, The Invisible Soldier, p 339. The date of Almond’s speech varies by a few days according to source. I arrived at December 1st because Pvt. Rothacker Smith said he heard the speech in Barga and immediately afterwards headed up to Sommocolonia on his father’s birthday, Dec. 1st. Some texts say that only officers were asked to attend Almond’s speech and that it was delivered in Viarreggio, but I trust Rock’s memory, which has proved correct in numerous other instances.

79  Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, p 559.

80  Col. Howard Donovan Queen’s interview in Motley, The Invisible Soldier, p 339. The letter was also quoted by Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy p 49.

*81  After writing about Colonel Howard Donovan Queen’s role in preserving the 366th Infantry Regiment prior to becoming its leader, Hondon Hargrove is passionate in explaining how unfortunate it was that the proud 366th Infantry Regiment was not allowed to remain an integral unit under the command of its own leaders. Hargrove, Ibid.

“This matter of preserving the integrity and unity of the 366th Infantry was of utmost significance to the officers and enlisted men of the regiment. Throughout the three and a half years of its existence these men had endured many trials and tribulations not common to any other American regiments, and they had survived them all, remaining together as a single fighting unit. They emerged bonded together by pride in its history, and confidence in itself and its capabilities, and with an almost sacred devotion to THE REGIMENT.”

82  Newsletter, “SIXES REVIEW” Vo. I No. 2 366th Infantry Veterans Association, NY. ARFA Nov. 5 [1945]. p 3.

83  Harrod, transcribed lecture on “The 366th Infantry Regiment and Lt. John R. Fox.” See note #20.

*84  Unbeknownst to Rock, there had been plenty of recent firing in the vicinity of Sommocolonia. Just four days previous, on November 28th, L Company of the (92nd Division) reported several firefights with patrols near Lama. Civilians said Germans near Lama were laying shoe mines that day. L Company’s Captain Jarman “reported that six of his men and two civilians had been wounded and evacuated. Mortar fire was everywhere.” Houston, Black Warriors, p 140.

*85  Willie Bailey, who served in the Pacific, gave blood in the 49th General Hospital to save the life of a white P38 fighter pilot, despite the Southern-born pilot’s statement, “My father says Negroes [are] no better than dogs.” Bailey said he acted because the pilot was “another woman’s son.” After the war, Bailey (who later became Reverend Bailey) was welcomed into the pilot’s home and thanked genuinely by the father who revised his feelings about blacks. See documentary film: Invisible Men of Honor: The Legend of the Buffalo Soldiers. Jim White, producer. Chicago: Post Effects, sponsored by Wal-Mart, first aired in February 2005 on TVONE, Houston. White’s comment in the film is that Bailey’s action healed “the wound of a fellow soldier and the hearts of two strangers.” (Wales was a consultant for this documentary.)

86  “Each [ten-in-one] case also included cigarettes, water purification tablets, matches, salt, can openers, toilet paper, toilet soap, and paper towels.” Houston, Black Warriors, p 40.

87  Ibid. p 43–44.

Chapter Twenty  ▪︎ Villagers’ Experiences with Black GIs

88  Bruno Sereni wrote about the new American occupiers in Barga in spring 1945: “The white Americans, reserved and distrustful, make us mourn the company of the blacks and their generosity.” La Guerra a Barga. Barga (LU): Edizione Il Giornale di Barga, 1968, p 92.

*89  Many military histories report that at this juncture Axis troops were suffering from hunger, but Karl Schroeder, a German veteran (Fourth Hoch Mountain Battalion A Company), who fought in Wintergewitter (Winter Storm) in the vicinity of Sommocolonia, wrote to me on September 23, 2010: “It is simply untrue and a misassumption that we suffered from hunger.” A second Axis veteran, Austrian Josef Lampel (Fourth Hoch Mountain Battalion C Company), also in the Sommocolonia battle, wrote me on September 12, 2010: “We were hungry all the time.”

However, both these men (and all the relevant military histories) agree that the offensive of December 26th in the Serchio Valley had nothing to do with resupplying Axis troops, (a reason sometimes given by local civilians).

Chapter Twenty-one  ▪︎ 366th Soldiers’ Experiences in the Village

90  The precise date of this church service is unknown, but an informed guess (at the end of Zachary’s Forward Observer Duties in the village and before Cloud’s) would put it at December 17th, 1944.

*91  The military meaning of fascio is stacking guns in this fashion. Fascio also means a ‘bundle of sticks,’ something very familiar in the contadino world. The very word ‘Fascism’ comes from this wholesome image of pieces of wood tied together in a community. But there is a more sinister connotation. In pre-Roman and Roman times, an attendant sometimes carried a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head in front of his master to signify the power and authority of the master. This is the image and symbolism used by Fascism.

*92   Zachary was to keep this Sommocolonia momento card his whole life.

Irma was the first to tell me about Buffalo Soldiers and German soldiers attending the same Mass. Some years later the remarkable make-up of the congregation came out in interviewing Zachary. I also heard from villagers first (Anna and Pina) about having to return blood plasma in order to have it replaced by the same thing marked “C” for colored. Much later in interviewing Rock, he related the incident and how hearing about it appalled the villagers.

PART III

Chapter Twenty-two  ▪︎ December 23rd 1944                                 

93  Wyatt, William, Team Leader, Survey Sergeant 598 Field Artillery Battalion, 92nd Division. “On the Point with Lt. Fox,” an article published in the Buffalo Association Veterans Newsletter, September 1989.

*94  In my September 12, 2010 interview with 366th Lieutenant Arthur Fearing, who in December ’44 was weapons platoon leader of a mortar and light machine gun outfit in Ponte di Catagnana, he told me the following story: Fearing on foot was leading Almond’s jeep up the mulattiera when a German 88 mm artillery shell hit the vulnerable spot, landing between him and Almond. It was the last he saw of his General, who had claimed he wanted to check out Fearing’s targets up front. But this is an uncharacteristic incident. For all of his faults, Gen. Almond was not known to be a coward. On the contrary, there are reports that, because of his bravado, he sometimes placed himself and some of his subordinates in unnecessary jeopardy. See Johnston, My Father’s War, pp 42–43 and p 98. The latter describes a similar situation, only that time Almond lingered in sight of the enemy despite the warnings of his jeep driver. Cannon fire hit his jeep and killed his aide. Criticism regarding that foolish bravado may have caused him react differently to the situation on the Sommocolonia mulattiera.

*95  Rock was not certain that he had met John Fox, only that he had visited a 366th forward observer in the La Rocca tower. Aware that Zachary and Cloud occupied a different OP, I surmised that it had to be Fox—though Brazilians had used it, Fox was the only American forward observer who had chosen that position. (Fox became the third forward observer with the 366th, there were no others.)

Chapter Twenty-three  ▪︎ Christmas Eve 1944

*96  Axis plans for Wintergewitter had long been in the works. In mid-October, Gen. Jost, commander of the 42nd Div Jaeger, spoke with Gen. Carloni, commander of the Italian Fascist Monterosa Division and Gen. Fretter-Pico, commander of the German 148th Infantry Division about the possibility of a surprise attack in the Serchio Valley and laterally in Versilia with the objective of retaking the ports of Viareggio and Livorno, both extremely important to the Allies in supplying the 5th Army. Mussolini, who had been writing letters to Marshal Kesselring and to Hitler, lobbying for his RSI troops to be engaged in offensive action, was most enthusiastic. But at a further meeting it was decided this plan was too ambitious because of lack of means and air support and especially because Berlin (Hitler) would never have approved a major effort taking resources from the Eastern front. (Hitler knew nothing about Wintergewitter.) A reduced plan involving an attack only in the Serchio Valley was approved by Kesselring and in preparation by the end of November with Gen. Otto Fretter-Pico in command of the operation. Of course the Allies had no way of knowing that German forces did not intend to retake the important ports. Gen. Almond should have been paying very close attention to the reports Sabatino, Pippo and others had been giving him regarding the build-up on the Axis side. Fiaschi, Cesare. La guerra sulla Linea Gotica occidentale: Div. Monterosa 1944–45. Bologna: Lo Scarabeo, 1999. p 90. And Lamb, Richard. War in Italy 1943–1945.  London: John Murray Ltd. 1993. pp 118–120.

*97  On the day I met Gerrald Sabatino in Barga on July 1, 2001, he told me the story about Pippo (leader of the 11th Zone partisans) answering Gen Almond’s question, “Don't you want to join the American Army?” with, “Yes, but only if I am a general, like you.” Sabatino later confirmed the story in our letter correspondence of October 2002.

Chapter Twenty-four ▪︎ Christmas Day 1944

*98  Alan Phelps, whose father, William, was a lieutenant with the 366th in the Serchio Valley in 1944, told me that Graham H. Jenkins went by his middle name “Hervey.” Phelps’ father and Jenkins both grew up in Philadelphia and were close friends. However, many of Jenkins’ fellow soldiers (including several whom I interviewed) mistakenly called him “Herbie.”

*99  James Pratt informed me in a 11/26/18 e-mail that Lt. Jenkins’ H company platoon of machine gunners was attached to F company in Sommocolonia. Pratt wrote, “This type of thing was common for Company H because they were the heavy weapons guys.” It therefore makes sense that during the battle Lt. Jenkins with Company H was in close communication with his cousin, Lt. Fearing with company F.

100  Excerpts from John Fox’s letters courtesy of Arlene Fox.

101  On December 24th, partisan Antonio Mrakic (“lo Slavo”) and his platoon planted 240 mines just above Sommocolonia. Because he spoke Slavic languages, Mrakic’s platoon was made up mostly of escaped Russian POWs. My interview with Mrakic on 5/10/96.

*102  I had difficulty verifying the rationing of ammunition Rock mentioned. It seemed very strange and I never would have pursued the issue were it not for the fact that virtually everything Rock reported had proved to be true. Artilleryman Otis Zachary never heard of the rationing and when I asked artilleryman Joseph Hairston about it in a March 11, 2011 phone call, he said, “No, not possible. Almond was a racist and stupid but not that stupid—that would have been grounds for court martial.” Evidently neither of these men’s units were subjected to the rationing. But when I spoke to rifle platoon leader Spencer Moore on March 23, 2011, he said that, while his platoon had plenty of ammunition, when he was in Seravezza he saw with his field glasses a liter with 4 or 5 Germans nearby. He radioed artillery and was told that they had “fired their ration for the day.” (He added that an English artilleryman came on and said, “Lieutenant, I’ll fire your mission”—he did so and it was a good hit.) I finally came upon written confirmation on page 212 of Brian Booker’s African Americans in the United States Army in World War II (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, 2008). Regarding mid-December 1944, Booker writes: “Allotments of artillery ammunition were greatly reduced, and the Italian front was now a secondary theater in the European campaign. Limitations of 15 rounds per day for each 105 mm howitzer and 11 rounds per day for the 155 mm gun were initially imposed. Later in the winter, allocations were reduced even further. Drastic reductions were also made in infantry supporting ammunition which included 81 mm and 60 mm mortars, as well as .30 caliber rifle rounds.” Carolyn Ross Johnston also mentions the rationing as being one of the 92nd’s problems. (My Father’s War, p 70.) Rock’s machine gun unit had limited supply on Christmas Day. One can only hope that this was not the case the day after.

*103  It was unknown why the 2nd battalion 370th withdrew from Sommocolonia until I interviewed Gerrald Sabatino in person on 7/1/01. Gerald Sabatino did not remember the name of the white Lieutenant Colonel commanding those troops (and the two 366th platoons) and I have not found it in any other source. Not knowing about Sabatino’s urgent advice delivered in person Christmas night, both American and Italian military historians have been mystified about the reason why the 2nd battalion 370th withdrew from Sommocolonia.

*104  The Lieutenant Colonel could have ordered the two 366th platoons under his command to retreat with the rest of his troops. Or else his battalion could have stayed with them to face the coming attack in full force. His choice to abandon the few 366th soldiers to defend Sommocolonia appears unconscionable. There is a partial (though certainly inadequate) explanation in the strange position the 366th Infantry Regiment occupied generally in the chain of command. James Pratt, in his lecture on the 366th at Ft. Devens, MA on 11/9/13, explained that being a regiment without belonging to a permanent division made it something of an orphan. (The 366th was one of 52 such “separate” regiments, only two of which were ‘colored.’) These regiments were outside the normal chain of command. Such an unattached regiment was meant to be moved easily to hot spots where it would perform as an integral unit. But after the 366th was attached to the 92nd Division, it was not maintained as an intact regiment. Its troops were parceled out in small units to 92nd Division high ranking officers without the relevant 366th officers. This situation undermined the level of trust the men of the 366th had in their now only temporary white superiors and on the other side of the coin, it caused the officers in charge not to feel the same level of responsibility towards these men who were not their own regular troops. (i.e. The Lieutenant Colonel may have worried about what his superiors would later say about his decision to withdraw. In leaving the two 366th platoons in place, he could point out that he did not leave Sommocolonia entirely unprotected.) We cannot know for certain that the Lieutenant Colonel informed Fox and Jenkins of the coming attack, but one assumes he would inform the critical forward observer, especially as Fox was in the tower virtually next door to the lieutenant colonel’s own location in the village Headquarters (the Moscardini house).

105  The partisan who received laughter at a request for reinforcements at Sommocolonia was Ambrogio Corneli, age 18, from Tiglio (a village near Barga). His interview appears in Sereni, Bruno. La Guerra a Barga. p 114.

Chapter Twenty-five ▪︎ December 26th, 1944 — The Battle

*106  Irma Biondi said that at noon the Sommocolonia bells rang for Angeles Dominum and at 5:00 pm for Ave Maria, then at 9:00 pm the bells rang a dirge-like three-note descending scale for the dead (in the winter this was at 8:00 pm). In addition there was always at least one call to afternoon vespers, sometimes two.

*107  See #101 re the recently expanded minefield just north of Sommocolonia (also mentioned in Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 62). There is confusion about the number of attackers killed by mine explosions:

Hans Burtscher, an Austrian non-commissioned officer 2nd Company of the Fourth Hoch Mountain Rangers in the Sommocolonia battle, wrote in German an unpublished diary which he sent in 1970 to Alfredo Barroni in Barga. Years later I found a copy in Barga. Cristoph Neizert kindly translated the diary into English for me in 1997. In 2000, the diary was published in Italian in: Del Giudice, Davide, and Mori, Riccardo. La Linea Gotica tra la Garfagnana e Massa Carrara Settembre 1944–Aprile 1945: volume I. Massa: Libreria Gasperini, 2000. On page 28 of this edition, Burtscher states, “Soldati di sanità rientranti riferiscono che tutta la 3a Compagnia di 46 uomini all’attacco è capitata in un campo minato.” (Medics returning from the attack say that the entire 3a Company of 46 men happened into a mine field.) I noticed that later books about this action assumed that the 46 men were all casualties. This number of men killed and wounded in a minefield seemed to me unlikely, so I looked again at Neizert’s English translation. It reads, “Returning stretcher-bearers report that the entire 3rd company has been killed during the attack by landmines except for forty-six men.” I had this sentence double checked by German-speaking Birgit and John Urmson, who confirmed Neizert’s translation was correct. Clearly the words except for are critical and the forty-six is meaningless unless one knows how many were originally in the 3rd company. (Companies vary in size.)

However many were in the 3rd company, I doubted Burtscher’s meaning that a large number were killed by the mines. Burtscher’s diary is entertainingly written but cannot be depended on for accuracy. (He is incorrect about the time of the battle and even the date—he put it on Christmas Day—and he has added details he likely learned on a postwar visit to Barga.) Still, I figured he was probably correct that some soldiers died in the minefield. Cesare Fiaschi, an author who had been an officer with Fascist troops in the Serchio Valley, reports (in his La guerra sulla Linea Gotica occidentale. p 99.) that “the 3rd Company of Kampfgruppe IV Hoch, composed of forty-one men, who proceeded to an advanced position together with the artillery forward observers, after having made a minefield explode—a vast previously unknown minefield that caused the loss of a few men.” (The emphasis on a few is mine—Fiaschi’s word in Italian is “alcuni” which can also mean “some.”) Obviously, if there were only forty-one men in the company to begin with, it makes no sense that they all died “except for forty-six” as Burtscher said.

Later I was in correspondence (February 23, 2010–October 1, 2012) with veteran Karl Schroeder, a German non-commissioned officer in the V Hoch Mountain Battalion (Company A), who fought in Wintergewitter in the vicinity of Sommocolonia and became the historian for his unit. (Our letters were translated, again thanks to Birgit and John Urmson.) I asked Schroeder about the minefield deaths. In his letter of March 21, 2012, Schroeder replied:

And another thing that keeps going through my head and that I find unbelievable, is the assertion that such a large number of the 3rd Company were killed or wounded when marching through a minefield. For me, this is inconceivable. We were soldiers with many years of experience at war. If we really had found ourselves in a minefield, we would have drawn the consequences and modified or changed plans for the attack, or found an alternative after the first death or wounding. There is no evidence to support a claim of a greater number of casualties. After having encountered the mine field, the 3rd company carried out further engagements/attacks in the region of and upon Gasparetti and Bugliano; in no reports either to the Group Command or the Platoon Command, neither in any of the soldiers’ letters is there any mention of such losses; except perhaps by American soldiers fleeing our successful attack.

Though Schroeder did not know the precise number of men of the 3rd Company killed in the minefield, it is clear from his letter and from what Fiaschi wrote, that there were only a few. But one can understand how Italians writing about the engagement would mistakenly conclude that there were 46 minefield casualties when their information comes from a not entirely reliable diary translated incorrectly into Italian.

*108  Some military historians refer to these Axis troops simply as ‘IV Hoch’ (and the Alpine Mittenwald Battalion as ‘Mittenwald’). These include Fiaschi, Cesare. La guerra sulla Linea Gotica occidentale: Div. Monterosa 1944–45. Bologna: Lo Scarabeo, 1999. p 95, and Biondi, La Battaglia di Sommocolonia, pp. 86 & 88. 

Karl Schroeder (see above note #107) called it “Angehoriger der Hochgebirgsjager-Bataillons 4.” I’ve seen this battalion translated into English as the “Fourth Alpine Rangers,” the “4th High Mountain Hunters,” and the “IV Hoch Mountain Pioneers.” I use ‘Fourth Hoch Mountain Rangers’ because I wish to retain the German ‘Hoch’ (meaning “High”), recognizable to historians in various languages, and ‘Rangers’ because it conveys some sense of a unit capable of covering great distances. “They were excellent troops often used to deal with difficult frontline combat issues.”  http://hochgebirgsjaeger4.8m.com/history.html  (February 9, 2012)

The battalion was raised in the Epirus area in Greece on November 20th, 1943, drawing from elements of I./Geb.Jäg.Rgt. 98, already experienced mountaineering soldiers, (some of whom had fought the Russians in the Caucasus). This Hoch battalion was deployed in numerous Italian locations, including Monte Cassino. It finished the war attached to the 114th. Jäger Division. http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=138816  (February 9, 2012)

In a letter of January 11, 2012, Karl Schroeder wrote:

The 4th High Mountain Battalion had a planned strength of 1200 men, among which the fighting strength was to be 850 men.  The hunter/soldiers of the battalion had combat companies and platoons, “Pioneer platoons” and squads, intelligent squads, a mountain artillery group, medical corpsmen, and a field clinic for their use. Units of the high Mountain Battalion were very often—during this time—separated and assigned to other divisions, as individual situations demanded.

I myself belonged to the battalion’s “A Company” and during the war, in several engagements, was wounded five times, each time reaching a field hospital (where my bullet or shrapnel wounds were treated) and then went back to my battalion and my company. I was not an officer, rather, I belong to the non-commissioned officer corps. After the war I had close contact with a former commander, with whom I worked out the history of our battalion; and from whom I obtained his own history and together with him and with the help of other comrades who knew that I was searching for historical data, documented the history of our service…

I would like to offer a personal observation that does not pertain to Sommocolonia. My late wife, in the spring of 1943, as Russian troops occupied my home in East Germany, was taken away and forced to work in a Russian labor camp for nearly fifteen years. After her return I had to smuggle her across the border of the DDR (East Germany) before we could marry.

In his January 11, 2012 letter, Karl Schroeder wrote the following about the Mittenwald:

The Mittenwalder Training Battalion was a unit that existed well before the war, in which capable young people underwent training to become non-commissioned officers for the units to which they would subsequently be assigned. This unit continued to exist during the war, and to complete the training course, the trainees in their respective groups saw temporary action in battle, as for example here by the counterattack in the region of Sommocolonia…”

Excerpts follow from: http://www.gebirgsjaeger.4mg.com/kopold3.htm  (2/9/12):

 “The Gebirgs jager 98 Regiment was formed on October 1st, 1937 in the Bavarian Alps… Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 98 only had to march about thirty kilometers from Mittenwald near the Austrian border to Innsbruck, the capitol of the Austrian province of Tyrol…

The Gebirgs jager soldiers wore a uniform that was unique to any other arm of the Wehrmacht.  It consisted of a field service jacket with the Edelweiss badge worn on the right sleeve, wide cut trousers, weighty (2.46 km) alpine boots and short puttees.  Characteristic of all mountain soldiers was the Berkowitz (mountain cap) with the Edelweiss badge on the left side.”

*109  Fiaschi, Cesare. La guerra sulla Linea Gotica occidentale:  Div. Monterosa 1944–45. p 95.

Lt Col Vittorio Biondi describes the transfer of these two special units on foot from Emiglia as “impressively powerful. The first Battalion [Fourth Hoch Mountain Rangers] together with a machine-gun section of the Kesselring Battalion left at 1700 on 23 December and arrived at the Radici Pass in a snowstorm. After a rest at the pass, these men reached Castiglione Garfagnana on 24 December at 1600.” Again, after a rest, they left the same night at 2300 and moved into positions for deployment… “This tactical move surely deserves respect for the men’s endurance of difficult weather and maintenance of secrecy. Few other military units would have been in shape to conduct an action of this type in the weather of the period. On 23 December, the snow was over a meter deep.” Biondi, The Battle of Sommocolonia, p 80.

110  Karl Schroeder described them thus (see this chapter #107 and #108).

*111  Until Karl Schroeder cleared up the mixed German and Austrian make-up of the two battalions that attacked Sommocolonia, I thought that they were exclusively Austrian. My military primers on the action were Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops and Hondon Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy. Lee says on p 564, “At 0730 Sommocolonia was surrounded by Austrian and Italian troops, some of whom were dressed as partisans.” Hargrove wrote much the same on p 63. I knew from my Italian interviewees that these books were mistaken about Fascist Italian troops being involved in Sommocolonia regardless of how they were dressed, but I assumed they were correct about the Axis troops being Austrian (except for the addition of a small unit of German Kesselring sharpshooters). Daniel Gibran understandably made the same mistake in his 2001 book The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II. Gibran wrote on pp 129–130, “During the night, hundreds of enemy soldiers, dressed as partisans, began to pour into the village” and in the morning “Austrian troops and Italian Fascists, elements of the German army, now dressed in their respective uniforms, appeared like demons out of the blue and savagely attacked this tiny hamlet.” Enemy soldiers did surround the village during the night, but none entered it until dawn. Hargrove and Gibran’s mistakes clearly originated not only from Lee’s book but also from the mistakes on John Fox’s 1982 DSC award which were repeated on his 1997 Medal of Honor award. See Braided in Fire’s Afterword regarding my examination of the citations’ text.

112  When I interviewed partisan Dante (Aldo) Corneli, he reported on his brother Ambrogio’s experience in the Sommocolonia battle. (Ambrogio was deceased by the time of my interviews.) Ambrogio Corneli (called ‘Balistite’), a partisan who had been posted in Sommocolonia for some weeks before Christmas, had relayed in detail to his brother what he saw in the battle. He said that the Americans did not immediately do battle with the attackers, but that there was one heroic exception. Dante remembered the description of the hero and his location with great specificity, naming even the kind of machine gun he was using (a 12-7). Dante said of this brave soldier: “Ci voleva la medaglia, ma come si fa a saper suo nome?” (He deserved a medal but how could we learn his name?) Interview of December 2, 2002 side one #218 to #232, #306 to #312 and #320 to #322.

*113  It was true in some instances that German soldiers shot blacks rather than take them as prisoners of war. Just the week before the Sommocolonia battle, in the little Belgian village of Wereth, eleven African Americans, who had surrendered and were held overnight by a patrol of 1st SS Panzer, were brutalized and shot in the morning.

For a full description of this December 18, 1944 incident see The Invisible Soldiers of the Battle of the Bulge: The Wereth 11 by Norman S. Lichtenfeld, M.D. available through the Central Florida WWII Museum. http://www.cfloridaww2museum.org/Wereth11.html

“In 1940 between 1,500 and 3,000 Senegalese soldiers (serving in the French Army in France) were shot after they surrendered to German forces. (Many of these died in a massacre on the night of June 9–10 in the village of Airaines.” (p. 28 Scheck). Raffael Scheck has documented the war crimes on the basis of extensive research in French and German archives. Scheck, Raffael. Hitler's African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.”

Although most African-American soldiers (and their white commanding officers) would not have been able to cite the 1940 massacre of Senegalese, word traveled quickly that German troops shot blacks instead of taking them as POWs.

Between 1941 and 1944 there were many other incidents involving fewer numbers of surrendering blacks killed. The events appear to have been random, as there was no general policy regarding surrendering blacks from German high command.

Bertram M. Gordon (of Mills College) wrote in a review of Scheck’s book:

“Authorization for Wehrmacht field commanders to single out African prisoners for especially harsh treatment did not come from any legal documents or specific orders, Scheck observes. It was endemic in the racial prejudices engendered by the Nazi movement with longer-term roots in German society (p. 74). In this sense, he might have added, it was simply part of the genocidal orientation of Nazi philosophy in general.”  Archives H-France, January 2007. Internet Society for French Historical Studies: http://www.h-france.net.

114  Vittorio Biondi writes, “The patriot Torello Tonarelli… although sick with tuberculosis, was credited with shooting more than twenty German soldiers (a deed very improbable even for the best of soldiers).” Biondi, La Battaglia di Sommocolonia, p 93.

115  Walter Getnur, ex-sergeant in the German army, born in 1925 in Unterensurgen, Germany, and Gustav Erzof, ex-lieutenant, born in 1916 in Austria, were soldiers in Pippo’s 11th Zone for some time. (“Lo Slavo” Antonio Mrakic was also born in Austria—in Wientig in 1924—but he had been living in Barga for years and thus was considered a local partisan.)

116  Several Italian military books list the three columns engaged in Wintergewitter. I found Vittorio Biondi’s list the clearest and most accurate and have abbreviated it for Braided in Fire. For more specific identification of which troops were involved in each of the columns, see Biondi, La Battaglia di Sommocoloni, pp 85–86.

117  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy p 69.

*118  One wonders if the Mittenwald Column III commander made the decision to divide his troops in two because he became aware of the retreat from Sommocolonia of an entire battalion (370th second battalion 92nd Division). The timing was such that the attacking and retreating troops must have nearly met in the woods around midnight. If the commander realized that Sommocolonia was now defended by just a few Americans, he might have concluded that half his troops would be sufficient to take the garrison and he could use the other half to attack the higher villages of Renaio, Bebbio, and Scarpello. (Because it did not turn out to be so easy to take Sommocolonia, many German soldiers who took the latter route were commanded to return to assist their forces in their original destination.)

119  Hargrove, Hondon. Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 65. See Note Chapter Thirty-two #2.

*120  Lt. Arthur Fearing, in charge of a 366th Company H mortar platoon in Ponte di Catagnana, was in communication with Lt. Jenkins off and on throughout the battle. Fearing reported Jenkins’ radio messages requesting ammunition and reinforcements and also his message to his family in my interview with him on 5/4/95. Ulysses Lee wrote in The Employment of Negro Troops, p 564, that Jenkins made his first SCR 300 radio request to be resupplied at 7:35 am. Fearing said it was considerably later in the morning that Jenkins said he didn’t think he was going to make it. Fearing added, “I guess all hell was breaking loose because they were asking me to direct my mortar fire, my 60 mm mortars on targets. I kept it up practically all day, right on into the evening… We asked for reinforcements and the 92nd Division said there were no black troops—well, `colored’ troops is what they were saying—to provide back-up troops for his division.

*121  Lt. Graham H. Jenkins was posthumously awarded a Silver Star for his gallant actions. Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 66.

I think of men like ‘Hervey’ Jenkins when I’m told by a few local Italians—thankfully ever fewer these days—that the black GIs in Sommocolonia were all sleeping off their drunkenness from Christmas festivities and put up little resistance. (This view had to have originated with 92nd Division white commanding officers, some of whom took every opportunity to deprecate their black infantrymen.) Those criticizing the performance of the Americans who defended Sommocolonia cannot know the following simple facts:

The specially trained Axis attackers numbered close to three times the black and partisan soldiers holding the village and yet the battle lasted a minimum of four hours (from 7:00 to 11:00), which hardly indicates a push-over. Vittorio Biondi calculates the time of the battle differently. He writes that the attack began at 4:00 am. (Here I believe he is thinking of the approximate time when artillery fire began to hit the village.) At 5:40 some members of the attacking Fourth Hoch Mountain Rangers ran into the expanded minefield, while others exchanged fire with partisans on the northern hillock just outside the village. (I start the full-on battle at 7:00 am when Axis troops entered the streets of Sommocolonia.) Biondi calculates that the battle ended at about 1:00 pm, while, (because of clues from my interviewees), I’m inclined to put the end somewhat earlier —before noon. He says, “There were over seven or eight hours of house-to-house combat. This means that the occupants resisted forcefully… It seems very difficult to do that from bed.”

Biondi, Vittorio. La Battaglia di Sommocolonia, p 89.

A German report confirms that taking the village was no snap: “The Fourth Hoch Mountain Battalion overcame the strong resistance of the enemy [in Sommocolonia] which had conducted violent encounters house to house…” Starken Feindwiderstand. I learned of this German report in Giorgio Petracchi’s Al Tempo che Berta Filava: Alleati e patrioti sulla Linea Gotica (1943–1945). Petracchi cited his source as: NARA, T 312, bob 494, OKW 14, Kriegstagebericht, December 26, 1944 microfilm in ISRT.

For a personal take on the difficulty the German forces had in taking Sommocolonia, there is the following statement from an Austrian soldier who was in the battle. Josef Lampel’s wrote me in a letter dated September 12, 2010 (translated by Birgit Urmson):

As to my feelings I would like to say, it was simply terrible the attack on Sommocolonia. It was a ceaseless attack that I [had not previously] experienced.

122  Robert Brown said (interview of 5/24/95) that he identified Jenkins’ body. He said it was so chewed up that the special pomade was the only way he could be certain it was Jenkins.

*123  It is unknown whether Fox gave the order to Malavet and Williams to leave, but it appears he must have since Bartolome Malavet survived the Sommocolonia battle. James Pratt discovered that Malavet was taken prisoner in Sommocolonia, survived concentration camp and died on April 2, 1998 (his death listed by Social Security). Herbert Williams very likely died in the Sommocolonia battle. Pratt unearthed information that says Williams died on December 29, 1944, but this probably means that his body was found that day. (Zachary told me that he heard that Malavet and Williams had been forced by German soldiers to dig their own graves in Sommocolonia and were then shot. Clearly this was false information.) There is data regarding Williams’ death at: http://www.dvrbs.com/ccwd-WW2/WW2-HerbertRWilliams.htm

*124  Wyatt, “On the Point with Lt. Fox.” My attempts to locate William Wyatt were unsuccessful, but I did find and interview (7/19/96) Emmett Saunders of Washington, DC, who was with William Wyatt at the Loppia battery. He said Wyatt trained a number of forward observers with the 598th Field Artillery. At the critical moment on December 26th. 1st class Sgt. Saunders, who was chief of fire directions center in Loppia, gave a similar account of events as Wyatt’s. He said he also spoke with Fox. He heard the test round fall over the phone and said, “I can hear them falling near you, Fox.” Lt. Fox replied, “Let it come because they’re all around us!” David Smith of New York City, who was with the 598th, also said (in my interview with him of 4/5/97) that Fox’s request was received by and acted on by William Wyatt.

*125  Telephone contact was preferred as the more secure communication since Axis forces might pick up a radio signal. But radio was more reliable since telephone wires were constantly being cut. Zachary said he spoke to Fox on the phone, but several other interviewees reported hearing him on the radio, among them Captain Sidney Thompson, who was at his battery’s Fire Direction Center (interview of 4/2/95). See following note re what Thompson heard Fox say.

*126  Interviewees gave different reports regarding Fox’s last words. Captain Sidney Thompson said (interview of 4/2/95) that he heard on the radio at his battery’s Fire Direction Center that Fox was asked if he knew where he was directing the fire and Fox replied, “I know how to read a map! I’ll just give you the locations.” When I interviewed Dennette Harrod on May 23, 1995, he reported Fox saying something similar: “I can read a damn map as well as you can—fire the mission!” Harrod did not claim to have heard the radio request, but had checked with those who did. (Re Harrod see note #20.) Robert Brown, at the Fornaci di Barga 366th Headquarters, heard Fox say, “Tell them to fire all the artillery they can on my position.” Brown said, “They threw everything they had [including the] British Artillery attached to us—we used to call [that unit the] 10th Agra.”  (5/24/95 interview tape one side two #40).

Chapter Twenty-six  ▪︎ December 26th, 1944 — The Battle’s Aftermath

127  It’s unknown how many Axis soldiers died in the artillery fire Lt. Fox called for on the La Rocca field. The Germans carried their dead north so they were not counted on the site.

*128  Except for the first sentence, the information in this paragraph about the retreat of the surviving northern hillock partisans and the last stand partisan group in Casa Olivieri comes from an interview Bruno Sereni conducted with partisan Ambrogio Corneli. Sereni, Bruno. La Guerra a Barga. Barga (LU): Edizione Il Giornale di Barga, 1968. pp 114–116. The information can also be found in other Italian sources, nearly all of which mention that the group was led by Antonio Mrakic, “lo Slavo.” But when I interviewed Mrakic, he said he left the Sommocolonia battle early on because he accompanied a badly wounded comrade down to get him help in Catagnana. This caused me to doubt that this last stand group existed. Finally I realized that likely it did, only those talking about it later mistakenly assumed Mrakic remained in charge. One partisan escaped from Sommocolonia very late in the day with the help of the Bartolomei family; they gave him civilian clothes and placed him amongst their family members as they fled.

*129  An interview in Motley’s The Invisible Soldier (p 276) is relevant to the disorganized retreat made by Company G of the 366th. Charles Brown, 1st sergeant 370th Infantry Regiment (92nd Division) stationed in Molazzana, was sent out to patrol to the northeast on Christmas Eve. He said: “We crossed a ‘no man’s land’ and were walking along an aqueduct when our forward scout alerted us to something ahead. We took positions, and the recon patrol with us became involved in a firefight with some Germans who just happened to have a bazooka. It was forty-five minutes at least before we got ourselves together and got out of there. The fight had taken place in advance of Cascio territory where Germans had not been seen recently.

“Upon our return, the lieutenant and I reported the incident to our battalion commander, who told us we were both liars and had been fighting among ourselves and it was a cover-up, that there were no Germans in front of Cascio or in Cascio… We later learned that among the other problems of the 366th (on the east side of the Serchio during the December 26th attack) was that a German Tiger Tank, mounting its 88 mm artillery piece, had been dug in at Cascio and was firing point blank across the river into the 366th area. This was the same town where our patrol had the firefight two days before. The 366th paid dearly for the colonel’s blind, bigoted stupidity.”

130  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 67.

131  Brooks, Thomas R. The War North of Rome: June 1944–May 1945. Sarpedon, NY: Da Capo Press, 2003. p 327. And others.

132  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy p 71. Also, Arnold, Buffalo Soldiers, p 79.

*133  Regarding the retreat, Emmett Saunders told me (in his 7/19/96 interview #340) “I can remember one of our batteries telling us that he couldn’t pull back because he had too much ammunition. So we gave him a fire mission [of] 100 rounds. That meant that each gun in that battery was going to fire 100 rounds of ammunition… on Gallicano. When I went up the side of that mountain in my vehicle going back, I could see that the town of Gallicano was burning.”

134  Arlene Fox told me this dream in her interview of 8/8/95.

*135  The indelible image of being inside a circle of fire is one that would haunt Irma her whole life. This was not the first time the village was set on fire. On June 16, 1530 when Sommocolonia was attacked by Barga’s Medici forces, everything flammable was burned. Nardini, Ida. La Rocca di Sommocolonia: Antica Colonia Romana. Unpublished manuscript, ca 1968. p 13.

*136  This description of the defense of a command post appears in all the military books, American and Italian. They nearly all state, as Hondon Hargrove (Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, 67) and del Giudice, Davide, and Riccardo Mori. (La Linea Gotica tra la Garfagnana e Massa Carrara Settembre 1944–Aprile 1945: volume II. Milan: Ritter, 2003 [2000]. 11–12.) that this took place at the Regimental Command Post in Fornaci di Barga. But Hargrove goes on to say that Battery C, 598th Field Artillery was involved and this does not make sense knowing that this artillery unit was located on the west side of the Serchio. Only (Ret.) Colonel Thomas St. John Arnold, an expert in artillery and the Plans and Operations Officer for General Almond places this action in Gallicano (Arnold, Buffalo Soldiers, p 79) which I believe is the correct location. It’s easy to understand how if one military historian makes an error early on as Ulysses Lee did in his The Employment of Negro Troops, p 565, that the mistake is perpetuated in later accounts.

137  According to morning reports, recovered by James Pratt, Cannon Company was located one mile south of Ghivizzano from the time of the retreat on Dec 26th until Dec 31st.

*138  I did notice how Robert Brown began to stutter when he told me about witnessing the jeep being hit by what was probably white phosphorous. He said, “I have always had that picture of where a shell hits a human being and the heat from the shell turns his blood white—The shell hit hit those men… and it was so hot it it… it turned their blood white… I saw nothin left of ’em… nothin at at all, only something that looked like like oatmeal. I dreamed about it ’cause when I first got out of the Army I couldn’t listen to a telephone, I’d jump.  I thought about that—I always remembered that. I heard something say ‘bob, bib’ and well…” He was describing a shell-shock symptom. (My interview at Brown’s house 5/24/95 tape one side two: #226–#248.)

139  The Barga bridges did not blow “due to defects in lines or fuses. Blocks of TNT were found later, burned and in a million pieces but not exploded.” Del Giudice, Davide, and Mori, Riccardo. La Linea Gotica tra la Garfagnana e Massa Carrara Settembre 1944–Aprile 1945: volume I. Milan: Ritter, 2003 [2000]. p 72.

Chapter Twenty-seven  ▪︎ December 27th, 1944

140  Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, p 566. Information can be found here also regarding the new locations of the 92nd command posts.

*141  Romolo Marroni, a partisan interviewed by Sereni, La Guerra a Barga, p 126.

 “At about 11:00 Pippo went to ask the American command, now at Sasso, what to do. When he returned at about noon, Tiziano [second in command of Zone XI partisans] said that we were to retreat to other side of the Ania [river], but there was no hurry because ‘The American artillery is counter attacking magnificently.’ In fact, it took the Germans 24 hours to enter Barga, a distance of only 4 kilometers [two and a half miles] from where they started. At about 2:00 pm we left Barga—there were about 40 of us.”

*142  The information about the fatal wounding of Lt. Pier Donati Sommati comes from a document that contains many errors. Satti, Giovanni. Unpublished article “L’Attacco Tedesco a Sommocolonia e La Battaglia per Arginarne L’Avanzata—26 Dicembre 1944.” I obtained the article at the Istituto Storico della Resistenza (Historical Institute of the Resistance) in Lucca. In the case of Lt. Pier Donati Sommati’s death, I believe the information may well be correct. It is corroborated in part by what Ambrogio Corneli (see note #105) said in his interview with Bruno Sereni: “The American lieutenant was hit by shrapnel and did not get up again. (This was likely Lt. Jenkins.) Sommati had the same end a few minutes later while he was attempting to help three of our companions. We lay him down in the hall of a house where he died shortly thereafter.” It is clear from this report that Sommati was mortally wounded in the La Rocca field as Satti indicated.

143  Moscardini, La Vacanza, p 145.

144  Biondi, La Battaglia di Sommocolonia, p 100.

145  Ibid. p 97.

146  Maj. Gen. Dudley Russell, commander of the 8th Indian Infantry Division arrived at the Osteria Command center earlier (at 1:00 pm). He assumed command and ordered the 370th to retreat to Bagni di Lucca. Davide del Giudice & Riccardo Mori: La Linea Gotica tra la Garfagnana e Massa Carrara Settembre 1944–Aprile 1945: (volume II) Ritter, 2003. p 14.

*147  It is tragic that these hiding men attempted to escape rather than surrender. They thought their fate was certain if they surrendered. And in calling out to them, Rock was painfully aware that he might be being used as a decoy. He thought the Germans might intend to gather the black Americans together and then shoot them all. If the diary of Hans Burtscher is to be believed, it appears that the African Americans taken prisoner in Sommocolonia came very close to being shot. It was soldiers of the Fourth Hoch Mountain Rangers (HOCHBIJAGER) who were holding Sommocolonia after their attack. Burtscher, a non-commissioned officer 2nd Company with that outfit, wrote that immediately before the attack, the platoon leaders relayed battle instructions.

“At the end, the express order of the battalion commander is given that no blacks are to be made prisoners. They are to be wiped-out without exception. Dismayed and taken aback we look at each other and believe that we have not understood properly. Surreptitiously I try to detect the opinion of my comrades from their facial expressions. While I see some dull and indifferent faces some are staring at me with a questioning look because there has never been an order such as this. Has the old man turned mad? He who is a lawyer and a judge in civilian life should know that this command is pure injustice. Even in war it is a crime. Up until now, an enemy without weapons was treated decently by our battalion and was, even as a prisoner, not without rights.

“I dare to ask our platoon leader, ‘What if a wounded soldier from our side falls into the hands of the Negroes who think the same way?’ To my pleasure, many comrades agree with me. Even the platoon leaders don’t close their minds to my argument. My objections and deliberations cause a completely new situation, because so far nobody dared to argue against a command.

“Thus we force our platoon leaders indirectly to discuss the matter once more with the company commander—they go to meet him. After a while they come back with the changed command, “Some Negroes can be taken prisoner.’” Cristoph Neizert’s 1997 translation of Hans Burtscher’s then unpublished diary, p 1. (For more re Burtscher’s diary, see Note #107.)

Chapter Twenty-eight  ▪︎ Precarious Journeys December 28th, 1944

148  Lombardi, All’Ombra del Duomo di Barga, p 163. It is unlikely that there were Axis soldiers inside the village’s 12th century church at the time it was destroyed by American bombers.

Chapter Twenty-nine  ▪︎ December 29th, 1944

149  The route was [Bebbio-Renaio]-Merizzacchio - Ceragioli - La Foce - Prata Garfagnine - Migliano. Giuseppe Togneri. Interviewed by Sereni, La Guerra a Barga, p 111.

*150  Biondi, La Battaglia di Sommocolonia, 98. Although carrying the stretchers was arduous, Biondi points out the respectful and humane treatment the Germans accorded these men by telling them about the corridor of safety in the minefield. They considered these Italians’ lives even though they realized that in sending them back to the Allied side they ran the risk of such sensitive information being passed on to the Americans.

151  Prof. Luigi Lucchesi of Castiglione kindly described this tower in detail in our phone conversation of November 15, 2007. Rothacker Smith had previously told me something about it, but his memory of it did not include as many particulars.

152  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 74.

*153  Fiaschi, Cesare. La guerra sulla Linea Gotica occidentale: Div. Monterosa 1944–45. p 111: For a short period Axis forces gained control of three small western Serchio Valley village—Vergemoli, Calomini and Brucciano—and a few observation points in no man’s land.

Chapter Thirty  ▪︎ December 30th, 1944

no notes

Chapter Thirty-one  ▪︎ New Year’s Eve, 1944

154 Biondi, Vittorio. La Battaglia di Sommocolonia: 26 Dicembre 1944. Fornaci di Barga (LU): Tipografia Gasperetti, edizione II, 2008. p 45. I only found this information about the Gurkhas using barbed wire instead of mines to prevent entry into Sommocolonia in the (all Italian) edition of Biondi’s book.

155  Testimony of Pietro Moscardini (Anna’s father) in Sereni, La Guerra a Barga, p 119. Anna also mentioned this in her interview.

*156  Originally we only had four names of the American soldiers who gave their lives in the cause of liberty. It wasn’t until 2010 when James Pratt (see note #17) began devoting his considerable research abilities to investigating the 366th that we learned more. Over years he uncovered many and now forty-two names of the 366th dead are listed. There is a list of Axis soldiers who died in Sommocolonia titled “Partial” with thirty-nine names. Almost certainly, a few more 366th members died and at least ten more Axis soldiers died than documented. The number of Italians who died is known: seven partisans and seven civilians. A total of 120 dead in the Sommocolonia battle is a modest estimate. For more information, see separate website section: THE DEAD resulting from the Sommocolonia Battle.

*157  Document HEADQUARTERS, 370TH INFANTRY APO 92, U.S. ARMY 4 MARCH, 45.  SUBJECT: Transmittal of Resume of Events, 26–27 December 1944, Serchio, For the Commanding Officer. p 348. Davide del Giudice & Riccardo Mori: La Linea Gotica tra la Garfagnana e Massa Carrara Settembre 1944–Aprile 1945: (volume II). Ritter, 2003. p 70.

Many, including Vittorio Biondi, say that the German troops did loot a great deal of material: Biondi, La Battaglia di Sommocolonia, p. 101. But according to Berto Biondi, Vittorio’s father, Axis forces took little from Sommocolonia.

Karl Schroeder, with A Company of Fourth Mountain Hoch Battalion, wrote me in a letter of September 26, 2010 (translated by John Urmson):

         “A report on the ending of operation “Winter Storm” on 28 December 1944 to the German 14th Army Corps says the following:  Thirty-five US soldiers were captured, as well as 223 rifles, among them ninety machine pistols that the US soldiers simply threw away or left lying in their flight. Another sixteen heavy machine guns, thirty-eight light machine guns, eighteen anti-aircraft machine guns, sixteen grenade launchers three bazookas, three mortars, a radio truck, two Jeeps, and many blown up weapons. Also found were five ammunition depots, one gasoline depot, six maintenance depots, two clothing depots, all simply left behind by the fleeing Americans soldiers, which we, in part, later destroyed.”

Left out of this list (though mentioned elsewhere in Schroeder’s letter) is the substantial amount of food the Axis soldiers took back with them. Re the food see Note 89.

PART IV

Chapter Thirty-two  ▪︎ Early January 1945

158  Stefani, Maria Vittoria. Voci della Vecchia Barga. Barga (LU): Tipografia Gasperetti, 1979. p 68.

*159  Cleveland Wells, whom I interviewed on October 13, 2010, was the man who identified John Fox. He was a medic with the 370th Graves Registration. As a teenager Wells worked in a Cincinnati drug store Jane Fox frequented. He found in Fox’s pocket not only a photo of Jane, but also “one of the fifth-grade teacher Jane lived with for a while.” Wells called the teacher “Mrs. Walker” but in his October 28, 2013 e-mail, Jerrold Pope pointed out that was a mistake, the teacher’s correct name was Mary Willie Morning. She was Jane Fox’s aunt (her mother’s sister). “But. yes, Aunt Willie taught Fifth Grade at Douglas School,” Jerrold confirmed.

Jane’s Aunt Willie was Wells’ own fifth grade teacher. How remarkable that the man examining the contents of Fox’s pockets on the battlefield happened to know members of his family! (I located Cleveland Wells through Rothacker Smith.)

160  I found only two mentions in military histories regarding the Allies retaking Gallicano and they disagree on the date by an entire month. Fabrizio Federigi says that on February 4th “the 366th Regiment (minus battalion III) iniziates a movement west of the Serchio, more symbolic than anything else, occupying Gallicano…” Federigi, Val di Serchio e Versilia Linea Gotica, p 229. Federigi is generally accurate but in this case, I believe Cesare Fiaschi’s date and description of January 4th to be correct. See note #162.

*161  According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_munitions

 “At the start of the Normandy campaign, 20% of American 81 mm mortar rounds were white phosphorus. At least five American Medal of Honor citations mention their recipients using white phosphorus grenades to clear enemy positions, and in the 1944 liberation of Cherbourg alone, a single U.S. mortar battalion, the 87th, fired 11,899 white phosphorus rounds into the city. The U.S. Army and Marines used white phosphorus shells in 107-mm (4.2 inch) mortars. White phosphorus was widely credited by Allied soldiers for breaking up German infantry attacks and creating havoc among enemy troop concentrations during the latter part of the war.”

Despite the fact that US signed the terms of the 1946 Geneva Convention prohibiting the use of WP as a weapon, the US has not completely abided by this commitment. Also from Wikipedia:

“The U.S. military has admitted using white phosphorus in the 2004 battle for Fallujah in Iraq, and in Afghanistan in 2009, Jun 13, 2017. ”

US-Led Coalition Has Used White Phosphorus In Fight For Mosul – NPR
https://www.npr.org/.../u-s-led-coalition-has-used-white-phosphorous-in-fight-for-mosul                                   

*162  Ex-Axis officer, Cesare Fiaschi writes that on January 4 Company C of the 366th Regiment occupied Gallicano. He says the town had been abandoned by Axis forces at the end of Wintergewitter (presumably December 29). He mentions accompanying artillery fire on Gallicano and neighboring Axis outposts (including Monte Faeto) and says there was also utilization of ‘nebbiogeni.’ This last means literally “fog cannons” and could be referring to Zachary’s use of white phosphorous since it can create a fog affect. But Zachary was clear about firing at Gallicano during the night and he was part of the troops that occupied Gallicano, so it is unclear whether or not Fiaschi’s ‘nebbiogeni’ refers to Zachary’s WP. Fiaschi says that during the course of the battle, one soldier in the Fascist San Marco troops lost his life and eight others were wounded. It seems doubtful that night-time artillery fire inflicted most of these injuries.

Fiaschi, Cesare. La guerra sulla Linea Gotica occidentale: Div. Monterosa 1944–45. Bologna: Lo Scarabeo, 1999. p 126.

163  Otis Zachary’s exact wording: interview of 5/13/99 Tape Four side one #71. I frequently use the exact wording of interviewees in conversations that appear in the book, but this seems a particularly important place to note this.

*164  Cannon Company 366th Infantry APO 464 (stamped recd. Feb 11) “1 January to 31st, 1945 Unit Historical Report,’ hand-written by Capt. Dabney. pp 1-2. (document discovered by James Pratt). Dabney wrote that after a period of intense firing, “Impromptu services have been held in the company since the 7th of January. An enlisted man, former divinity student, Tech Sgt Joseph H. May, has assisted in the conduct of the exercises.” “Capt. Percy E. Daniels, Commander, expressed delight in finding men who remembered the Creator on the frontline.  The Captain urged the men to keep alive ‘those moral and spiritual sentiments inculcated in home and church.’” It is unknown if Zachary had a hand in organizing these services at the artillery site.

Chapter Thirty-three  ▪︎ Late January 1945

165  Gary Wentworth at Colebrook Cemetery, Massachusetts supplied the date of Fox’s burial.

166  Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, p 553. “The replacement problem was never discussed publicly as having any relation to the alleged ‘poor offensive performance’ of the 92nd Division.” Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 146, also pp 572-4.

167  The 372nd, a National Guard Regiment, was one of the four regiments that were originally all-black; including the commanding officers. Ulysses Lee says that the only one of the four that avoided serious top command difficulties early on was the 369th Coast Artillery. Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, p 201.

*168  There are many claims regarding Hannibal’s route after descending the Alps. That he traveled along the Corsonna River is a possibility, part of local lore, but not a proven fact. Some speculate that the name Barga originated from Hannibal’s last name, Barca, who was said to have settled for a while in Barga. They say that the boat in Barga’s coat of arms (strange for an inland town) may have come from Hannibal’s name which means ‘boat’ in Italian. Nardini, Sulla Linea Gottica: Diario di 1943 & 1944, (unpublished manuscript). Making the coincidence even stranger, there is a village near Gallicano named “Barca.”

*169  Rock later made the effort to contact Sergeant Tukes’ mother to inform her of her son’s death. She had only received a MIA (missing in action) notification. She was a widow with daughters and this one son. In his 2010 research, James Pratt was able to find a little more information about Tukes: His full name was Green T. Tukes (“possibly nicknamed “GT”). Born in 1918 in Georgia, he enlisted from Mercer County, NJ in 1941. He was with the 366th’s Second Battalion, Company H.

Chapter Thirty-four  ▪︎ February 1945

*170  Most of my information regarding the February 4–8th attack on Lama comes from interviews with James Hamlet, but among the texts where the offensive is covered see:

Arnold, Buffalo Soldiers, pp 89 to 93.

Federigi, Val di Serchio e Versilia Linea Gotica, pp 229 to 230 and p 239.

Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, pp 84 to 88.

Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, pp 568 to 572.

*171  Among the teens at those Fraia parties was sixteen-year-old Albino Santi, who was very impressed by Anna and Adelmo. To him they seemed carefree, Anna so pretty and Adelmo so dashing with his curly blond hair. Albino watched covetously as Adelmo sewed an elegant green velvet jacket for the Signora’s son. After the war, Albino acquired the jacket from the son in a trade for his pocket watch. Albino Santi was inspired to become a tailor himself and had his shop in Barga for many years.

172  Brooke, Senator Edward W. Bridging the Divide: My Life. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 2007. pp 28–29.

Chapter Thirty-five ▪︎ March 1945 The Fate of the 366th

173  Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, p 575.

174  A second 92nd Division performance report (put together on June 24–25, 1945) is discussed, along with its racist implications, via excerpts from Daniel Gibran’s book The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II. See the separate article on this site.

*175  Truman Gibson’s failure to present a balanced view in the March 5th performance report was glaring. Yet, he was instrumental in seeing that blacks became infantrymen in the first place. Gibran, The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II, p 4.

President Roosevelt appointed Gibson as civilian aide to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson “so that Negroes would have a spokesman in the US Army.” (Houston, Black Warriors, p 119.) Gibson also exerted a positive influence in 1948 when he encouraged President Truman in his decision to integrate the Army. (Ibid. p 122.)

176  Fiaschi, Cesare. La guerra sulla Linea Gotica occidentale: Div. Monterosa 1944–45, p 111. See note #153.

*177  Thomas St. John Arnold, Head of Plans and Operations for General Almond, told me in his interview of January 31, 2007, that immediately before and during Wintergewitter, there was no change in troop assignments from High Command: no withdrawals and no additions. Of course, if Almond had been paying attention in a timely way to the reports coming in from Sabatino and Pippo, he should have had substantial reinforcements in place in the Serchio Valley well before Christmas. (Arnold’s January 31, 2007 interview was unrecorded because his voice had become so soft that the tape recorder could not register it. However, I could hear him and he was clearly in full possession of his faculties.)

178  Gibran, The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II. p 124.

179  In Stars & Stripes Truman Gibson was misquoted. As disparaging as his March 5, 1945 report was, especially in regards to the 366th, he was not the one who coined the much-quoted phrase about the troops “melting away.” Collins George, war correspondent for the Pittsburgh Courier, who at the time attended Gibson’s press conference, reported to Mary Pennick Motley that a fellow journalist was responsible for the unfortunate wording. Motley, The Invisible Soldier, pp 345–6.

180  The placement of the German 88 mm was critical in the course of events. See Note #129.

181  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 129.

182  Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, p 571.

183  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 127. In his unpublished paper, General Almond’s Reward, Lt. Col. Major Clark gave the higher figure of 288 prisoners taken in the Serchio sector during the February offensive. (p 4), but it’s likely that some of these POWs were taken by troops belonging to other than the 366th and 365th.

184  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, pp 87, 127 and 133.

*185  Arnold, Buffalo Soldiers, p 111. Hargrove says, “Heavy and accurate fire from the heavy guns at Punta Bianca and La Spezia, continued to fall on the infantry soldiers; added to this, was the concentration of fire directed on them from enemy positions in the hills. There was no cover to hide them and no room to maneuver. The only ‘strategy’ offered them was to wage another series of frontal attacks.” Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 121. Ivan Houston, author of Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II, and a lieutenant in the battle, told me in person on Sept 12, 2013, “At Cinquale there was the heaviest German artillery barrage of the entire Italian campaign.”

186  Gibran, The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II. p 67.

*187  Harrod, transcribed lecture on “The 366th Infantry Regiment and Lt. John R. Fox.” (See note #20.) It is important to remember that a ‘casualty’ in military usage applies to a soldier who becomes unavailable for duty not only because of death, but also because of injury, illness, capture or desertion. James Pratt discovered that twenty-five 366th soldiers became POWs. (I came across no reports of desertions among 366th members but probably there were a few.)

*188  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 49. See the Hargrove quote from the same page in note #81. It explains how strongly the men of the 366th felt about their regiment.

189  Sergeant Willard A. Williams of the 366th quoted by Motley, The Invisible Soldier, p 344.

Chapter Thirty-six ▪︎ March Trials for Rothacker Sr. and Rothacker Jr.

190  The Germans printed leaflets of Rock’s letter and those of other POWs, stuffed them into a shell casing and shot them back over the front. When the shell hit, the leaflets scattered. Ham radio operators made it their business to broadcast the messages on shortwave radio. Interview with Rothacker Smith (7/28/96 tape three side 6 #229) plus a later conversation to clarify.

Chapter Thirty-seven ▪︎ April 1945

191  Pellegrinetti, Appunti per una Storia Della Guerra Civile in Garfagnana 1943–1945, pp 177–78.

*192  Ibid. p 135. And the following is quoted in Sereni, La Guerra a Barga, p 229: “On Easter Day (April 1st), the Germans attempt an attack on Albiano and Castelvecchio, but American artillery stops them.” Also Chiappa, Don Lionello. Diario del Canonico. Chiappa, priest at Castelvecchio Pascoli for over twenty years, reports on page 226: “April 1st, Easter. Suddenly heavy bombing from Americans. There is a crescendo at 7 pm.”

193   https://www.moosburg.org/info/stalag/14theng.html

194  Federigi, Val di Serchio e Versilia Linea Gotica, p 293.

195  Lombardi, Barga sulla Linea Gotica, p 106.

196  Pia, La Revisione: Memorie del mio Novecento, p 93.

Chapter Thirty-eight  ▪︎ Euphoria

no notes

Chapter Thirty-nine ▪︎ May 1945 Transitions

197  Paul Goodman reports in A Fragment of Victory in Italy: The 92nd Infantry Division in WWII. Divisional Series 1993. p 80. “At its peak, the [92nd Division’s Mule Pack Battalion] included an American officer and fifteen enlisted men, 600 Italian men, 372 mules and 173 horses.”

198  Pansa, Giampaolo: Il Sangue dei vinti. (The Blood of the Defeated) Milan: Sperling & Kupfer, 2003. An anti-fascist journalist writes about post-war vendettas committed by the partisans.

199  General Patton with the 14th Armored Division liberated 110,000 prisoners at Stalag VIIA, About 30,000 of them were Americans.
https://www.moosburg.org/info/stalag/14theng.html
https://armyhistory.org/the-14th-armored-division-and-the-liberation-of-stalag-viia/

200  Motley, The Invisible Soldier, p 25.

201  Smith, Rothacker. No Way Out. Self-Published (www.booksurge.com): 2009. p. 107. Nearly all my material about Rock comes from my interviews with him which preceded the publication of his book by over ten years. But his book produced occasional corrections in my text—for instance, in his interview he said he spent the first night of his return in Ft. Dix, NJ. From his book I learned that Camp Shanks (Orangeburg, Rockland County, New York) is the correct location of that first night in the US.

Chapter Forty ▪︎ Post-war Reality 1945

202  Grampp, William D.: “The Italian Lira, 1938–45,” The Journal of Politcal Economy, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Aug. 1946) p. 309.

203  Irma and Vittorio Biondi likely found the body of Private Alphonso Mosley. See separate website section: THE DEAD resulting from the Sommocolonia Battle.

*204  The return address on Red Cross letters from German POWs listed only the concentration camp’s numbers. Irma did not learn Endro’s exact location until he was home, two years after she’d first received news that he’d become a POW. By the time I interviewed her, she couldn’t remember it. I was finally able to determine his location through Giuliano Guidi, the son of Sommocolonian Vittorio Guidi, who survived that same camp. Giuliano produced a Red Cross letter to prison written by his mother, Maria Marchetti, to his father that included “Stalag VI/G.” Looking on line for that designation brought me to: http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/List_of_prisoner-ofwar_camps _in_Germany Stalag VI-G Bonn-Duisdorf.

 Endro Pedrighi and Vittorio Guidi were taken to Duisdorf, Germany, near Bonn.

According to Wikipedia, by January 1944, 180,000 Italians had been abducted to perform slave labor within Germany, yet they represented only 2.8% of the entire slave labor there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour_under_German_rule_during_World_War_II

For further research: John C. Beyer; Stephen A. Schneider. “Forced Labour under Third Reich - Part I and Part II” Nathan Associates Inc.

Chapter Forty-one ▪︎ Rebuilding Sommocolonia Spring 1946

*205  Salvatore Buvani, the architect hired by the Comune di Barga to oversee rebuilding Sommocolonia, said in his 8/3/89 interview with me that there were thirty families whose houses were completely destroyed. In addition, the village church and the La Rocca tower were also destroyed.

Chapter Forty-two ▪︎ At Home 1946 and 1947

206  Houston, Black Warriors, p 202.

*207  Ibid. p 188.

The failure of the double V campaign became clear to Ashley Bryan’s company even before they returned to the U.S. Bryan, a black artist who served as a stevedore during the D-Day landing, did a pen-and-ink sketch of a depressed friend in his company with his head in his arms on the table having realized the failure. The friend was reacting to the news they received on December 5th, 1945 that “140 Negro Soldiers were taken off homebound ships in LeHavre by the Navy because there were no provisions for segregation.” Stone, Tanya Lee. Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers. Shenzhen, Guangdong, China: Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA): 2013. p 101.

208  See Note #185.

*209  James Pratt (see note #17) has investigated the deaths of 366th soldiers. He compiled the booklet Soldiers of the 366th Infantry Regiment at Rest in Italy (unpublished) and documented many burial sites of 366th members whose bodies were returned to the US. On October 12, 2017, Pratt wrote to me: “When you look at comparative deaths taking into account the time that each unit was ‘in combat' and the size of each unit, the 366th suffered a higher rate of deaths than the 92nd or even the much lauded 442nd. Because the published tables are so grossly understated and the 366th did not come back together as a military unit after being attached to the 92nd, I believe that even they didn’t know, collectively, what had really happened to them.”

210  Robert Brown’s friend who was insulted at the bar of the officers’ club in Florence was Norman Walker, who had been awarded his silver star for courage in bringing men in from behind a minefield. Interview with Brown at his house on 5/24/95. Tape two side one #120.

*211  The Equal Justice Initiative, of Montgomery, Alabama, released a new report in mid-November, 2016, a fifty-three-page addendum to its previous year’s “Lynching in America.” The addendum, (available on line at: https://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans) concluded that between 1877 and 1950 “no one was more at risk of experiencing violence and targeted racial terror than black veterans.” Several major media platforms highlighted the new information with articles, including the 11/27/16 The New Yorker magazine and The New York Times which ran a piece on its 12/4/16 editorial page, “The Horror of Lynchings Lives On.”

*212  Litwack, Leon F. How Free is FREE? The Long Death of Jim Crow. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2009. pp 91 & 93. “…in many significant and far reaching ways—by dramatizing the disparity between American democratic rhetoric and racial practices, by heightening, even revolutionizing black consciousness and black expectations, by motivating blacks to take charge of their own lives and destinies—World War II was a critical episode in the African American odyssey, the first shot in what came to be called the Civil Rights Revolution. ‘If the Negro can’t get what he wants through this war,’ an activist told a black gathering in late 1944, ‘he will get it when the boys come home. The Negro will fight for it. We might as well prepare for it because it is going to happen.’” Johnston, Carolyn Ross. My Father’s War.  p 121. “A major impact of the war was a transformation of consciousness as African Americans encountered racism in and out of uniform. All through the war, the soldiers in the 92nd resisted racism in passive and even violent ways. Many of them came to a new consciousness about their condition of inequality, and countless Buffalo Soldiers joined the civil rights movement after the war.”

 *213  Among the 366th veterans involved in the Civil Rights movement were:

Lt. Samuel Wilbert Tucker: Protesting the inability of African Americans to use the local library, Tucker organized a sit-in at the Virginia Alexandria Library in 1939 (twenty years before the sit-ins of the 1960s). After the war, he became a civil rights lawyer with the NAACP carrying a heavy caseload (in 1967 he litigated about 150 civil rights cases before state and federal courts.) “In 1968 the Supreme Court decided in his case [Green vs. New Kent County School Board] that school boards could not delay and use ‘freedom of choice’ plans to desegregate school. They needed to show immediate progress. This was the second most important civil rights case after Brown in 1954.” The quote is from Nancy Silcox, librarian at the elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia named for Tucker. Silcox has written a children’s book: Samuel Wilbert Tucker: The Story of a Civil Rights Trailblazer and the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In. Published by www.history4all.com 2013.

(Tucker died in 1990 before I began my American interviews.)

Lt. Edward Peeks: After receiving an M.A. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Peeks wrote for The Atlanta Daily World, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. African-American newspapers and finally The Charleston (WV) Gazette, where he was business/labor editor. He authored The Long Struggle for Black Power, published by Scribner and Sons in 1970.

(I did interview Peeks.)

PART V

Chapter Forty-three ▪︎ Recognition and Commemorations

January 13th 1997 The White House

*214  Buffalo Soldier Vernon Baker led a successful attack on a seemingly impenetrable German stronghold in the coastal mountains immediately to the west of Sommocolonia. I highly recommend his book, Lasting Valor: The Story of the Only Living Black World War II Veteran to Earn America’s Highest Distinction for Valor, the Medal of Honor—by Vernon Baker with Ken Olsen (NY: Genesis Press 1997, Bantam Books 1999). Baker speaks with candor about his childhood and his civilian life as well as about the military action which eventually won him deserved recognition.

215  The recommendation for the Medal of Honor decorations came from a report put together by a team of military historians at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., who worked in conjunction with the Army. Leroy Ramsey, a Buffalo vet who was a Civil Rights Commissioner in civilian life, was instrumental in instigating the Shaw report.

216  In order that the black heroes could be honored, in September 1996, Congress voted to waive a time limitation prohibiting the awarding of WWII medals after 1952.

217  There were others, but I especially remember Sandra warmly greeting (Ret) Captain Dennette Harrod, who on 9/9/92 delivered a lecture on “The 366th Infantry Regiment and Lt. John R. Fox” at the US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

218  See AFTERWORD where I point out the mistakes in Fox’s citation with verifying evidence.

Commemorations on December 26th in Sommocolonia

219  Before becoming the main cleric in Barga, Monsignore Gainnini was the village priest in Sommocolonia. “Don Piero,” as Sommocolonians affectionately called him, was responsible for the publication of my book of excerpts in Italian of my village interviews. See note #4.

220  Two mayors of Barga were involved in making La Rocca alla Pace a reality. Dr. Mauro Campani laid important groundwork in 1998–99. His successor, Professor Umberto Sereni, oversaw the transfer of the La Rocca land to the Comune di Barga, and was wonderful at warmly welcoming the vets in 2000.

221  The invitation from the Comune di Barga to the La Rocca alla Pace event was extended to 366th and Buffalo Soldier veterans by word of mouth via the author’s interviewees and also by notices she placed in the Buffalo Veterans Newsletter.

222  Mr. Edward W Lollis, author of Monumental Beauty: Peace Monuments and Museums Around the World (pub by Peace Partners International, Inc., May 2013), suggested the two examples I have cited of monuments including both sides:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Light_Peace_Memorial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_of_Peace#Purpose

For others: http://peace.maripo.com

Chapter Forty-four ▪︎ La Rocca Days in Sommocolonia – 2000

Thursday, July 13th, 2000    

*223  The Fox family later walked down the mulattiera, enjoying its surprising views. Nine years later, in a special ceremony, the Comune di Barga asked Buffalo Soldier veteran, Captain Joseph Hairston, to officially bestow the name ‘Via 92 Divisione Buffalo’ on the trail. The name is definitely meant to include those who fought in Sommocolonia, the 366th troops attached to the 92nd Division. See the separate article on this site “The Mulattiera.”

Friday July 14th, 2000

224  There were others besides Dr. Hondon Hargrove who pushed for Fox’s recognition, notably: Lt. Jehu Hunter and Col. Major Clark. (Major was his first name). Clark was most generous in sending me information he had assembled on the 92nd Division.

 *225  There were two timely recommendations for Fox to receive the Distinguished Service Cross, neither of which General Almond acted upon. Almond should have sent such recommendations on to the Fifth Army for implementation. Daniel Gibran reports in his book, The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II  pp 133-136.) that artillery commander, Brigadier General William Colbern recommended Fox for the DSC.

The second recommendation is reported in the following February 18, ’97 article by Robert Dvorchak which appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette: “Mt. Lebanon man sees battle hero recognized—five decades later”

“L. Harold Larsen, an accountant of Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania (originally from Rockwell City, Iowa), read about the Medal of Honor ceremony and realized that the man he had recommended for a medal had finally received the one he deserved. On December 26th, 1944, Larsen was a major with the 598th Field Artillery Battalion [presumably stationed in Loppia]. He did not know John Fox personally, but he was present when 30 guns boomed to life to fire on Sommocolonia. He wrote up a commendation for Fox and then his artillery unit was attached to a British force and he moved on. Larsen didn’t hear Fox’s name again until a team of Army investigators interviewed him about what happened just prior to the presentation of Fox’s Distinguished Service Cross in 1982… When he learned of the Medal of Honor, Larsen said, ‘Thank God they finally got the thing straightened out. Fifty years? How long should it take? What difference does skin color have to do with it? Or the fact that I’m white and he was black? It all comes out red…’”

According to: http://www.landscaper.net/artyhero.htm Fox was one of 5 artillerymen to receive the Medal of Honor for WWII.

226  Zachary sent me a dossier of photo-copied certificates dating back to courses completed in 1943 at the Tactical School in Sturbridge, Massachusetts and later ones at the European Command Intelligence School. There were many awards from the City of Los Angeles for his water testing skills, including a ‘1982 Operator of the Year.’ His VFW award was for “building superintendent 1987–1988.”

*227  In addition to talking about his Graves Registration experience, 366th veteran Richard Hogg told me, “The last time I saw Fox, we were bivouacked just below Viareggio. I looked in his tent and saw he was napping with pictures of Arlene and Sandra.” This had to have happened between December 3–9, ’44, because according to a morning report of December 3 (recovered by James Pratt), Fox was assigned to detached service that day.  Re Fox’s return to Cannon Company with its arrival in Loppia on December 9, see notes #71 and #75.

*228  Intrepid partisan fighter, Antonio Mrakic (lo Slavo) suffered his most frightening war experience as a German POW. He was captured first in the horrific siege at Monte Cassino. He escaped only to be captured again later on, then escaped a second time. He was in many brutal battles, but when I asked him his most frightening experience of the war, he said it was during his last stint as a German POW when the guards had a practice of taking at random one prisoner to execute each evening. Hearing the footfall approach of the guard in the evening was for him the most terrifying. To have a man with a horrific personal memory at German hands make a heartfelt plea for their inclusion in the monument to peace brought tears to my eyes.

It was not just the partisans and the GI veterans I interviewed who expressed pacifist-leanings. I carried on a correspondence via letters (translation provided by John and Birgit Urmson) with Axis soldiers involved in the Sommocolonia battle. Karl Schroeder, a German veteran, wrote on June 29th, 2011:

I, of course, share your feelings and oppose conflicts and war. Today I no longer understand how we, egged on by our rulers, went at each other!!!

Through the post war years, and many journeys to combat sites, I have met many former enemies, and have become friends with Americans, Britons, Canadians, French, Brazilians, Poles, Russians (or Serbs ).

Richard Neumeister, an Austrian veteran, wrote on September 5th, 2010:

The village of Sommocolonia was almost completely destroyed… My company took some prisoners, and that it was the first time in my life I had seen black people.  The [war] brought great suffering for all, whether soldier or civilian.

I have four great-grand children and hope that politicians and profiteers may never again be the cause of such misery. 

229  Not surprisingly these sharp journalists later sought out that one person. I wished they had also consulted the veterans who had fought in the war about the inclusion.

230  James Pratt located a morning report showing that Cannon Company was in Loppia December 26, 1944. It seems possible that the trauma of firing the cannons at Fox was so connected in Zachary’s mind with his use of white phosphorus on Gallicano that he conflated the two disturbing occasions into one location. See note #125.

231  In WWII white phosphorus was used abundantly by both Axis and Allied forces.

According to Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_munitions

 “At the start of the Normandy campaign, 20% of American 81 mm mortar rounds were white phosphorus. At least five American Medal of Honor citations mention their recipients using white phosphorus grenades to clear enemy positions, and in the 1944 liberation of Cherbourg alone, a single U.S. mortar battalion, the 87th, fired 11,899 white phosphorus rounds into the city. The U.S. Army and Marines used white phosphorus shells in 107-mm (4.2 inch) mortars. White phosphorus was widely credited by Allied soldiers for breaking up German infantry attacks and creating havoc among enemy troop concentrations during the latter part of the war.”

232  My interview with Otis Zachary on July 30, 1995, tape two side one #340.

233  Otis Zachary received from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. “1984 Volunteer of the Year” award for his dedication to crime prevention in working with at-risk teenagers. He only stopped volunteering when he had a knee and a hip replacement.

Saturday July 15thIn 2000

*234  Jerrold Pope, Jane Fox Pope’s son, was then a teacher of voice at Florida State University. A baritone singer, Pope had performed in numerous venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York. During the Barga recital honoring his uncle, John Fox, he sang songs by Schubert, Liszt, Poulenc, Villa Lobos and Rorem, ending the recital with a finale of American spirituals. Nicholas Hunt, president of Opera Barga, later made arrangements for Jerrold Pope to bring his Florida State University students to Barga for a summer course of study and performance. The appropriateness of a modern-day connection between John Fox’s nephew and Barga pleased many of us.

*235  Rothacker Smith’s other son, Brian Smith, who was unable to attend the 2000 event, became involved in the Tuskegee Airmen Association as a result of his interest in his father’s WWII enthusiasm about the outfit. Although he wasn’t born when they flew, Brian became, first the Detroit section president, and then the national president of the Association. (I felt the same thrill hearing this as I did when I learned that Gregory Cloud, one of Frank Cloud’s sons, became an architect, following his father’s keen interest in the architecture he saw in Italy.)

236  Arlene and Sandra Fox stayed with Bill and me. The Baldauf family of San Francisco generously offered their house for the use of Sandra Fox’s two grown children who each brought a friend.

237  On his 1995 visit to Stalag VIIA, Rock was astounded to find that all evidence of the enormous prison had vanished. There was only a sign indicating its location.

Sunday July 16th, 2000: La Rocca alla Pace

238  Frank Viviano said of his San Francisco Chronicle article of 7/13/2000, "In thirty years as a journalist, I've never received more mail on a single article. Readers… were deeply moved by the story of John Fox and the forgotten heroes… at Sommocolonia.”  He later wrote another piece about John Fox and the Sommocolonia battle to be found on: https://www.barganews.com/fox/index.html.  Frank has been extraordinarily generous in helping me with Braided in Fire as a reader and in many other regards.

*239  LIST OF OFFICIAL PARTICIPANTS


Speakers:

• Professore Umberto Sereni, Sindaco del Comune di Barga


• Dottore Enrico Gonnella, Presidente Committee La Rocca di Sommocolonia

• Solace Wales, Vice-Presidente Committee La Rocca di Sommocolonia

• Arlene Fox, widow of Lt. John R Fox


• Albert Burke, President of the Veterans Assoc. of the 92nd Infantry Division

• Hilarian Martinez, American Consul General to Florence


• Colonel Gian-Piero Manley, representative of the American Embassy Rome

• Lt. Col. Ted Ihrke, US Army Base Commander Camp Darby, Pisa


• Riccardo Mancini, President of the Region of Tuscany Council

Present but did not speak:

• Ex-Senatore Director Paolo Riani, Dir. Italian Cultural Institute, NYC


• Francesco Viperi, Presidente della Communita` Montagna (Mountain Community)

• Dottore Mauro Campani, Vice-Pres. Mountain Community & ex-mayor of Barga

• Colonel Pietro Dimase, Commander of the Carabinieri (police) Province of Lucca

• Vittorio Antonio Torre, Vice President della provincia di Lucca)


• Lynn Wiechmann, President of  the Tuscan American Association

*240  Along with the letter from Maj. General James Hamlet was one from Louis McCall, the ex-American Consul General to Florence, who, in 1997, sang spirituals (including “Soon I Will Be Done with the Troubles of the World” and “I Am Going to Meet My King”) in the Sommocolonia church. His letter was a heartfelt apology that he and his wife could not be in attendance for the 2000 occasion. And he wrote,

“It is my prayer that one day the horror of war will be forever banished, not only from places like Sommocolonia, but from the whole earth. . .

 I look for the day when, in the words of the Lord to the prophet Isaiah 65:25:

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent’s meat.  They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my Holy mountain.” 

*241  Major General James Hamlet died at age 79 on January 5, 2001 (six months after the La Rocca ceremony). I sent a copy of his letter to The Buffalo Veterans Newsletter, which published it as part of his obituary.

Hamlet experienced his first combat when he joined the 366th at Sommocolonia for the last two months of the regiment’s existence. Though not literally true, he always felt he followed in John Fox’s footsteps. A green 2nd lieutenant in Sommocolonia, he later had ample exposure to combat: two additional harrowing months in Italy on the Tyrrhenian coast, seventeen months in Korea and three years in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. In the latter capacity, the range of his combat command was unique: He was in command of an aviation battalion, an aviation group, and later, he was assistant division commander in both the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). Finally he was in command of the reinforced 3rd Brigade of the first Cavalry Division. Over 36 years of active commissioned service, he held various commanding positions at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and at Fort Carson, Colorado.

James Hamlet became a Major General in 1973 at age 51. He was one of two African Americans from the World War II era to achieve such high rank in the US Army. In 1974 he became the Deputy to the Inspector General, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C. Major General Hamlet was instrumental in obtaining Lt. John Fox’s first US recognition, the Distinguished Service Cross. In full dress uniform, he presented the DSC citation to Arlene Fox at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts on Armed Forces Day, May 15th, 1982, thirty-eight years after Fox’s action. General Hamlet departed from protocol of handing the medal to the widow and instead, pinned it to the lapel of her suit, saying, “I know Lt. Fox would have wanted it that way.”

General Hamlet received numerous awards and honors culminating in being inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983.

For further details see:

http://www.myblackhistory.net/James_Hamlet.htm
http://www.raahistory.com/military/army/hamlet.htm

242  Vincenti family members who gifted the La Rocca land to the Comune  di Barga for the monument/park dedicated to peace: Marina Vincenti and her two daughters, Maria Grazia Rosiello and Anna Rosiello, Marina’s brother, Marino Vincenti, and their nephew, Vittorio Vincenti.   

*243  For information on Sommocolonia’s new WWII museum look for the future section on this site titled MUSEO ALLA PACE (museum dedicated to peace).

Monday July 17th, 2000

*244  Three years after his search in 2000 for the house where he had been wounded, I wrote to Rock letting him know I had discovered in talking further with Marina Vincenti, that we were mistaken about his Vincenti location. Rock’s memory while retreating with the Germans was correct (as always). The house he had reluctantly left Sergeant Tukes in was completely destroyed by a bomb on December 28th, 1944. It was never rebuilt. Two obvious clues emerged: First, the Vincenti house had running water in 1944, so Rock would not have made a trip to the fountain early that fateful morning, and, second, there never was a house immediately to the south of Vincenti’s to receive artillery bombing—that land was always a garden. Rock had been in the most northern house in the village occupied by Americans, while the most northern house, the Vincenti’s, was occupied by partisans. (The German attackers set fire to a pile of partisan ammunition in the middle of the Vincenti home, so it was damaged but could be rebuilt.) I sent Rock a photograph of his correct location, happy knowing that Barry had a videotape of the spot and of his father’s excitement in the next-door location.

*245 The returning vets and wives (and Robert Brown, Jr) stayed in Barga at the Hotel Libano where Robert Brown, Sr, and others with the 366th Intelligence, were billeted in December 1944. It had been the Barga Headquarters of the 366th Infantry Regiment.

*246  Keane, English resident of Barga, artist/photographer and creator/manager of www.barganews.com, became a literal support for Otis Zachary. When Zachary fell apart in Gallicano, Keane grabbed him and never let go. For the rest of the weekend, he had him by the arm. Zachary, not very steady on his feet, could use a helping hand, but Keane’s assistance went far beyond that. A strong bond of friendship was established between the two. Something about Zachary touched Keane deeply—maybe it was his extreme openness.

247  The two Barga ladies who offered the spontaneous party just before the veterans and their families left, were Marta Rossi Pierantoni and Fiorenza Buonagurelli, who hosted the party of coffee and pastries at her house.  

AFTERWORD

Prominent Veterans of the 366th Infantry Regiment

 *248  The quote is from Nancy Silcox, librarian at a school in Alexandria, Virginia named for Tucker. The following is a fuller description of Tucker than appears in my list of Prominent Veterans of the 366th Infantry Regiment on this website

Among the veterans of the 366th Regiment involved in the Civil Rights movement was Samuel Wilbert Tucker. Protesting the inability of African Americans to use the local library facilities, Tucker organized a sit-in at the Alexandria Library in 1939 (twenty years before the sit-ins of the 1960s civil rights movement). A first lieutenant with the 366th for most of his time in Italy, he left the army in 1946 as a major. He later became a civil rights lawyer with the NAACP and had a hand in the lawsuit that ended the state tuition grant program that allowed white children to attend segregated academies at public expense. He was also involved in cases that challenged the death penalty as being racially biased, and he fought efforts to exclude blacks from juries. Tucker often carried a heavy caseload. In 1967, for example, he had about 150 civil rights cases before state and federal courts. “In 1968 the Supreme Court decided in his case [Green vs. New Kent County School Board] that school boards could not delay and use ‘freedom of choice’ plans to desegregate school. They needed to show immediate progress. This was the second most important civil rights case after Brown in 1954.” The quote is from Nancy Silcox, who was the librarian at an elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia named for Samuel Tucker. Ms. Silcox has written a children’s book about Tucker’s remarkable life: Samuel Wilbert Tucker: The Story of a Civil Rights Trailblazer and the 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In. Published by www.history4all.com 2013.

249  I‘ve gathered biographical information about twenty-seven prominent veterans of the 366th. While incomplete, this compendium still serves to show the impressive achievements of these veterans as a group. See the separate section devoted to Prominent Veterans of the 366th.

Explanation of the Variations to the Congressional Medal of Honor Awarded to First Lieutenant John R. Fox

*250  Ulysses Lee in The Employment of Negro Troop, p 564 and Hondon Hargrove, in Buffalo Soldiers in Italy p 63, both describe soldiers in Sommocolonia as Austrian and Italian troops “some of whom were dressed as partisans.” Daniel Gibran in The 92nd Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II. pp 129–130, writes that during the night “enemy soldiers, dressed as partisans, began to pour into the village.” There were no Fascist Italian troops in the Sommocolonia battle, no infiltration during the night by the enemy, and no Axis troops dressed as either civilians or partisans. As observed in note #136, “It’s easy to understand how if one military historian makes an error early on as Ulysses Lee did in his The Employment of Negro Troops that the mistake is perpetuated in later accounts.”

*251  In addition to William Wyatt’s article (see note #94) which states unequivocally that Fox was in a tower, and the Austrian soldier Hans Burtscher’s Diary (see note #109), which says his IV Hoch Pioneers identified the tower location of the American forward observer, several veterans told me they heard Fox say he was in a tower. Among them was Lt. Robert Brown, who was at the 366th Headquarters in Fornaci di Barga when Fox’s call came in. An e-mail from Robert Brown on 10/6/2002 confirmed a previous unrecorded conversation re this. Plus, it is very likely that Pvt. Rock Smith visited Lt. John Fox in his tower outpost. See note #95.

*252 ”Via word of mouth we hear that our marksmen were able to shoot the observer in the tower…” Diary of Hans Burtscher, an Austrian non-comissioned officer, 2nd Company of the Fourth Hoch Mountain Battalion, who was in the Sommocolonia battle.  In 1997 Christoph Neizert kindly translated the then unpublished diary for me into English. Relevant here are pp 7–8. (The diary was subsequently published in Italian: in: Del Giudice, Davide, and Mori, Riccardo. La Linea Gotica tra la Garfagnana e Massa Carrara Settembre 1944- Aprile 1945: volume I. Massa: Libreria Gasperini, 2000. pp 27–46.) But Neizert’s translation proved important in establishing the correct number of Axis soldiers killed in Sommocolonia’s minefield. See note #107.

*253 In studying the Sommocolonia battle over a thirty-year period, I have been astounded at how much important information has come to light comparatively recently. Much of the new information has been revealed because of James Pratt’s talents as a researcher. (See note #17.) This includes the determination that Lt. Fox died of a ‘GSW’ gun shot wound to the chest which I received from Pratt in July 2019 just before Braided in Fire went into printing for advanced reading copies.

Pratt was also responsible for establishing Cannon Company’s location at the harrowing moment when Otis Zachary was ordered to fire the cannons at his best friend. Pratt found a morning report in September 2017 showing that on 12/26/44 Cannon Company was in Loppia. (But he cautioned that sometimes such reports were not made out on the spot, but in an office and they were not always accurate.) The final confirmation of the Loppia location came when I phoned veteran Frank Cloud, a 2nd lieutenant with Cannon Company. At age 99, Cloud didn’t remember the name ‘Loppia’, but he was certain that Cannon Company did not move locations from the time it arrived in the Barga area until it was ordered to retreat. Until that moment I was convinced that Zachary could not have forgotten his position at the most disturbing moment of his life and he insisted his Cannon Company battery was behind Gallicano on December 26th. For 22 years I had the wrong location!

Pratt has also been researching the names of the men who died in Sommocolonia ever since his visit to the village in 2010. See the separate section “The Dead” to fully comprehend his amazing results over the intervening years. Originally we had four names, now there are forty-two.

Apart from Pratt, there were other sources of information that showed up late in the game:

• I had been interviewing Berto Biondi off and on for 15 years before I learned that he was not shot by a German in Lama but by a Brazilian.

• It wasn’t until Rock Smith found Cleveland Wells for me to interview in October 2010 that I learned who identified Fox’s body.

• And it wasn’t until 2011 that Karl Schroeder cleared up for me the fact that the Axis troops who attacked Sommocolonia were a mixture of Austrians and Germans with the latter in the majority. For years I believed they were all Austrians (see note #111 to understand why).

• An article in The New York Times 12/4/16 editorial page spoke of a new addendum on lynching just released by The Equal Justice Initiative, of Montgomery, Alabama which showed that between 1877 and 1950 “no one was more at risk of experiencing violence and targeted racial terror than black veterans.” My mention of the failure of the “Victory at Home” part of the Double V campaign for black American soldiers in WWII couldn’t be confirmed more clearly. (See note #211.)

• The rationing of ammunition for those with the 92nd Division, which Rock Smith spoke of, seemed unbelievable to many informed people I spoke with, but finally, in 2011, Buffalo veteran Spencer Moore confirmed that he knew about it. Later I found references to it in two books. (See note#102.)

• I never searched for the identity of the Alpino who died in Sommocolonia’s San Rocco Piazza on October 31, 1944—at the same time Paolo Biondi was wounded—but, as a result of a relative’s inquiries, it was revealed in 2013, sixty-nine years after the soldier’s death.

• For me, perhaps the most surprising new information, concerned the circumstances of the departure of John Fox Sr. when our hero, John Fox, Jr. was sixteen years old. This was a question I had pursued to no avail for 18 years and, because Fox’s sisters were closed mouthed on the subject, I never expected to learn the truth. It finally came in an October 2013 e-mail from Jerrold Pope, John Fox’s sister’s son.

To sum up, two decades of researching this story were not enough. Many important facts were revealed in the third decade I pursued the Sommocolonia WWII story.

254  Biondi, La Battaglia di Sommocolonia, p 44.

255  Hargrove, Buffalo Soldiers in Italy, p 65.