Italy Honors 'Buffalo Soldiers'

SOMMOCOLONIA, Italy -- Facing certain defeat at the hands of advancing German forces, U.S. Army Lieutenant John Fox called on his rear artillery and ordered his friend and fellow soldier Otis Zachary to open fire.


The maneuver crucially stalled the enemy in its assault on Sommocolonia, a strategic Tuscan mountain ridge, allowing the townspeople to flee and in a way help the Allies to hold the Italian front in one of the final acts of World War II.


Fox and around 50 of his men, pinned down by the Nazis in exactly the place the artillery shells needed to fall, knew they would die that day in the bombardment of "friendly" U.S. fire, but their selfless bravery is only now being recognized.


"When John Fox called the battery f I was the commander for the battery f and he said 'to put everything you got on me,' I said 'Hell no,'" remembers Zachary, tears welling in his eyes as he replays the events of nearly 56 years ago.


Eventually Fox swore at him down the telephone, Zachary says, commanding him to open fire, and the artillery man complied.


"I said six rounds per gun on my command f fire f and that was it.


"The rest of the day we never said anything f perhaps all night. The next day we sent out a mop-up patrol. They were there practically all day. When they came back I said, 'Lieutenant did you find Fox?' he said 'No.' Then he said 'Yes.' I said how was he f 'tore all to pieces,' he said."


But Fox was no ordinary World War II hero. Black and a member of the so-called "Buffalo Soldiers" f the nickname for men of the 92nd Infantry Division made up of freed slaves f his courage took more than 50 years to be recognized.


Not one black American received the Medal of Honor in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and it wasn't until 1997 that U.S. President Bill Clinton posthumously awarded Fox the Congressional Medal of Honor for his stand at Sommocolonia.


On July 16, seven veteran Buffalo Soldiers returned to a 10th-century tower atop Sommocolonia, hit by Fox's order for artillery fire, to remember the torment of that December day and to honor the men that fell on their lieutenant's word.


Accompanied by Fox's widow Arlene and his daughter Sandra, who was two at the time, the veterans attended a ceremony inaugurating "La Rocca alla Pace," or "Rock to Peace," a monument given by the people of Sommocolonia to honor the American GIs.


Rothacker Smith, a medic under Fox's command, was wounded by the artillery fire that day f Dec. 26, 1944 f but still managed to bandage the wounds of others in his company before being taken prisoner by the German advance.


He remembers the German and Austrian soldiers, part of a crack Wehrmacht unit, storming through the village hours after the bombardment, busting down doors in search of survivors.


"They said something in German so I said 'Parla Italiano?' and one did. So he said 'How many are there?' I said that there were three. He said 'Come out with your hands up,' and I said 'One can't walk,' but he said to come out anyway. So I came out the door and faced those five guns and I was looking right into the barrels of them," Smith remembers.


German military strategists had hoped to advance beyond Sommocolonia all the way to the key port of Livorno, which could conceivably have jeopardized the Allied front in Italy.


As it was, Fox's stubborn bravery led the Germans to believe that they could not hold on to the territory for long, and a retreat came days afterward. The war ended five months later.


The dedication of "La Rocca alla Pace" drew a crowd of around 50 emotional veterans, family members and villagers.


It also drew to a close a long chapter in the struggle for recognition for Fox and his black comrades in arms.


Arlene Fox has been without her husband for more than half a century, but she knows word of his bravery will outlast her loss.


"I've had many proud days lately, but you see we never needed medals or any of this to be proud," the widow said.