Summary
Today for Black History Month, the City of Brockton honors First Lieutenant John Robert Fox. A graduate of Brockton High School, Lieutenant Fox sacrificed his own life to save the lives of his comrades during World War II in Italy in 1944.
BROCKTON, Mass. — First Lieutenant John Robert Fox, a Brockton native and World War II hero, is being remembered for his extraordinary courage and ultimate sacrifice during combat in Italy.
Born in 1915, Fox graduated from High Street High School in Brockton before entering the U.S. Army. He trained at Fort Devens in Massachusetts prior to deploying to the European theater.
Fox’s valor was cemented on December 26, 1944, in the small Italian village of Sommocolonia. As German forces launched a fierce counterattack, his unit was forced to withdraw from the town. Fox volunteered to remain behind in a second-story room of a damaged building to direct defensive artillery fire against the advancing enemy.
With German troops swarming the streets below and closing in on his location, Fox made a fateful decision. Realizing the only way to halt the assault was to call artillery fire directly onto his own position, he radioed coordinates to supporting forces. When the artillery officer questioned the order, Fox reportedly responded, “Fire it! There’s more of them than there are of us.”
The bombardment stopped the German advance. When Allied forces later retook the village, they found Fox’s body alongside approximately 100 German soldiers.
For decades, many African American service members were denied the nation’s highest military honors due to segregation and discrimination within the armed forces. On January 13, 1997, President Bill Clinton awarded Fox the Medal of Honor posthumously, upgrading his Distinguished Service Cross as part of a ceremony recognizing seven African American World War II veterans. Fox was also awarded the Purple Heart for his sacrifice.
Today, Brockton continues to honor Fox’s legacy, remembering him not only as a hometown hero but as a soldier whose final act exemplified courage beyond measure.