Soldiers cleared in ‘44 death

SEATTLE – For more than a half-century, the convictions of 28 African-American soldiers for a riot that ended in the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war at Seattle’s Fort Lawton during World War II has held an uneasy place in history.

It was the Army’s largest court-martial of the war, and it was one of the region’s worst conflicts between blacks and whites.

Last week, the August 1944 incident gained a new place in history. In what is believed to be an unprecedented ruling after a yearlong review, an Army review board tossed out the convictions after finding the trial was “fundamentally unfair.”

The ruling Friday by the Army’s highest administrative-review board has granted honorable discharges and back pay for four soldiers whose families petitioned for the review. And it will likely apply to the other 24 soldiers if their families also petition, according to attorneys involved in the case.

Only two of the soldiers are still alive.

“It’s a real beautiful thing,” said one of them, Samuel Snow, 84, of Leesburg, Fla.

The decision reflects a willingness by the government to “correct the record,” said Col. Dan Baggio, the Army’s chief spokesman.

“We learn by mistakes, when we do make mistakes, even when it takes a long time,” he said Friday. “We feel good about getting it right.”

In 1944, Fort Lawton was an important staging ground for the war in the Pacific. Snow’s all-black unit in the segregated Army was preparing to ship out for New Guinea. While they waited, the men were barracked near a group of about 200 Italian prisoners of war who worked as laborers at the fort.

Tensions between the Italians and Americans both black and white rose for a number of reasons. Italians got leave to drink in off-base bars that didn’t serve blacks, and also chased the same Seattle girls pursued by white soldiers.

The night of the riot, some of the black soldiers and some of the Italians exchanged drunken insults and fought, said Seattle author Jack Hamann, who wrote of the incident in “On American Soil.” Then a white military policeman “fanned the tensions” of the black soldiers and whipped their anger into a riot, probably because he resented the Italians for courting local women.

The next morning, an Italian private, Guglielmo Olivotto, was found hanged in the woods. A Seattle Times story at the time said 26 Italians were hospitalized after the black soldiers “stormed the barracks of the former Axis soldiers.” Although only two Italians could identify their attackers, 43 black soldiers were tried in a combined trial. All of them were represented by two defense lawyers, including Howard Noyd, who is now 92 and living in Bellevue.

In the end, 28 of the soldiers, including Snow, were convicted of rioting. Two were convicted of manslaughter in Olivotto’s death. Snow served a year in the brig. Other soldiers served as many as 25 years.

In its ruling, the Army board said the lack of preparation time afforded the defense, along with the denial of access to the inspector general’s report, meant the soldiers didn’t get a fair trial. The panel noted that the white military policeman, who had testified against the black soldiers, was later convicted of abandoning his post during the riot.