Braided in Fire

Black GIs and Tuscan Villagers on the Gothic Line

By Solace Wales, and Reviewed by Dr. Bradley J. Sommer

Article published on: September 22, 2024 in the Fall 2024 edition of Army History

Read Time: < 7 mins

Knox Press, 2020 Pp. xxxii, 447. $20

The Second World War often is framed as a conflict to protect democracy and freedom. The fascism and militarism of the Axis Powers represented serious threats to liberal democracies and constitutional monarchies. They provided an ideological rallying point for the world. The narrative of the war being a conflict over political ideologies became the dominant one and is the most commonly cited explanation for the war today. This perspective certainly is accurate and does provide a viable means of understanding the Second World War. A critical aspect of the political ideology of the Axis Powers was race on both sides. In every major theatre of the war, the conflict was framed in racial terms. The Nazis’ political worldview was linked irrevocably with race. In the Pacific, the Japanese and the United States both used heavily racialized language and imagery. Within the United States, civil rights leaders developed the “Double V” or “Double Victory” campaign to promote the defeat of racism abroad and at home. The Second World War was undoubtedly a racial conflict; however, the larger understanding of that conflict is not understood wholly. In her book Braided in Fire: Black GIs and Tuscan Villagers on the Gothic Line, Solace Wales details the experiences of Black soldiers fighting Germans in Italy, revealing the complexities of race on the battlefield and exposing a dramatic and complicated history.

Braided in Fire is a winding series of vignettes and oral histories connected by a shared location and experience. Wales focuses on the relationship between the American 92d Infantry Division and the people of Sommocolonia, a small town with great strategic importance on the Gothic Line. Part of the U.S. Fifth Army fighting its way up north through the soft underbellyof Italy, the 92d was the only African American unit to see combat in the European Theater. Wales takes great care in describing the settings and the actors, creating a richness and texture that makes her book a stylistic standout from contemporary professional history. She writes a deeply affecting and personal narrative, with dialogue and internal monologue befitting a fine novel or dramatic play. Wales balances a large historical cast, weaving elegantly between the rather mundane aspects of life in Sommocolonia and the harsh realities of the slogging and brutal fighting that characterized the Italian Campaign. Individual backstories on each of the central figures allows us a better understanding of their motivations, even if Wales takes some liberties with her inferences and presents a much more human picture of war and race relations in the Italian countryside. This approach is not without drawbacks. Wales’s attention to detail sacrifices much in the way of scope, claiming to place the story of the 92d and the people of Sommocolonia into a larger discussion of the Second World War despite ultimately failing to do so.

Recounting the experience of such a distinguished and historic unit is certainly a worthwhile endeavor. Wales provides keen insights and rich descriptions of the fighting and the complex relationship between Italians—many of whom had embraced Benito Mussolini’s rhetoric and ideologies heartily, if not his leadership—and soldiers who had more pressure on them beyond the mission and their lives. The book is not without its faults, though. Despite its claims to a larger experience of Black soldiers across the Gothic Line, Wales focuses much of the narrative on the Biondi family, as well as the life and experience of Lt. John R. Fox, particularly the events leading up to his heroic sacrifice for which he eventually would receive a posthumous Medal of Honor fifty-two years after his death. The struggle for Fox’s recognition is a story in itself. Putting the story at the end of the book is a missed opportunity to explore the most interesting part of the narrative. One cannot help but feel that Wales buries the lede a bit here.

Sometimes, historians take too large of a scope, letting the details and the human experience get lost amid historiographical scuffles and exercises in semantics. Wales, herself not a professional historian, then indirectly demonstrates a style of writing that is available to us, even if we rarely use it. Her book’s most significant contribution is not to the historiography, perhaps the weakest part of the book, but how we write history with fluid, engaging prose and articulate thoughts of the lives of historical actors that delve into personal motivations. This can be as compelling as critical historical interventions and major historiographical revelations. Wales lived in Italy and is fluent in Italian, so her proximity to the source and polyglot nature certainly put her level of immersion out of reach for some people, toeing the line between history and anthropology. However, if history is storytelling, even just in part, the discipline would be wise to take note of how to tell a good story while staying true and faithful to the facts. Wales has opened the door on an important topic. Now, someone needs to walk through.

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