2007 Horace Mann Award Recipient - Jack Hamann

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Jack Hamann was a young news reporter for KING-TV on assignment at a deadly dull meeting about a sewer treatment plant expansion. His boredom must have been obvious.

It’s an unlikely beginning to a story that eventually led Hamann, recipient of the 2007 Horace Mann Award, on an investigative journey of a lifetime and a victory for humanity. A park ranger at that sewer meeting suggested he check out a mystery in the cemetery at Fort Lawton in Seattle’s Discovery Park.

Before he would pursue that unusual news tip in earnest, Seattleite Hamann would hone his skills as a television journalist, including a decade as a network correspondent and documentary producer for CNN and PBS. He won 10 regional Emmy awards and countless national and international honors for his work.

It was Hamann’s nose for investigative reporting that ultimately prompted him to explore a distinctive Fort Lawton gravestone bearing the name of Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto, an Italian prisoner of war.

The fate of Olivotto and a group of African American soldiers who allegedly rioted on the bluffs of Magnolia in August 1944 became the focus of Hamann’s acclaimed book, “On American Soil,” to be released in paperback by University of Washington Press in March.

“The political reality and the horrible social reality is they were scapegoats.”

Hamann, with considerable help and encouragement from his wife Leslie, spent years unraveling the tale of Olivotto, the Italian prisoner of war who was found hanging from a noose at Fort Lawton after a confrontation between American soldiers and Italian POWs.

The more he probed, the more injustices Hamann found. There were 43 African American defendants in what would turn out to be the largest and longest Army court-martial of World War II. All 43 faced life in prison if convicted of rioting; three were also charged with murder and faced the gallows if found guilty

“The political reality and the horrible social reality is they were scapegoats,” Hamann says. “There were only two attorneys for all 43 defendants. The courts-martial lasted five weeks, six days a week.”

Lt. Col. Leon Jaworski, who went on to be the special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, was the Army prosecutor for the Fort Lawton courts-martial. Twenty-eight men were found guilty. Two were convicted of manslaughter.

Sadie Hughes, the mother of Robert Sanders, traveled to Seattle by train from Chicago with another woman to be at her son’s court-martial, Hamann says.

“They were two of only three family members who could be there. She was one of the few blacks in the courtroom, too. She came and took lots of notes, then went back to Chicago and wrote an eight-page, emotional and heartfelt handwritten letter to President Roosevelt. She analyzed why none of it added up,” he says, ”but Roosevelt never replied.”

In San Diego, Hamann’s mother Julianna was so moved by Sadie Hughes’ letter, she sent her own letter to U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter after her son’s book was published. Hunter, her congressman, just happens to be the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. She included a copy of “On American Soil” with her letter. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle), whose district includes Fort Lawton, is another member of that powerful committee.

Agreement by McDermott and Hunter on the matter led to the Army’s willingness in 2006 to review the convictions of the four surviving soldiers and descendants of the others on an individual basis.

Hamann, an attorney before becoming an investigative reporter, says his research leads him to think prosecutor Jaworski withheld evidence. Hamann also suggests a white military policeman, who was later discharged by the Army, may have actually hanged Italian POW Olivotto.

“On American Soil” won the 2006 Book of the Year prize from the prestigious Investigative Reporters and Editors, an international Discover Great New Writers award from Barnes & Noble and was selected as a top 10 pick for spring 2005 by A Book Sense on the History Channel. The book also garnered a spot on the top 10 list for 2005 from John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer book critic. Hamann was in august company on Marshall’s list, which included National Book Award winner Joan Didion and Pulitzer Prize winner Timothy Egan.

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