| Original Caption: “Members of a Negro mortar company of the Ninety-Second Division pass the ammunition and heave it over at the Germans in an almost endless stream near Massa, Italy. This company is credited with liquidating several machine gun nests…” African American soldiers of the 92nd Infantry (“Buffalo”) Division crew serve a M2 60 millimeter (2.36 inch) mortar. The crew is firing white phosphorus rounds. Lieutenant General Willis Dale Crittenberger (December 2, 1890 – August 4, 1980), IV Corps Commander, ordered Task Force 92 to assault the German 42nd Jaeger Division on Mt. Caula, a 1,200 foot massif. This was the 1st objective leading toward the eventual capture of the city of Massa, about 14 miles north of Viareggio. Task Force 92 held IV Corps’s left flank while maintaining contact with the British Expeditionary Force on its right. The 371st Regimental Combat Team arrived at Viareggio on October 31, with the 365th Regimental Combat Team arriving on November 8, and by November 13, all of the division’s elements were in place. On November 28, General Mark W. Clark (May 1, 1896 – April 17, 1984), 5th Army commander, attached the 366th Infantry Regiment, another African American unit, to the division. By mid-December 1944, intelligence revealed German divisions massing opposite the 92nd’s line west of the Serchio and at La Spezia, intending to strike toward Livorno, possibly as a complement to the large attack then under way in the Ardennes, based largely on the 5th Army G2 intelligence assessment. General Lucian King Truscott Junior (January 9, 1895 – September 12, 1965) immediately countered the expected thrust, moving 82-5th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Teams into the IV Corps sector. Major General Edward M. Almond (December 12, 1892 – June 11, 1979), Commanding the 92nd Infantry Division, received the 337th Regimental Combat Team from the 85th Infantry Division, as well as the 19th (Gurkha) and 20th (Sikh) Brigades from the British Army’s 8th Indian Division. Crittenberger, visited Colonel Raymond G. Sherman’s (August 8, 1893 – November 11, 1976) 370th Infantry Command Post at Fornaci on December 23 and assured him that the 8th Indian Division would reinforce him. Sherman impressed Crittenberger with his determination to fight on and hold his position. “Colonel Sherman’s stand there at his Regimental Command Post was as good a piece of business as I saw during the entire fight,” Crittenberger remembered. A few minutes after Crittenberger left, the Germans overran Fornaci, but Sherman and his staff managed to escape. Almond cancelled his planned attack on Christmas Eve in view of the changes in the German strength and began preparing to withdraw. Before he could move his forces, the Germans attacked the lead element of the 2nd Battalion, 366th Infantry, in Sommocolonia and nearly surrounded it. The battalion initiated a fighting retreat, leaving 2 platoons to cover the town. Failing to reinforce Sommocolonia after several attempts, Almond ordered the remaining 70 soldiers there to abandon their posts. Of these, 1 officer and 17 men escaped back to American lines. Lieutenant John Fox, a forward observer from Cannon Company, 366th Infantry Regiment, calmly continued to call artillery fire on the advancing Germans until he was himself surrounded. He then directed fire on his own position, acknowledging the danger to himself and his team. Fox and his radio operator died in the resulting barrage, but it also stopped the attack and killed approximately 100 Germans. This event and its aftermath illustrated Almond’s poisoned relationship with the 366th and confirmed his racist predilections. Division artillery commander Brigadier General William H. Colbern (June 26, 1895 – April 30, 1959) recommended Lieutenant Fox for the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC), the nation’s 2nd highest award. That award recommendation, however, disappeared. The unintended loss of such a significant award in bureaucratic channels, especially 1 initiated by a general officer, is unlikely. This probably means that Almond stopped the award at division level; in any case, it never reached IV Corps. Almond did not believe in awarding decorations for failed missions, however valorous his men’s conduct may have been. Almond may also have opposed such a high decoration for black soldiers, failed or not; his own writings and oral history omit any mention of the Sommocolonia action. Ironically, this award led to some of the 1st postwar research on the 92nd Infantry Division in Italy. Lieutenant Hondon B. Hargrove of the 36th Infantry Regiment did not witness the event but knew many soldiers who did. A Historian after the war, Hargrove campaigned for years to force the Army to award Fox the DSC, which his widow finally received in April 1982. The story might have ended there, but some 14 years later President Bill Clinton (born August 19, 1946) ordered a review of high decorations in World War II to determine if senior commanders had overlooked African Americans. The Fox case proved this to be true and illustrated an Army leadership unable or unwilling to recognize African American heroes. Almond’s failure to honor Fox’s heroism and sacrifice underscores his grudge against the “outsiders” of the 366th, who joined ned his unit later in Italy, and indicates his growing antipathy toward Black soldiers in general. The review commission recommended that President Clinton upgrade Fox’s DSC, and the president presented the Medal of Honor to Fox’s widow on January 17, 1997. The failure of the Serchio Valley attack left Almond bitterly disappointed. Even though the 5th Army faced a threat along its whole front, Almond must have felt that the entire Allied force in Italy believed he needed to be rescued. 1 of his units, albeit a new and unfamiliar 1, allowed its personnel to flee the battlefield, and he had required the assistance of another unit to get the soldiers back. The 8th Indian Division remained in control of the Serchio Valley, inside his sector, until January 10, 1945. General Truscott transferred the 135th Regimental Combat Team from the 34th Infantry Division, as well as a couple of tank battalions, to strengthen the 92nd. Almond no doubt welcomed the reinforcements, since the 365th Regimental Combat Team remained with the 88th Infantry Division in the II Corps sector and the German attack seemed to be weighted in the Serchio Valley. A man of his pride, forceful nature, and basic insecurity, however, could not help but see this as a stain on his honor. His division had failed in a conspicuous way, and he must have felt great shame and pressure to improve. Failure haunted him, and what he experienced in December 1944 affected his outlook for the remainder of the war. The enemy operation was merely a reconnaissance in force, though Almond did not know that at the time. German general Hans W. Roettinger (April 16, 1896 – April 15, 1960), who had been the German Army Group C chief of staff, reported after the war that he intended mainly to get German units back to their original lines to prepare for a larger offensive. He perceived the 92nd Infantry Division sector as the weakest part of the American line. Any larger push would have required more forces than Army Group C had available. In a postwar interview Generalleutnant Otto Fretter-Pico (February 2, 1893 – July 30, 1966), Kommandant of the 148th Grenadier Division, said that he stopped his attack near Fornaci due to lack of forces, but his objective was to stop the Allied movement toward Bologna by diverting resources, and he felt he had accomplished that objective. Regardless, the Germans massed at a point they deemed weakest: the 92nd Infantry Division sector. According to Fretter-Pico, “The weaknesses of [American] deployment in the Serchio Valley in December 1944 were that [their] troops were deployed on a front which was too long for the troops available, and [their] reserves were too far in the rear area which prevented their being deployed immediately.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0642.jpg |
| Image Size | 798.23 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2936 x 2294 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Office of War Information |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 1, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Massa |
| State or Province | Tuscany |
| Country | Italy |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-208-AA-47U-6 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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