Thursday,
December 20, 2007
WW II
The
ANNOTICO Report
Here
is an example when Fact becomes Art, through Creativeness, Incompetence,
or Disingenuousness.
The
Facts are UNQUESTIONABLY CLEAR:
A
Minimum of 43 Armed Black Non Combatant/Dock Loaders STORMED the Barracks of
Dozens of Defenseless Italian POWs.
Several
Dozen of the Italians were Beaten and Sent to the Hospital, One,
Guglielmo Olivotto
was Lynched by the Mob.
Now
the Rioters and their Families are trying to make these Rioters into
"victims" rather than the "criminals" they are.
They
have wrangled Pardons, perhaps Medals Next??
The
Blacks were actually really more angry about the discrimination
by the white US Soldiers, but were unable to do much about that.
Of
course that same Discrimination kept Blacks mostly out of Combat Units. Only
about 2000 Blacks served in Combat. Most served in "service units"
Between 600,000- 800,000 Italian Americans served in US Combat Units.
The
Blacks also resented that the Italian POWS were given privileges in
exchange for their work, and that the POWs were welcomed into the Italian homes
in
This
is the Justification the Blacks used for Rioting,
and Hospitalizing dozens of Italian POWs, and lynching one of them.
Be
Amazed at the obfuscation engaged in to make this right
?????
World War II
Barbara Stewart was happy when she heard that
the Army had overturned her husband's conviction in what is believed to be the
only case in which black men have been tried for a lynching.
She
is not sure he would have had the same reaction.
"Nobody is
ever happy who is wrongly accused," said Mrs. Stewart, 70, of
Les Stewart had
been found guilty of participating in a 1944 riot at
The court-martial
derailed the lives of the 43 soldiers - 12 of whom were from
The
case was largely forgotten until the 2005 publication of the book On
American Soil, in which Seattle-based writer
Jack Hamann recounted the riot and subsequent
court-martial.
As a result of
the book, Congress ordered a review of the case by the Army's Board for
Correction of Military Records. In October, the board said the court-martial
had been unjust and recommended that the convictions be overturned.
Mr. Jaworski, whose role as Watergate special prosecutor earned
him a reputation for toughness and honesty, was chief prosecutor in the
Relatives of the
soldiers, nearly all of whom are now dead, said the men seldom discussed the
case during their lifetimes. Mr. Jaworski, too, was
reticent on the subject, according to his grandson, Robert Draper.
In an oral
history at
"He refers
to it in maybe two sentences, and he said it was an unfortunate case. He
clearly didn't make an effort to beat his chest about it," Mr. Draper
said.
Mr. Draper said
he believes his grandfather's actions were less a result of maliciousness than
simply being on the wrong side of history.
"I do
believe Leon Jaworski is a real hero," he said.
"This case was not one of his finest moments."
Today, the
handful of defendants' relatives who were interviewed said they had no
bitterness toward Mr. Jaworski. The defendants had
managed to get on with their lives, they said.
"He must
have been good," Vera Baker said, referring to Mr. Jaworski's
achievements. "I guess we all make mistakes."
'You
never push'
Ms. Baker's
cousin, Arthur Hurks, a
Mr. Hurks was acquitted of that charge in the subsequent
court-martial but was found guilty of rioting and sentenced to 12 years of hard
labor. He served two years before being transferred to a rehabilitation center.
He returned to
"He was very
silent on it," Ms. Baker said. "If we tried to talk about it, he
would just turn away. And there are some things you never push."
According to Mr. Hamann, the trial of the
The Aug. 14,
1944, riot grew out of a crosscurrent of tensions, according to Mr. Hamann. Some white soldiers and civilians resented the
presence of black soldiers in their midst. There was a feeling among soldiers
of both races that the treatment of Italian POWs had been too lenient, and
black soldiers felt that the Italians were granted some privileges that they
themselves were denied.
A rumor that a
black soldier had been struck on the head by a group of Italian soldiers led to
an attack on Italian POW barracks by African-Americans. A few hours later, Mr. Olivotto's body was found hanging from a steel cable on a
bluff near the scene of the riot.
The black units
involved in the riot were heavily populated with rural Southerners, but others
were from Northern cities, chiefly
Such tensions, no
matter how trivial, may have led to false accusations, even by members of the
same unit, he said. For example, one of the accusers of Mr. Hurks,
a popular student at
As a result, men
who may not even have been present in the spot where the rioting occurred such as Mr. Stewart were identified as rioters. And some of
the actions of those who were present were bizarrely twisted by their accusers.
One of the
Texans, John Hamilton, was one of the evening's heroes, rescuing a white
officer and taking him to safety. Yet Mr. Hamilton was charged with rioting and
subsequently convicted.
Evidence
withheld
In any case, the
43 men were represented by only two defense lawyers, who were given less than
two weeks to prepare for the trial. Mr. Jaworski,
moreover, knew something the defense lawyers didn't.
An inspector
general's report immediately after the riot had concluded that the murder
investigation had been sloppy, that crucial evidence had been destroyed or
lost, and that there were indications that a white military police officer may
have been responsible for the lynching.
Although required
to share such evidence with the defense team, Mr. Jaworski
never did so. When the defense lawyers learned of the report, the court-martial
judges backed the prosecutor's refusal to turn it over.
Mr. Hamann said that only Mr. Jaworski
knew his own motives, but the author believes that the prosecutor was an
ambitious man who understood that a successful outcome would bolster his
chances to participate in the high-profile war-crime trials in
"The case
had become an international incident, and the White House and the Pentagon and
the State Department were all concerned about the outcome," Mr. Hamann said. "He knew they wanted a conviction, and
maybe that entered into it."
That explanation
angers Mr. Jaworski's grandson, who said he otherwise
admires Mr. Hamann's book.
"It
presupposes that a man of Leon Jaworski's abilities
and ambition would not have attained greater things if it had not been for this
case," Mr. Draper said.
After winning the
He died in 1982,
long before Mr. Hamann's book uncovered his actions
in the
Camille Kea, Mr. Hurks' granddaughter, said last week she knew nothing of
Mr. Jaworski's actions but blamed the case for
turmoil in her family.
"I do feel
that if he had not been in jail, if he had been around, my grandparents would
not have divorced," she said.
Ms. Kea, 31, a
public relations consultant in
"He liked
jazz," she said. "He drove a little white Cadillac. He was cool not in the sense of being icy but in the sense of 'with it.' "
What she doesn't
know is what he thought of his wrongful conviction.
"He would
never talk about it. Never, no," Ms. Kea said. "What I heard about
the case, I heard from my grandmother, and she said they were very trying and
very traumatic times."
The Army review
recommended that relatives receive "all back pay and allowances due."
The only such
payment so far has been to one of only two surviving defendants. That man
received $725. Some members of Congress are trying to obtain a larger payment.
Some defendants'
families are unaware that they may be entitled to a payment, Mr. Hamann said, and others have been slow to apply.
"I have the
forms, but I haven't filled them out yet," Ms. Kea said. "It's the
holidays right now, and I've been pretty busy."
Silent
dignity
Some of the
relatives remain angry.
"I don't
know why they did what they did to my husband," Mrs. Stewart said,
"but racism might have had something to do with it."
According to Mr. Hamann's book, when Mr. Stewart returned home after serving
in
He always
particularly resented the charge that black people, who long had been victims
of lynching, would have lynched a white man.
But most
relatives of the defendants said the men dealt with the injustice with silent
dignity.
Ms. Baker said
her cousin, Mr. Hurks, died broke. She paid for her
cousin's funeral, including his burial clothes, but said she has been unable to
afford a gravestone.
Though Ms. Baker
said her cousin never expressed bitterness over the trial, he refused to return
to
She believes he
would have been pleased by the case's outcome.
"It was a
long time being overturned," Ms. Baker said. "But at least he got
cleared."
SOURCE: Jack Hamann's On American Soil
RECOUNTING
THE FORT
During
World War II, both black and white soldiers feel Italian POWs at
On
Aug. 14, 1944, black soldiers attack Italian POW barracks after a black soldier
reportedly was hit on the head by a group of Italian soldiers. Italian prisoner
Guglielmo Olivotto is found
hanged.
Forty-three
men all blacks including 12 from
In
2005, more than 60 years later, a book recounting the riot and trial, On
American Soil, is published.
Congress
orders a review of the case by the Army's Board for Correction of Military
Records.
In
October, the board rules that the court-martial had been unjust and recommends
that the convictions be overturned.
A
review concludes that Leon Jaworski, the chief
prosecutor, intentionally withheld evidence from the defense that might have
cleared the defendants.
An
Army review recommends that relatives receive "all back pay and allowances
due." So far, the only payment has been to one of two surviving
defendants, for $725.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/121907dnmetoverturned.2c13310.html#
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