|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
RICHARD BERNER
January 5, 2005World War II’s largest Army court-martial took place at Fort Lawton, located on Seattle’s Magnolia bluff. More than forty African American soldiers were accused of a riot that climaxed with the murder/lynching of an Italian POW.
When records of the trial were declassified by the National Archives in the 1990s, journalist Jack Hamann descended on the archives, finding the trial records intact.
Exhaustive research there, followed by more interviews, has led to the definitive study of this momentous trial and the troubling international relations at the time.
Told with the verve of a skilled mystery writer, the reader is left judging who really was guilty, since no solid evidence was produced to support the convictions of three blacks for the crime.
The chief prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, had sought the position as a stepping stone for being named to prosecute Nazi leaders; he won that position as well.
-Richard C. Berner, author, Seattle in the 20th Century