For the final part of the celebrations today for the story of the Battle of Sommocolonia Dec 26th 1944, the film “inside Buffalo” was shown in the Teatro dei Differenti this evening with an introduction by Vittorio Biondi and the director of the film Fred Kuwornu.
“inside Buffalo” was produced by FKK FILMZ and shot on location in Italy and the US. The documentary shows the background story of the 92nd infantry division, nicknamed the Buffalo Soldiers. That was the name that American Indians gave the black members of the U.S. Cavalry who fought Indians in the American West. The documentary is divided in 3 different periods, before WW II, during WW II and after WWII until today.
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The main content of the documentary are the stories about the segregation in the army, the friendship between Italians and African Americans, and the discrimination when Buffaloes returned back home.
The central theme of Double V is the promise held out to African American military personnel that service in World War II would deliver to them a double victory – a “double V”- over tyranny abroad and racial prejudice at home.
They fought Nazi-Fascism abroad, prejudice at home. They fought in one of the most difficult scenarios – the Gothic Line, also known as Linea Gotica, formed as Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s last major line of defence in the final stages of World War II along the summits of the Apennines during the fighting retreat of Nazi Germany’s forces in Italy against the Allied Armies in Italy commanded by GeneralAlexander.
The training received in the desert of Arizona was initially insufficient to combat on high mountains, during one of the coldest winter of the 40’s , against Germans mountain troops. The racism behind the lines produced many default.
The emplacements included numerous concrete-reinforced gun pits and trenches, and 2,376 machine-gun nests with interlocking fire, 479 anti-tank gun, mortar and assault gun positions, 120,000 metres of barbed wire and many miles of anti-tank ditches.
This last redoubt proved the Germans’ determination to continue fighting. Nevertheless, it was fortunate for the Allies that at this later stage of the war the Italian partisan forces had become highly effective in disrupting the German preparations in the high mountains
64 years after the end of the WW II, the filmaker Fred Kuwornu has tried to ask if Italian people remember the sacrifices of many black soldiers for liberty.
Inside Buffalo cast: The only surviving WW II African American Medal of Honor LT. Vernon Baker, President Bill Clinton, The survivors of Massacre of St.Anna: Enio Mancini, Adele Pardini, Enrico Pieri, Luciano Lazzeri, The Ph. D. and veteran Dr. Leroy Ramsey, who started the fight for the Medal of Honor, the 92nd vets: Joseph Stephenson,Joseph Hairston, Howard Fletcher, Ralph Brown, Frank Seaforth, Lawrence Pierce, Jesse Pearson, Spencer Moore, Albert Burke, Arch Belvia, Otis Zachary , the Tuskegee Airmen Lt. Col. Spann Watson, the award-winning writer James McBride (Miracle At St.Anna), the actors: Omar Benson Miller, Derek Luke, Laz Alonso, Usman Sharif.
The italian partisans who patrolled the Tuscan Alps together the veterans: Moreno Costa, Emilio Bertelloni, Gino Dinelli, the italian son of the Buffalo Soldiers born and grew up in Italy:Maria Tommasi, the italian civilian witness of the heroism of the Buffalo Soldiers, and many others,
Article by the the Mayor of Barga, Umberto Sereni where is based the Lt. Fox and 366th Memorial
More information can be found on the site ; http://www.insidebuffalo.org