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DAILY NEBRASKAN
December 1, 2004“On American Soil” tells the story of wrongly accused men held responsible for an innocent man’s death.
Jack Hamann’s first book entails high drama not uncommon in a novel by John Grisham. What makes Hamann’s work more compelling is that every character, every event in “On American Soil” is real.
As a journalist in Seattle, Hamann stumbled upon Guglielmo Olivotto’s headstone. An Italian soldier buried in the American Northwest piqued Hamann’s curiosity.
Toward the end of World War II, Olivotto was an Italian prisoner of war held at Seattle’s Fort Lawton. Tensions ran high as more POWs and black soldiers arrived for duty at the segregated camp.
One night in August 1944, a riot broke out, injuring nearly three dozen Italian and American soldiers. When the sun rose the next morning, a pair of military police found Olivotto’s body dangling from the obstacle course, an apparent victim of the previous evening’s mob violence.
Accusations of rioting and lynching resulted in the largest U.S. Army court-martial of World War II. Forty-three men, all black, were held on charges of breaking the articles of war. Three of them were charged with murder.
Conflicting testimonies from key witnesses muddled the Army’s investigation. Fifty years later, Hamann’s text manages to paint a clear picture of the events at Fort Lawton because of his comprehensive research.
His career in journalism prepared Hamann to compose a well-written and sweeping volume about an often forgotten chapter of American history.
The book is an easy and fast read. Hardly simplistic, the word choice and sentence structure is accessible even to those who do not consider themselves to be scholars of history.
Structure plays an important role in “On American Soil.” Chapters are titled in a simple manner, giving the reader a clear idea of what information is to come.
The numerous references to army rank and procedure could have led to confusion. Many of the accused had similar or shared last names. But Hamann introduces each of the major players in the riot and ensuing trials individually and extensively to set them apart from one another.
Many first time writers strive too hard for literary greatness or create one-dimensional caricatures instead of real characters. Hamann didn’t work too hard to make his book good or timely – his subject matter did the job for him.
“On American Soil,” though it won’t be released until spring of 2005, is especially pertinent now when POWs are again in the custody of U.S. soldiers. It is a surprisingly relevant work about prejudice, scapegoats and cover-ups in a time of war.