On American Soil | A new look at an old lynching

Lawnmowers buzz over the grass of the cemetery at Fort Lawton when Jack Hamann and I pull in and pass the perfect rows of white headstones, headed for The One.

It is a stout, whitewashed column behind a metal-pole fence. The marker bears the name of Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto and the dates “23 Ottobre 1911, 14 Agosto 1944.” The soldier’s birth and death, in his native language.

“It’s like Normandy,” Hamann tells me. “You bury a soldier where he died.”

Jack Hamann -- photo by STEVE RINGMAN, SEATTLE TIMES

Where one man’s life ended, a quest began for Hamann, 50, who, as a reporter for KING-TV, stood at this very spot in 1986 and found a mystery:

In 1944, Olivotto, an Italian prisoner of war being held at the Army barracks here, was lynched during a riot involving up to 200 black American soldiers. When it ended, 43 faced life in prison for rioting; three faced the gallows for murder.

Were those accused of Olivotto’s murder really guilty? How could we know so little about World War II’s largest Army court-martial? And isn’t it weird that blacks would lynch someone?

“I wanted to know why this isn’t more a general part of the Seattle story,” said Hamann, a 20-year Queen Anne resident.

The 19-year search for answers has resulted in “On American Soil” (Algonquin Books), a chronicle of the events of Aug. 14, 1944.

There was no evidence that the Americans had committed murder, but the Army carried on with the courts-martial, led by Lt. Col. Leon Jaworski, who would go on to prosecute the Watergate scandal.

Hamann’s research points to a white military policeman, Clyde Lomax, “a punk” who the author believes hanged Olivotto in an act of racist frustration and was never tried. Lomax, who was questioned in the case and later discharged by the Army, died four years ago. Even with that settled in his mind, Hamann’s zeal for the story remains fresh and strong.

Last week, the case got another boost when Congressman Jim McDermott called Hamann, saying he had picked up “On American Soil” and couldn't put it down—not even at the opera.

McDermott told Hamann that he may seek some sort of federal action—honorable discharges for the accused?—and said he was giving copies of the book to members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Hamann speaks passionately of the investigative process; the people he and his wife, Leslie, tracked down; and the rush of uncovering history, one record at a time.

The mother lode was a report by Brig. Gen. Elliot D. Cooke of the Army’s Office of the Inspector General, which detailed the events of that night and contradicted the version Jaworski presented at the courts-martial.

The project started when Hamann, then working for KING-TV, was sent to Fort Lawton for a story on Magnolia’s sewage-treatment plant. While there, a park ranger pointed out Olivotto’s grave.

Hamann produced a story that won an Emmy—but it was based on the court-martial transcripts.

“People think that journalism is finding truth and justice,” Hamann said. “But no. Your role is to simply sort out the facts for other people.”

“I’ll show you where he was hung,” Hamann said the other day. We walked a path across from the Fort Lawton minimart.

It was there, Hamann pointed, just beyond a burst of yellow Scotch broom, where an Italian POW and black soldier got into a fistfight, sparking a group of primed-for-battle black soldiers to descend on the Italian POWs’ barracks, injuring 24.

The next morning, Olivotto’s body was discovered by two MPs (Lomax was one of them). It was hanging from a cable used as part of an obstacle course.

The sewage-treatment plant is there now. A stunning view of Mount Baker. Water and runners and no hint of the horror that must have run through Olivotto that night.

Hamann did his best to get a sense of it, rising long before dawn to walk under the same canopies of trees as Olivotto and his murderer that night almost 61 years ago.

As we walked, Hamann recounted his research for the book. There were fits and starts for many years (“It was always on the burner,” he said), until four years ago, when his daughter, Lauren, 21, left for college (son Brett, 23, is a writer living in Texas).

“Our instinct was right,” he said. “We found out what the Army knew, inside. Even after 50 years, you could get a hold of it.”

“Every one of these groups had this amazing texture and structure across racial lines. They had lives and stories that we couldn’t get enough of.”

The journey put them into the homes of some of the accused, who looked Hamann in the eyes and said, “I didn’t do it.”

Hamann would like to see a marker placed at Fort Lawton “saying what really happened here.”

And yet, we both recognize the irony of how war treats its prisoners, then and now.

The Italian POW who first crossed a black soldier that night during World War II had been on a pass to downtown Seattle. The soldier was acting on a general feeling of resentment among his fellow black soldiers about how well the Italians were treated.

Today’s war has been marked by the humiliation of POWs: The stacked, naked bodies at Abu Ghraib. Saddam Hussein in his underwear.

“If you want prisoners to cooperate, you don’t treat them like animals,” Hamann said. “I know back then there was a much larger reservoir of feelings of being at least decent to our prisoners.

“I’m not a crusader, but if nothing else, this book has made me think that way.”

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.