HONOR FINALLY RETURNED TO 23 WWII SOLDIERS

[note: honors are returned to 28 WWII soldiers]

More than 60 years after Booker Townsell spent two years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and 24 years after he died, the Army finally placed a flag on his grave.

In a Milwaukee cemetery in January, with the temperature at 14 degrees, hundreds of people watched as an Army color guard advanced, listened as riflemen fired a gun salute and cried as Assistant Secretary of the Army Ronald James gave a speech about a man wrongly accused.

Then James handed Townsell’s family the flag he did not receive when he died in 1984 because he had been dishonorably discharged.

“He did not have a flag when he was buried,” said Townsell’s granddaughter, Lashell Drake. “But he has it now.”

Soon, Townsell’s family and the families of 22 other [note: 27 other]wrongfully convicted black troops may also receive financial compensation, if a bill already pushed through the Senate Armed Services Committee finds similar support in the House.

In 1944, the Army tried 43 black soldiers in the hanging death of Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto, an Italian prisoner of war held at Fort Lawton, Wash.

The court found 23 [note: found 28] of the men guilty, sent several to prison and dishonorably discharged all 23 [note: all 28].

Olivotto was found hanging from a rope in the base obstacle course, but not until after a massive fight had broken out between black soldiers and the Italian POWs, leaving several men battered and bleeding in the barracks.

But the evidence pointed to a white soldier who complained that the Italian POWs were allowed to roam freely and, worse, flirt with American women at the canteen.

“Every single bit … of evidence points to one man,” said Jack Hamann, a Seattle journalist who detailed the case in his book, “On American Soil.” “I know who he is. He’s dead now, too.”

Hamann said a soldier named Clyde Lomack [note: Lomax] killed Olivotto, and then tried to cover it up. Hamann said Lomack [note: Lomax], a military policeman, also incited the riot, and did not alert other MPs to the fight.

Lomack was later court-martialed and discharged for being unable to explain where he was at the time of the murder, but he was never charged with that crime. Hamann said the riot was meant to cover up the murder.

Worse, Hamann said and court records show, the Army prosecutor withheld evidence from the black troops’ attorney that showed the soldiers were innocent. That lawyer later served as special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, and sued Richard Nixon for the tapes that later did Nixon in.

“Overall, Jaworski was a brilliant lawyer,” Hamann said. “But he let his career get ahead of him. He violated a rule that was fully in place in both military and civilian courts at the time”

GOAL WASN’T TO CHANGE HISTORY

Hamann said that when he began writing about the case, he meant only to answer questions he had as a journalist — not spur a military investigation and congressional action.

“My goal was never to change history or seek justice,” he said. “But we have changed history.”

He has changed the history of several families. Of the 23 [note: 28] soldiers who were convicted, two are still alive. Families of nine others have been found.

“We knew that he served in World War II,” Drake said of her grandfather. “We knew he was dishonorably discharged. We didn’t know the details.”

She said her grandfather told the family that he’d been wrongfully charged with a hanging, and that it always bothered him that he would not have a flag presented to his family at his funeral.

“It was not something he wanted to discuss,” she said. “But whatever my grandfather said was it. We always believed him.”

Details arrived when a cousin entered Booker Townsell’s name in an Internet search engine and came up with Hamann’s book.

“We were like, ‘Oh my word,’” Drake said. “This was horrible.”

Most tragic, Hamann explained, is that Townsell wasn’t even at the riot. Two black soldiers both had the names “Booker” and a last name that began with the same letter.

“He served two years of hard labor because he had the same initials as another man,” Drake said.

But the other Booker T., whom Jaworski charged as well, also was innocent of the murder, according to Hamann and the Army investigation.

Past the anger, however, Drake said that what the Army has done for her family has been “spectacular,” and that her family has “adopted” Hamann.

“We’re so amazed that people who don’t even know us or any of these men have taken up this banner to fight for justice,” she said.

Hamann gave a copy of his book to Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who read it and then called Hamann the next day.

“As soon as he read the book, he said, ‘We’re doing this,’” said Mike DeCesare, McDermott’s spokesman.

McDermott and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., “worked up a directive for the military to investigate the charges,” DeCesare said.

The military did, and found that Hamann’s research was spot on. As families filed appeals, Army officials changed the troops’ records to remove convictions and make their discharges honorable. They also offered restitution.

But when Samuel Snow, now in his 80s and one of two of the soldiers known to still be alive, received his check, he was stunned by his “restitution” — $725.

“Here we’re talking about something from the 1940s,” DeCesare said. “Does $725 sound right to you?” Army officials explained their hands were tied: Without congressional action, they could not pay the men or their families more.

Last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee asked that cost-of-living and interest adjustments be added to the payments. If the House takes up the cause, Snow could receive $80,000.