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On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II

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It is rare that a book of history is so eminently timely to the events of the present day. It is even rarer when it has such an immediate impact. In June, a scant three months after the book's release, House Representative Jim McDermott of Washington introduced a resolution, cosponsored by 25 representatives, calling for an inquiry into the convictions of 28 black soldiers for rioting and murder, as chronicled in Hamann's debut novel "On American Soil."

Hamann weaves a compelling narrative of the events of 1944 at a remote army base at Fort Lawton in Seattle that culminated in the largest army court martial of WWII and the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war.

After hundreds of thousands of Italian and German soldiers surrendered in North Africa, the Allies found themselves unexpectedly confronted with the problem of housing POWs on an unimagined scale. America's military leaders were determined that they would set the standard for compliance with the Geneva Convention. The environment that sparked the lynching of Private Olivetto was the American public's dismay at the "coddling" of Italian prisoners and the military's attempts to defend that treatment.

To describe the book's events further would do disservice to the pleasure of the read. It progresses quickly, through short but compelling personal narratives, high court room drama, and even a thrilling whodunnit murder mystery.

In the end, it is the gripping story, as uncovered through Hamann's painstaking research that make the book the masterpiece that it is. Indeed, in an Indiana Jones-style twist, the key document uncovered by Hamann was found deep in the National Archives in a stack of boxes entitled "Miscellaneous." Yet, it must also be noted that what is striking as one reads the book is that it reads like the most tautly-paced work of fiction. I, a week before my first year law school finals, picked the book up for the first time. I did not put it down until I had read the book in its entirety.

In an America that continues to be plagued by issues of race relations and the treatment of prisoners, this is an accessible book that should be required reading.

The subtitle of On American Soil says it all: Murder, the Military, and How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II. Seattle journalist James Hamman stumbled onto "a story" 18 years ago about an Italian soldier dying while in a prisoner of war camp in Seattle-and finally wrote the story when the documents were declassified.

Some Italian soldiers had been captured after years of toiling under Fascist rule, fighting without buying into the politics. Over 200 of the POWs, those who were not troublemakers, were moved to a camp near Seattle. These prisoners made up the Italian Service Unit (ISU) where they did the work of American soldiers, dressed in plain uniforms.

The Italians were allowed to go into town to visit Italian-American homes for a family dinner. Also in this encampment were the black soldiers, whose primary job was loading and unloading ships (thus called Port soldiers). A small scuffle ensued one night after three Italians returned to the camp. The black soldiers were furious with how poorly they were treated as American soldiers-and the privileges the POWS had.

The alarm went out to deal with the Italians who had hurt "one of our boys." A riot ensured for almost an hour, without MPs arriving, and violence was meted out without discerning if they were badly beating Italian or American soldiers.

The camp commander was so embarrassed by the riot-and lack of response by the MPs, that he ordered everything cleaned up immediately-removing fingerprints and other evidence needed to deal with the intruding soldiers. More than 40 black soldiers were charged for the riot.

On American Soil becomes the story of how one Italian POW was found hung. At first it was ruled a suicide, unlikely as that seemed as there were no footprints under his body. As this was August 1944, in the midst of the war, any mistreatment of POWs on our land could mean more mistreatment of captured Americans. Someone had to pay...and that leads up to a trial prosecuted by Leon Jaworski (later of the Nuremberg Trials, Kennedy's assassination and Nixon's impeachment fame).

I'm not going to reveal anything else. It is a fabulous read and would make a great movie-if we really wanted to know a true but unbelievable story of segregation, POWs, wartime problems here and abroad, ineptness of commanders-the list goes on.

The author has done a thorough job of research and On American Soil is a two-thumbs-up book.

With frequent charges of prisoner abuse being leveled at the US government, it is perhaps time to remember that keeping prisoners of war, and doing it fairly, has never been perfectly accomplished in any war. In World War II, the largest and the longest court martial was one dealing with prisoner abuse. The prisoners were surely abused in the riot that sparked the court martial; one was hung. But the judgement in the trial, now largely forgotten, was an unfair one tainted by the racial prejudice of the time. In _On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II_ (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill), Jack Hamann has revised his original story, a one-hour documentary about the murder and court martial, described the event as the court martial had discovered it. The description was not true. Fifteen years after his first report, he found the records of the abandoned Fort Lawton, near Seattle; all military installations keep lots of paperwork, but the orphaned files of the defunct installation were only to be found in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and only recently had some of the documents been declassified.

Strangely, the incident may have happened because of the way the Americans were bending over backwards to treat the Italian POWs fairly. Those at Ft. Lawton had cool weather, good food, comfortable quarters, and privileges of visiting in downtown Seattle. Many Americans resented that Italian prisoners were mollycoddled while those who had defeated them had to fight on. Near the POW barracks were those for "Negro troops" who required their own segregated quarters for eating and sleeping. On 14 August 1944, black soldiers rioted, probably at least partially as a result of comparisons to the POWs' lot contrasted to their own. Several POWs were wounded, and the body of Private Guglielmo Olivotto was found hanging from a tree the next morning. The point of the court martial was to assign punishment for those who had rioted and committed the murder, but Brigadier General Elliot Cooke, a troubleshooter assigned to look into the event immediately afterwards, had come to some conclusions beforehand. His eventual report castigated inept leadership at the fort, and especially criticized how evidence had been lost. Cooke's voluminous report showed that it was unlikely that Olivotto had been hung by blacks in the frenzy of the riot, but it did not deter the Army prosecutor brought from Texas, Lieutenant Colonel Leon Jaworski (more famous for winning the Supreme Court decision that ultimately led to Nixon's resignation).

Though the defense attorneys demanded to see Cooke's report, the report that Jaworski was using for prosecution, this was never allowed, crippling the defense's efforts. Some of the defendants were found innocent, but three were found guilty of the lynching; their sentences were eventually reduced to three or five years as a result of post-war clemency. In 1948, President Truman signed the order that all races would be equally treated in the armed services. The Ft. Lawton riot and subsequent trial were a step on the road leading from a Jim Crow society. Hamann cannot finger a particular culprit in the hanging; neither could Cooke or Jaworski, and the evidence just isn't there, but he indicates that a white military policeman who found the body in the morning may well have done the murder and depended upon the Army to blame the rioters. There can be nothing but speculation on the matter, but it is no matter of speculation that the trial reflected the unfairness of its times. Hamann's text is good as a court drama, but it is especially useful in describing the era's POW issues and treatment of black soldiers.

Jack Hamann's book is indispensable for anyone interested in the story of Italian POWs in WWII. He takes a little-known incident--the 1944 lynching of Italian POW Guglielmo Olivotto in Seattle--and expands it into an analysis of the treatment of both Italians and black Americans in the American military. Olivotto's death was never solved; or rather, as Hamann shows, it was blamed on the black soldiers stationed at Fort Lawton who had rioted and attacked the Italian POWs over an earlier fist-fight. As Hamann demonstrates, the prosecution of some 44 soldiers in a court martial, and the conviction of 28 of them, including three for the murder of Olivotto, was a miscarriage of justice. The prosecutor--the soon-to-be-famous Leon Jaworski--concealed crucial evidence of the probable innocence of many of the soldiers from the defense. More disturbing, Hamann shows that evidence at the scene of the lynching was destroyed or mishandled, leaving the black soldiers to take the rap. His research indicates that it was probable that a white MP had actually lynched the Italian.
Hamann's book thus sheds light on two not very widely known aspects of WWII. First, he brings attention to the fact that 50,000 Italian POWs were interned in the U.S., with Americans displaying a mixed attitude towards them. Many Italian Americans visited the POW facilities, hoping to find relatives or information about relatives in Italy, with some ending up marrying the POWs. Other Americans resented the fact that the Italian POWs--at least those who had taken a loyalty oath to work with the Allies--were treated so well and allowed to visit and dine off base: the word many used was "mollycoddling." Second, Hamann publicizes the fact that even as late as 1944, African Americans in the military were kept in segregated facilities and allowed to work only in menial jobs in the service--loading and unloading ships and supplies. When these two aspects were allowed to collide, as they did in the riot at Fort Lawton, murder and mayhem could result. Anyone interested in either of these two aspects of WWII will find this book invaluable.

On American Soil is a fact-based account of a little know event during World War II - an event which led to the largest court-martial of World War II and another example of American injustice that we were never taught about in American schools. What began as a riot, supposedly led by black Army soldiers against Italian prisoners of war, ended in the hanging of one of the POWs. Then came the cover-up. Over 60 years later, Author Hamann did the best he could with the information still available to tell us what actually happened while giving us a detailed description of the personalities and litigation involved. One of the legal stars of the future to come out of this trial was prosecutor Leon Jaworski who went on to be a major participant in the Nuremberg trials and special prosecutor for the Watergate scandal. It is a sad tale of injustice, but maybe Hamann has overcome some of the unfairness with this book. Sadly too late for the railroaded African American soldiers who were prosecuted, sentenced, and have died before this book and its information came to light. It's not a pretty picture, but fascinating never the less. Hamann does a good job of taking very obscure and detailed information and giving us a story of compelling interest.

This book is about a trial during WWII. The defendants are Black Soldiers. The vicitim is an Italian prisoner of war. The author does a great job telling the story of this racially charged trial, and the injustce that resulted. I had never heard of the events that are chronicled in this book, but it was certainly a dark hour in American justice. It was a fast entertaining read. I found this suprising considering how factually oriented the book is. Overall, it is a really good book.

This book I started out fact and increased the pace until the very end. It was one of the best books that I have ever read. It contains true history, murder and suspense.

On American Soil me back to a time in America where it is sometimes painful to be. It is a must read for anyone who claims to know American history.

"On American Soil" details the story behind the offically-known story of events that took place at Fort Lawton during World War II. How many of us can imagine a U.s. Fort being a staging facility for troops heading to the Pacific as well as a prisoner-of-war camp as well as the 1940's separation of black and white American soldiers? Jack Hamann's book describes in a flowing and fact-filled narrative this history and what happened 'during the riot' and at the court martial of over 40 black soldiers. Hamann's writing reminds me of Anthony Lucas's "Big Trouble", allowing the reader the luxury of feeling present during the events as they happened. Hamann is a gifted writer. The book is full of detailed facts that were gleaned and gathered from archives and interview with surviving soldiers and their families. When I finished 'On American Soil' I felt informed about the realities of World War II and entertained by the Hamann's description of events, not unlike the trial described in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". I am impressed by the quality of writing and rich content of Hamann's first book.