The Black Medal of Honor Recipient Who Bombed His Own Hideout to Save Lives

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Speaker 1: And we returned to our American Stories. Up next, a story on one of the seven African Americans to receive our nation’s highest award for valor in World War Two, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Here to tell the story of Lieutenant John Robert Fox is Kirk Higgins, the senior director of content at the Bill of Rights Institute. Let’s get into the story. Take it away, Kirk.

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Speaker 2: It was the day after Christmas 1944. In the pitched battles of World War Two were still raging. The Germans would not surrender to Allied forces for another five months. In Italy, a fighting remained fierce. A U.S. Army lieutenant from an all-Black regiment was perched on the second floor of a house in the village of some Colonia. German forces were overrunning the village, but the brave lieutenant volunteered to stay behind in direct artillery fire from his second-story location. Allied forces bombarded the Germans with the lieutenant’s help, but the German forces continued to advance. Finally, as enemy soldiers closed in on his position, Lieutenant John Robert Fox made a fateful call: “Firing, there’s more of them than their area, give them health!” He radio did an artillery strike on his own position, knowing it may cost him his life. John Robert Fox was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1915, the oldest of three sons. He had a keen interest in science and began his college studies at The Ohio State University, but he transferred to Wilberforce University, a historically Black college, because it was one of the few schools that would allow Black students to participate in an ROTC program. Fox graduated with a degree in engineering and in 1941 received a commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Just months later, America would be drawn into World War Two after the attack on Pearl Harvard. Fox was assigned to the all-Black Three Hundred and Sixty-Sixth Infantry at Fort Devns in Massachusetts for artillery training. In 1942 and 1943, Fox in the Three Hundred and Sixty-Sixth Infantry were stationed at various locations in New England, guarding against possible sabotage from the Germans. Fox was far from the fighting at that time, but it wouldn’t last. In March 1944, Fox in the Three Hundred and Sixty-Sixth Infantry were ordered overseas, first to Morocco and Algeria, and then to support the fighting in Italy. It was during this Italian campaign that Fox would become part of American history. By 1944, several major fronts had been opened in the European Theater. On June sixth, Operation Overlord had successfully landed hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers on the shores of Normandy, France, and the Soviet Union was relentlessly attacking from the east, pushing the Germans back. But another less well-known campaign was being waged on the Italian peninsula. Operations in Italy had begun with the invasion of Sicily in July of 1943. By December 1944, Allied forces had advanced well into non Italy. There, the exhausted Allied troops were holding their positions and preparing to attack when better weather arrived in the spring. Unfortunately, German forces had abed us. On Christmas night of 1944, Lieutenant John Robert Fox found himself in the village of some Colonia. The village was on top of a rocky outcropping, which gave a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. Some Colonia is a small village, but strategically it was very important. It was part of a massive defensive network that had been built by the Germans, known as the Gothic Line. The Gothic Line featured two thousand fortified positions, machine-gun and placements, and stretched the width of northern Italy. It was the final major obstacle standing between the Allies and a push into the southern German frontier. Fox’s battalion, about one thousand men strong, had been ordered to hold the Germans along a thirty-mile section in front. This meant they were stretched precariously thin, and the Germans sensed an opportunity to attack. Fox had taken a position in a house with a good view of the surrounding countryside, from which he could radio coordinatece for artillery fire. He went to sleep that Christmas night, cold but confident in his position. But when he awoke on December 26, 1944, the situation had changed completely. During the evening, Germans, dressed in civilian clothing, had infiltrated and taken significant portions of the town. In the early morning hours, they launched an artillery barrage. The Allied forces were caught off guard and knew the situation was untenable. They began to retreat, but not the Lieutenant John Robert Fox. Fox, from his position the second-story of a village house, had the best view of the advancing Germans. He knew that if he stayed behind, he could call in defensive artillery fire and maybe, with some luck, the Allies would delay to Germans, regroup and repel the attack. As the German advance, Fox began to call down devastating an accurate barragees artillery. The German forces were slowed, but not stopped. As they continued to advance, Fox called in artillery strikes closer and closer to this two-story house. When he was hold up. “That was just where I wanted it,” Fox told his Battalian committer, after one artillery strike fring it in 60 yards. Finally, with the Germans nearly on top of him, John Robert Fox made a fateful and courageous decision. He called in an artillery strike on his own position, ending the transmission by encouraging Allied forces to give them hell. The guns fired with deadly accuracy, killing both enemy troops and Fox himself. Fox’s heroism helped stall the German advance and allowed more American troops and Italian civilians to retreat to safety. A week later, American troops retook some of Colombia. When they did, they found Fox’s body among those of more than one hundred enemy soldiers. Lieutenant John Robert Fox had died a hero, but the journey to recognize him for his heroism was long and difficult. It would last more than fifty years. In 1945, Fox was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award given by the United States Army, but he did not receive the award, not for a very long time, and unfortunately, Fox’s situation was common for decades. Black soldiers were denied awards and recognition they had rightfully earned on the battlefields. In fact, no Black soldiers were initially awarded the Medal of Honor after War II. In 1982, thirty-eight years after his historic sacrifice, John Robert Fox began to receive his long overdue recognition. That year, he was finally posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Then, in the early nineteen nineties, the U.S. Department of Defense begin to study whether Black soldiers had been unfairly denied the Medal of Honor, America’s highest military honor. Seven Black soldiers were ultimately recommended for the award, including John Robert Fox. On January 13, 1997, President Bill Clinton presented the Medal of Honor to Fox’s widow, Arley Fox. Fox’s Medal of Honor citation reads: “First Lieutenant John R. Fox distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism at the risk of his own life on twenty-sixth December nineteen forty-four.” Lieutenant Fox’s extraordinarily valorous actions exemplify the highest traditions of the military service. More than fifty years after his death, Fox’s story was being fully told, and he received the recognition he had long deserved. Today, a white stone marker sits in the village of some of Colombia, Italy, marking the place where Lieutenant John Robert Fox sacrificed his life calling in an artillery strike on his own position to halt a German advance. It is a lasting testament to the courage and selflessness of a man who knowingly put himself at great risk and ultimately gave his life to save others.

00:09:12
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery, and a special thanks to Kirk Higgins for telling this story and to the Bill of Rights Institute to find out more about the great work they do. To check out their wonderful curriculum for students, go to mybri.org. That’s mybri.org. And what a story we were told: Lieutenant John Robert Fox ordering a strike on his own location for the benefit of the Allied command. The story of Lieutenant John Robert Fox here on our American Stories.