It was the spring of 1945, and World War 2 was almost over. The Allies had secured
a new front in France and were mere weeks away from marching into Berlin. However,
the Allied front in Italy was heavily struggling as most men and equipment had been sent to France.
Among those who remained were the ‘Black Devils’ from the 370th Regiment, a segregated all-black
unit tasked with dissolving what was left of the German fortifications in Northern Italy.
In early April, the regiment received orders to seize Castle Aghinolfi, a virtually impenetrable
German stronghold, but as the days passed, battalion after battalion was pummeled.
Then, on the morning of the 5th, it was Second Lieutenant Vernon Baker’s turn to lead his platoon
and take the castle. As the future Medal of Honor recipient put it: (QUOTE)
“When they got down or were driven back down, we knew it was our turn.”
The Gothic Line
As the Nazi regime was collapsing by the end of 1944, the Germans held a last major defensive
line. Stretching from La Spezia on Italy’s west coast through the Apennine Mountains to
Pesaro and Ravenna on the east, the Gothic Line was Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s last hope
against the advancing Allied Army under General Sir Harold Alexander.
The bastion was heavily fortified, featuring 2,376 machine gun nests, 479 gun positions,
concrete bunkers, barbed wire, anti-tank ditches, casemates, observation posts, artillery fighting
positions, and natural terrain that favored the defense. Still, Hitler was concerned.
Fearing that the Allies would not take long to pierce through his forces,
the Fuhrer ordered that the name of the fortifications be changed.
Starting in June of 1944, the Gothic Line would be called the Green Line to downgrade
its importance so the Allies could not use the more impressive name to magnify their victory.
By August, the Germans were overwhelmed by Italian partisans behind their lines.
Still, the Allied commanders were struggling to make up for their forces
being dragged into the new front in France. Just in the first week of the month,
the British 8th Army was cut from 249,000 to approximately 153,000 men.
However, while France became the new main front for the Allies to finally break into Germany,
the Italian campaign was all but done.
Towards the end of the month, the 8th Army launched Operation Olive and attacked the
coastal plain of the Adriatic while the 5th Army attacked through the central mountains.
As planned, the Allies managed to breach the enemy defenses, but they were unable to
break into the Valley of the Po before the winter effectively halted their progress.
Subsequently, the Allied forces had to endure almost inhospitable conditions
while preparations were made for a spring offensive in 1945.
However, it would take a hero to finish the job.
A Matter of Pride
Orphaned at the age of four, Vernon Baker and his two older sisters were raised by
their grandparents. The boy was born in 1919 and found an influential figure in his grandfather,
who taught him to hunt to provide for the family.
Growing up, the young man was prone to anger bursts and would often fight with his grandmother.
As such, he was sent to finish high school at Father Flanagan’s Boys Town in Nebraska.
After graduating, Baker found work as a railroad porter, which he despised.
Barker’s grandfather passed from cancer in 1939,
and a series of menial jobs followed. Baker would later recall during an interview that: (QUOTE)
“Being young and not very happy, I was getting ready to get myself into trouble.”
In early 1941, Baker decided to pursue a career in the Army. Resolved,
he visited the recruiting station: (QUOTE) “I walked in and there was a big, fat, burly guy,
big sergeant sitting behind a desk. He looked up and said ‘What do you want?’ I said ‘I want
to join the Army.’ And he looked up at me and said ‘we ain’t got no quotas for you people.”
Furious, he swore he would never come back. But as the weeks passed, he couldn’t find a
decent job and had no other choice. Three months later, Baker tried one more time - halfway wishing
the bully sergeant was not at the office, but silently desiring an open confrontation: (QUOTE)
“So, I swallowed my pride and I went back to the recruiting office. But I walked in and there was a
very pleasant young looking sarge and he said ‘Can I help you?’ I still had my hand on the doorknob
and I said ‘Yes. I’d like to join the Army. And he said ‘Well, come on in and sit down.’”
How To Conform
On June 26, 1941, Baker entered the Army, six months before his country joined the war.
When asked what branch he would like to serve in, he said quartermaster. At that moment,
he saw how the sergeant wrote down infantry, but he didn’t complain as he was happy to be in.
Baker was then sent to Camp Wolters, Texas, where he immediately felt the degradation
of the Jim Crow South. He later confessed: (QUOTE) “My attitude was that I was an angry,
young black man because I didn’t like the way that we were being treated.”
Still, he would have to stifle his anger if he was to pull through, always thinking about his
grandfather’s wise words: (QUOTE) “If you want to live, boy, learn how to conform.”
Shortly after, his 25th Infantry unit was sent to Geiger Field in Spokane, Washington,
and then to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where he was tapped for Officer Candidate School.
It would take him just 13 more weeks to be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.
Baker was then assigned to command the 370th Regiment,
the first all-black unit to see combat in World War 2. However,
their practice would be under white supervision, which would often create some tension.
The lieutenant remembered: (QUOTE) “We were in a segregated platoon in a white company,
OCS class number 148. And it was the same old thing. We were in separate barracks,
separated from everybody, except when we went to class. That was normal for us,
that's the way it always had been. And being a black man, you had to accept it.”
Baker had to learn to adapt, but he was about to show his real potential.
A Treacherous Path
Lieutenant’s Baker Regiment arrived in Naples, Italy, on August 1, 1944,
instructed to support the 5th Army as they fought northward into the Gothic Line. In a few months,
Baker became a skilled element and was valued as a platoon leader,
strengthening his rapport with the men he led on nightly patrols.
Still, his career almost ended in October when he lost three men during a night patrol to secure a
house on a hill’s side. Baker himself was gravely injured and hospitalized for two months in Pisa.
The Lieutenant returned to combat in December and became the senior-most officer in his unit
until March of 1945, when Captain John Runyon and two other white officers took command
and pushed through the spring offensive.
The unit was then ordered to capture a German stronghold near Viareggio.
In the words of author and journalist Ken Olsen: (QUOTE) “Castle Aghinolfi was important as part of
a chain of observation posts that allowed the Germans to sit up in the mountains with their
very precise artillery and time after time basically annihilate the American troops.”
On April 5, 1945, Baker’s C Company would take the lead on the advance, but the vast majority
of men under his command were replacements with no real combat experience. Furthermore,
the Allies had already tried to capture the castle three times with disastrous results.
Baker and his men needed to cross from Hill X
to Hill Y to Hill Z and head toward the castle three miles behind enemy lines.
That fateful morning, the men went on their
way fully aware that many of them would not make it back.
There was a clear path to go up the hill,
but Captain Runyon walked through the rocks on the sides, clear of the track, and Baker followed
right on his heels. Then, as they reached the top, Baker heard explosions behind him.
Some of his men had walked inside the path and stepped on the mines.
The Germans Attack
Baker and Runyon had found a deep draw on their way. He recalled: (QUOTE) “We were in sight of
the castle. We were sitting on one side of the draw, talking about how to get down the draw,
take the company up there so we could go get up to neutralize the castle.”
But suddenly, a German face popped up right below them. After a brief moment of recognition,
the enemy threw a hand grenade at the Americans, but Baker steadied his rifle and shot him. Then:
(QUOTE) “The grenade didn’t explode. It was a dud. Somebody was sitting on my shoulder.”
As he looked down the path for more enemies, Sergeant Dickens approached
him with a sub-machine gun. Then, as no one else was coming up, Baker resolved to go down and look.
Dickens tossed him his sub-machine gun, and the lieutenant advanced cautiously.
Baker then spotted a car door covering an entrance on the side of the hill
and immediately threw a grenade in. After the explosion,
he waited for a moment. Then, as he was getting ready to go into the foxhole,
a head stuck out, and Baker shot him, threw a second grenade, and got three more enemies.
A little farther away, the lieutenant found another dugout and tossed yet another grenade,
getting two soldiers this time. Then he:
(QUOTE) “Sprayed the place with a machine gun. Cleaned it up.”
By the time Baker rejoined his soldiers at the top of the hill, the Germans had spotted them
and fired with mortar and machine guns. Baker then inquired for the company commander and
found Runyon inside a blockhouse, sitting on the floor with his knees curled up and his head down.
The captain looked up at him and pleaded: (QUOTE) “Baker, can’t you get those men together out
there?” And the Lieutenant replied: (QUOTE) “I’m trying the goddamn best I can, Captain.”
Going Back
Runyon left to get reinforcements, but he didn’t return, and the support never came. Meanwhile,
Baker was deprived of command and control, and his men were suffering heavy losses.
From the original 25, only eight remained.
Resigned, and against his soldiers’ wishes to stay, he decided to save at least some of their
lives. As he covered the retreat of the men in his charge, Baker managed to destroy two machine-gun
nests. However, only six men made it back, as the rest had perished in the last 12 hours.
The following day, the Lieutenant volunteered to lead a battalion through the minefields
amidst heavy resistance to secure the objective in the mountain. Still, he didn’t fire one shot.
Ken Olsen said: (QUOTE) “Vernon Baker and his platoon made it possible for the all-white
troops that came behind them to achieve the success that they did without any harm.”
That same day, on April 6, the Allies were able to launch the spring offensive in Italy.
Justice
Baker was eventually awarded the Distinguished Service Cross,
the second most prestigious award in the US Army. Allegedly, he was considered for
the Medal of Honor from the start, but the paperwork mysteriously disappeared.
The lieutenant stayed in Europe until the American occupation ended in February of 1947. Then, when
the Army was desegregated after the war, he became the commander of an all-white Airborne Division
company. Baker then retired in 1968 but kept serving in the Red Cross for another 20 years.
In 1996, the Army conducted an investigation that showed that seven African Americans
had been denied the Medal of Honor for their actions in World War 2,
and Baker received the prestigious award from President Bill Clinton the following year.
He became the only living black man to receive the award half a
century after World War 2. Still, he could only think about his men.
In tears, he confided: (QUOTE) “Every once in a while I wake up in the middle of the night,
thinking about the guys. I think of 19 souls that gave their all.
If not for them, I probably wouldn’t be here myself.”
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