Gothic Line

Alfred L. Sutton, age 28, from Lenoir County North Carolina.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Sunday, December 30, 1945
Death details: Private First Class Alfred L. Sutton entered the U.S. Army from North Carolina and served with Company I, 3rd Battalion, 366th Infantry Regiment. The 366th Infantry Regiment, attached to the racially segregated 92nd Infantry Division, was, in many respects, a unique organization because it contained all-African American officers, whereas the other regiments in the segregated division generally functioned under white leadership. In November of 1944, the 366th Infantry Regiment arrived at the Gothic Line in the northern Apennine Mountains in Italy, Germany’s last major line of defense against the Allied forces pushing north. On December 29, Company I, 366th Infantry Regiment, dispatched a raiding party of approximately 100 enlisted men and a few officers, which moved north of the Cinquale Canal, where they engaged enemy forces and captured one prisoner before returning the following morning. PFC Sutton was killed during this patrol near the Cinquale Canal in Montignoso, Italy. He has not been definitively associated with any remains recovered from the area and is still unaccounted-for. Today, Private First Class Sutton is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Florence American Cemetery in Impruneta, Italy.

Source: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency