FEBRUARY 21, 2011

The entire transcript of the landmark 1944 court-martial of 43 African American soldiers at Seattle’s Fort Lawton is now available online. Also available is the entire declassified 1944 Army Inspector General report—known as the Cooke Report—which exposed egregious abuses by Army prosecutors, and eventually led to the historic 2007 exoneration of all 28 soldiers convicted in the World War II trial.

The trial transcript and Cooke Report are made available courtesy of Internet Archive, a wonderful San Francisco-based nonprofit Internet library. IA offers permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical digital collections.

Detailed indexes accompany both the trial transcript and the Cooke Report. Internet Archive also offers a powerful search engine, permitting users to locate names, places and subjects scattered through the thousands of pages in the Fort Lawton collection, and the millions of pages on IA.

The Fort Lawton trial—the largest and longest US Army court-martial of World War II—began November 20, 1944 and ended December 18, 1944. Court was in session six days a week, including Thanksgiving Day. The transcript runs 1,811 pages. Among the highlights:

• In lieu of an opening statement, prosecutor Leon Jaworski distributes notebooks to each court-martial judge.
• Leon Jaworski refuses to make the Cooke Report available to the defense.
• Pvt. Clyde Lomax testifies.
• Closing Arguments.

Between September 10, 1944 and October 5, 1944, Gen. Cooke and his assistants, Lt Col Curtis Williams and Capt. S.K. Tyson, conducted more than 200 interviews, interrogating officers, civilians and enlisted men, including both American soldiers and Italian prisoners of war. Those interviews were all transcribed, and span 1,512 pages. Gen. Cooke sent two preliminary reports to the Pentagon, dated October 5, 1944 and October 14, 1944. Cooke’s final report was dated October 28, 1944. Cooke’s three reports, plus the 1,512 pages of interviews, are collectively known as “The Cooke Report.” The report was initially classified; it was declassified by the National Archives and Records Administration at the request of journalists Jack Hamann and Leslie Hamann. Highlights:

• Gen. Elliot D. Cooke’s confidential October 5, 1944 report to the U.S. Army Inspector General.
• Gen. Elliot D. Cooke’s confidential October 14, 1944 report to the U.S. Army Inspector General.
• Gen. Elliot D. Cooke’s confidential October 28, 1944 report to the U.S. Army Inspector General.
• sworn testimony of Pvt. Clyde Lomax.
• Leon Jaworski’s chief investigator, Maj. Robert Manchester, admits that the investigation was botched.