“Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.”– Louis L’Amour
By Frank Roman
The year was 1944. Europe lay smoldering as the end of the Second World War — the bloodiest internecine war the world had ever known — was finally in sight. In August of that year there was three companies composed of about 600 black troops stationed in the northwest section of Fort Lawton in Washington State. These companies had been activated for war and, on the evening of 14 August 1944, were engaged in the final preparation for shipment overseas on the following morning. Also stationed at Fort Lawton was the 28th Italian Quartermaster Service Unit, consisting of about 200 prisoners of war who volunteered to serve with the U. S. Army after Italy became a non-belligerent. The members of the Italian unit, who apparently were no threat to anyone, were employed at various activities at or near Fort Lawton.
At about 11:00 p.m. on 14 August 1944, as four black soldiers were on their way to their respective barracks were met by members of the Italian Service Unit. As the two groups passed, one or more of the black American soldiers swore at the Italians, and another shouted, “Hey, Italian.” This caused one of the Italians to stop and turn around. One of the black American soldiers then walked toward the Italian POW in a threatening manner armed with a knife. The Italian POW responded to the threat by delivering a powerful punch knocking his attacker to the ground – out cold. The Italian group then ran to their area, pursued for a short distance by the Americans, who threw rocks at them.
The black soldier who had been dropped by the Italian POW was carried to his barracks and later driven to the base hospital by military police (MPs). But later that evening, three groups of soldiers from the black companies estimated at between 100 and 200 swarmed the Italian area with the purpose of avenging their comrade who had lost the fist fight. Led by one Sam Snow and armed with stones, knives, shovels, clubs, and at least one ax, the quarters of the Italian Service Unit were first attacked by the throwing of large stones against the buildings and through the windows with the main force of the attack directed at the orderly room. A door between two rooms was chopped down with an ax, and a group of blacks entered this building armed to the teeth, inflicting brutal injuries upon its occupants, which included several European American soldiers assigned to the Italian Service Unit as interpreters. One black soldier even drove a Jeep repeatedly over an occupied tent. Some of the Italians escaped into the woods without injuries; and MPs in due course broke up the riot about an hour after it started. Other Italian and German POWs in the area managed to avoid the mayhem.
At about 6:00 a.m. the next morning two MP’s, including one who had taken the injured black soldier to the hospital the night before, discovered the body of one of the Italian POWs hanging by his neck from a cable which was part of the obstacle course. An autopsy estimated the time of death at around midnight. The hanged Italian soldier’s name was Guglielmo Olivotto. Following an investigation the subsequent court martial, which was the longest running court martial of the Second World War, resulted in the conviction of 23 African American soldiers, including one for killing Olivotto. With 164 witnesses one would think it was a resolved affair, complete with public recognition, right? Wrong. The 1944 lynching by black soldiers of Italian POW Guglielmo Olivotto at Seattle’s Fort Lawton during WWII was conveniently forgotten history. In fact I’d wager this broadcast is the first time most of our listener’s have even heard of this crime since, in my opinion, it might not reflect too well on what some call the Greatest Generation. Yes, it was a forgotten event — until 2004 –when Dominic Moreo published a book in memory of Guglielmo Olivotto called Riot at Fort Lawton.
Of course, this didn’t sit too well with politically correct lily-white Seattle. Not content to have to live with this inconvenient version of history, liberal elites quickly ordered up a revisionist account of Riot at Fort Lawton by employing “documentarian” opportunist Jack Hamann. In his book On American Soil, Hamann floats the theory that although black soldiers stormed the Italian soldiers’ quarters late at night to avenge their comrade’s loss of a fist-fight the blacks started, and although the blacks stabbed, clubbed, and even drove jeeps over the bodies of Italian soldiers they assaulted, they are all somehow innocent. According to Hamann, the Italian soldier found lynched the next day wasn’t strung up by the blacks following their well documented deadly riot. No, not at all. It is better to say Olivotto was murdered by a yet-to-be -named racist white MP in order to frame the blacks. Despite the bald-faced absurdity of this theory, the local media hacks crowed the book’s thesis as fact. And so in late October 2007, the Army’s Board of Corrections of Military Records, after a year of consideration, ruled that the black soldiers court-martialed in the death of Olivotto were unfairly deprived of access to their attorneys and to investigative records and should have their convictions overturned. With the aid of Congressman Jim McDermott, a leftist Democrat from Washington state, and Representative Duncan Hunter, a neocon Republican from California, the ruling also covered another two-dozen soldiers convicted of the other crimes that took place that night in 1944.
Now to be fair, after 60+ years nobody is going to be able to prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, especially that the US Army’s court martial of the black soldiers for rioting and murder didn’t do its job back then. But our understanding in this day and age – your understanding — should be that the passage of time and rise of political correctness allowed a hack “journalist” (Hamman) to cook up a BS anecdote that blames a cop for Olivotto’s death whom he doesn’t even have the guts to name. Indeed ladies and gentlemen the “pardon” was exclusively political. So in spite of any remaining questions, which always go unanswered because of the political correctness dominating the climate around any issue of race in America, and particularly in lily white liberal Seattle, the underlying point is this: the Establishment is predisposed to blame white people even for their own victimization and stands prepared to color, rewrite or re-arrange historical narratives in order to be in line with current politically, socially and racially correct fads, even if that means smearing an unnamed policeman who apparently is unable to defend himself. And who better to pay the ultimate price than a long dead foreigner, Guglielmo Olivetto? An enemy. A “wop,”a “greasy dago.” A white man, whose life, death and memory is expendable in light of the carefully contrived need to solidify phony “white guilt.”
And so on July 26th — following weeks of intense pro black propaganda and rampant media cover-ups of black on white crime — “The Fort Lawton 28” as they were now called were given military honors, with an Army band and color guard, gospel choir and speeches by U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, Mayor Greg Nickels, King County Executive Ron Sims and Assistant Secretary of the Army Ronald James… all of whom supplicated themselves at the altar of political correctness in Seattle’s Discovery Park — 60 years to the day after President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces. The self confessed ring leader of the Riot at Fort Lawton Samuel Snow, of Leesburg, Fla., came to Seattle for the ceremony but missed it because he was hospitalized with a heart problem. His son, Ray, accepted his father’s honorable discharge on his behalf. (The elder Snow has since passed on.)
However a different view was expressed that day by a small defiant group of European Americans United members and supporters, who stood silently on the edge of the crowd with signs that read, “SAMUEL SNOW: COMPLICIT IN MURDER and “JACK HAMANN: PROFESSIONAL LIAR.” And while most of the crowd in attendance was upset with these politically incorrect gatecrashers there were several who expressed support and accepted printed material from them. It was even reported to us that one of the choir members wept at the sight of the signs. The media who was slavishly covering the ceremony for the black murderers avoided our people as well they should have because they may not have liked the answers to the questions posed to them. A short time later these same our people held a small ceremony of their own and visited the grave site of Guglielmo Olivotto. They placed a wreath and said a few words in honor of him, recognizing that Private Olivotto was an early casualty of the kind of black on white crime we are seeing today but which the media ignores; recognizing that that damnable war had pitted nation against nation, brother against brother who shared a common blood and a universal history, Europeans and Americans united.
Of course, some local ‘anti racist’ bed wetter’s simply couldn’t have that taking place, so they called the police. And as expected our people handled the situation with composure and maturity even when one of the officers tried to intimidate our people into leaving, which they certainly did not.
So as time goes by you will be seeing more of this kind of activism, and furthermore there will be activities taking place by our people and for our people that you won’t hear about – like there are right now. But on July 26th our European Americans United members and allies, in the face of our enemies, took it upon themselves not to allow this contempt against one of our own to go by unnoticed. This is only the beginning. Let your face be what the haters of our people have to face.
