Military experts seek to identify a partial skeleton in an anonymous grave.
It was a bloody battle, fought in the rain and mud as enemy artillery pounded the Americans crossing the waterway in 1945. Walker, a native of Baltimore and the only child of a butler and his wife, was lost in the chaos. His body was never found.
While experts later determined that DNA from the famous filmmaker and his brother could not be used for comparisons because they were on another branch of the family tree, the Pentagon gained a high-profile ally in its effort to help African AmericanEarlier this year, Spike Lee made a public service video announcement for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency , urging people who think they might have a relative who went missing in the war to contact the agency.
The project “is not going to make up for the treatment they received,” she said. “But I think it’s really important to make sure that they’re part of our country’s memory of World War II.” Although the film was partly shot on location in Italy where the 92nd fought, neither Lee nor McBride then knew of Lee’s family connection to the division and the Italian campaign.McBride said in an interview: “The 92nd was — should be — the most fabled Black unit in World War II. It’s been overlooked by historians for years.”
Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., said: “The infantry of this division lacks the emotional and mental stability necessary for combat,” according to Hondon B. Hargrove’s 1985 book, “Buffalo Soldiers in Italy.” Walker was born in Baltimore, according to government records. His father, Lewis or Louis, was from Mt. Victoria, a tiny crossroads community fifty miles south of Washington in rural Charles County, Md.
He had a first cousin, Jacqueline Shelton Lee, who would become Spike Lee’s mother, according to Laurie A. Jones, an Army casualty specialist who is overseeing the historical research on the Walker case.Walker enlisted in the Army on July 20, 1943, and was sent overseas in November 1944, according to records and the newspaper story.
“The sound of gunfire … never ceased,” recalled Lt. Dennette Harrod, of the 366th regiment. “The sound and the sight of the heavy shells falling and exploding among us was terrifying, but we stayed there until ordered back.”Groups of men were killed by single artillery shells, and the water in the canal was tinged red with blood, one officer remembered.