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by Fiona Holter, USAICoE Staff Historian
FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. — The U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence (USAICoE) memorialized the East Range July 28, which is the Army’s first Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) Non-Kinetic range, in honor of Medal of Honor recipient 1st Lt. John R. Fox.
Long before Fort Huachuca became the home of Military Intelligence, the post was home to the Buffalo Soldiers, who trained here to serve a country that did not consider them as equals merely because of the color of their skin. Between 1892 and 1945, Ft. Huachuca served as home to each of the historically black Army units, including the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments. The arrival of the 10th Cavalry, famously known as the Buffalo Soldiers, in 1913 began an era of continuous presence of black soldiers at the frontier post through 1945. In 1942, the Army reactivated the 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions for service in the Second World War. For the next two years, the two segregated divisions trained consecutively at Ft. Huachuca until they deployed—the 92d to Italy and the 93d to the South Pacific.
On December 26, 1944, the German 14th Army launched Operation Winter Storm (1944), against the U.S. Fifth Army, of which the 92d Infantry Division was a part, in the Garfagnana region of Tuscany. Since August 1944, Allied troops had tried to pierce Germany’s Gothic Line—the main German defense stretching across the Italian peninsula—by concentrating most of their efforts near Rimini on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Fearful that the Allies were close to breaking through, the Axis objective was to capture several small towns along the western sector of the Gothic Line, forcing the Allies to redistribute their troops and thus relieving pressure on the Rimini sector. At approximately 0400, the German 148th Division and the Italian 51st Corpo di Armata Alpinos invaded the village of Sommocolonia, where the 92d Infantry Division was posted.
As enemy troops advanced into the village, Lieutenant Fox, a forward observer with the 598th Field Artillery Battalion, 366th Infantry Regiment, 92d Infantry Division, radioed in artillery strikes. When the Germans surrounded his location, Fox called for an artillery bombardment, which his commander refused, claiming the coordinates were too close to Fox and his team. Fox repeated his call for fire, stating, “Fire it! There’s more of them than there are of us. Give them hell!”
Fox and his team were lost in the bombardment that also killed approximately 100 German troops. Fox’s sacrifice delayed the enemy’s advance into the village, allowing Italian civilians and U.S. troops to retreat and organize a counterattack. On 1 January 1945, Allied troops recaptured Sommocolonia and recovered Fox’s body.
For his sacrifice and devotion to service, Fox was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) in May 1982. Several years later, the Department of Defense launched an investigation into DSC awardees from the First and Second World Wars to determine if racial discrimination had prevented black soldiers from being considered for the Medal of Honor. They identified several men, including Lieutenant Fox, who had displayed courage and valor above the call of duty. In January 1997, over fifty years after he sacrificed himself to save the lives of his comrades, Lieutenant Fox’s DSC was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
On the very training ground where Buffalo Soldiers from the 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions forged their legacy within the U.S. Army, USAICoE will soon forge a new legacy for the Army by testing, training, and synchronizing multi-domain capabilities to meet modern threats. In honor of the sacrifice and bravery displayed by Lieutenant Fox, USAICoE is proud to announce the East Range will forevermore be known as the “1st. Lt. John R. Fox MDO Range.”
| Date Taken: | 07.27.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 07.27.2022 16:19 |
| Story ID: | 425946 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, AZ, US |
| Web Views: | 192 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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