Field guide · Mediterranean theatreFirst edition · 2026

Into
Europe

The Allied advance through Italy · Sicily · Salerno · Cassino · Anzio · Rome · the Gothic Line · the Po

10 Jul 1943 – 2 May 1945

Follow the Allied armies for twenty-two months, from the Sicilian beaches of July 1943 to the German surrender of 2 May 1945 — landing beaches, mountain battlefields, liberated cities, cemeteries and museums, every position rated for how sure we are and every stop linked to your maps.

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+More to exploreMuseums, Key figures, The armies, Origins and Weapons.

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⬇ Into Europe · Italy 1943–194582 pages · 6.3 MB

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Before you visit

Accuracy. A pin marked LOW is the centre of a search area, not a foxhole. Respect. The war cemeteries and memorials are places of remembrance first; many battlefields are farms and private land — view from the road. Safety. Mountain roads are slow and narrow: allow extra time, and never pick up old ammunition.

Remember · Explore · Respect

Briefing

Orders of the day · read before moving out

This guide follows the Allied armies through Italy for twenty-two months, from the landings on the beaches of Sicily on 10 July 1943 to the German surrender that came into force on 2 May 1945. It is a long road — well over 1,500 km by car from the Sicilian beaches to the plain of the Po — and two sets of positions are kept apart on purpose:

TIMELINE — historical positions in date order: what happened, where and when, and who was there. TOUR — driving stops in road order across up to 21 days: where to go, how long to stay and where to sleep. Drive the whole route or pick the days that suit you; each day stands on its own. Every stop opens directly in Google Maps.

The accuracy rule

A GPS coordinate can locate a museum, cemetery, bridge or town precisely; it cannot turn the confusion of a mountain battle into an exact point. When the records only place a battalion "somewhere on the ridge", this guide says so rather than invent a spot, and where historians disagree — over numbers, times or motives — the text tells you. Each position carries a coloured label:

HIGHexact spot known — a landmark, museum, cemetery, memorial, bridge or town, or a position fixed by the recordsMEDIUMwell supported, but the exact spot is uncertainLOWgeneral area only — the pin is the centre of a search area

Words to know

15th Army Groupthe Allied headquarters that ran the land war in Italy under Gen. Sir Harold Alexander — called Allied Armies in Italy for most of 1944Fifth Armythe American-led army, usually on the western (Tyrrhenian) side, under Mark Clark and from December 1944 Lucian Truscott; it also included British, French, Brazilian and South African troopsEighth Armythe British-led army of El Alamein fame, mostly on the eastern (Adriatic) side, with Canadian, New Zealand, Indian, Polish and other formationsArmy Group Cthe German command in Italy from November 1943 under Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, with the 10th and 14th ArmiesWinter Linethe Allies' name for the belt of German positions south of Rome in late 1943, of which the Gustav Line was the strongestGustav Linethe main German defence line across Italy's narrow waist, anchored on the Garigliano and Rapido rivers and Monte CassinoGothic LineGermany's last great defence line, across the northern Apennines from near La Spezia to the Adriatic near PesaroCo-belligerentItaly's status after it declared war on Germany on 13 October 1943 — fighting on the Allied side without being a formal allyRSIthe Italian Social Republic, Mussolini's German-backed state in the occupied north, often called the Republic of SalòPartisansarmed Italian resistance fighters in the mountains and cities of the occupied centre and northCLNCommittee of National Liberation — the alliance of anti-fascist parties that led the Resistance; in the north, the CLNAI in MilanGoumiera Moroccan soldier of the goums, lightly equipped units of the French Expeditionary Corps, famed for mountain fightingDUKWthe "Duck" — a six-wheeled American amphibious truck, first used in large numbers in SicilyLSTLanding Ship, Tank — a sea-going ship that ran onto a beach to unload tanks and lorries; there were never enoughNebelwerfera German multi-barrelled rocket launcher — "Moaning Minnie" to British soldiers, for its howlSchu-minea German anti-personnel mine in a small wooden box, almost invisible to metal detectorsBailey bridgethe prefabricated steel bridge that carried the Allies over Italy's hundreds of blown crossings

Respect the ground. The war cemeteries on this route — Commonwealth, American, Polish, French, German and Italian — are places of remembrance first and tour stops second; dress and behave accordingly, and remember that the abbey of Monte Cassino is a working monastery with a dress code. In the Apennines and along the old river lines, shells, grenades and mines still surface every year: never touch or pick up a metal object — leave it, mark the spot in your mind and call 112. Many hilltop positions, farmhouses and river banks are private land: view them from roads and marked paths, and ask before crossing a field.

The story in brief

Sicily. On 10 July 1943 the US Seventh Army under Patton and the British Eighth Army under Montgomery landed on 26 beaches along the south and east coasts of Sicily, after airborne drops that the wind scattered across the island. Patton swept west to Palermo while Montgomery ground up the east coast under Mount Etna; on 17 August American troops entered Messina. By then more than 100,000 German and Italian troops had slipped across the Strait to the mainland. In Rome, the invasion brought down Mussolini on 25 July.

Salerno and Naples. Montgomery crossed to Calabria on 3 September — the day Italy secretly signed an armistice. It was announced on 8 September, and next morning Clark's Fifth Army, American and British divisions side by side, landed in the Gulf of Salerno. Germany was ready: it seized Rome, disarmed the Italian army and counter-attacked the beachhead on 12–14 September, coming close to splitting it. Naval gunfire, bombers and reinforcements held the line. Naples, which had risen against the Germans in the Four Days, was entered on 1 October.

The Winter Line and Ortona. Kesselring now made the Allies pay for every valley. Through the autumn rains the Fifth Army crossed the Volturno and fought for the mountain positions of the Winter Line — Monte Camino, San Pietro, Monte Lungo, where Italy's new co-belligerent troops fought their first battle — while the Eighth Army crossed the Sangro and the Moro on the Adriatic side. Over Christmas 1943 the 1st Canadian Division fought German paratroopers house by house through Ortona. By January the Allies stood in front of the Gustav Line.

Cassino and Anzio. To break the deadlock the Allies attacked the Gustav Line around Cassino from 17 January 1944 and landed behind it at Anzio on 22 January. Neither went to plan. The Anzio beachhead was sealed off and fought for its life for four months; three battles for Cassino — first by American, British and French troops, then twice by the New Zealand Corps with New Zealand, Indian and British units — broke down below the monastery, which Allied bombers destroyed on 15 February. The fourth battle, Operation Diadem, opened on 11 May; French colonial troops broke through the Aurunci mountains and on 18 May Polish soldiers raised their flag over the ruined abbey.

Rome and the pursuit. The Anzio force broke out on 23 May and met the main front on 25 May. Clark then turned most of it towards Rome instead of cutting the German line of retreat at Valmontone — a decision still argued over — and entered the city on 4 June, two days before D-Day in Normandy. Through the summer the pursuit ran north past Lake Trasimeno to Siena, Ancona, Livorno and Florence on the Arno. But seven American and French divisions were taken away for the landings in the south of France.

The Gothic Line and the winter. On 25 August the Eighth Army attacked the Gothic Line near the Adriatic; in September the Fifth Army struck through the mountain passes north of Florence. Both broke in, and Rimini fell on 21 September, but rain, exhaustion and German reserves stopped the Americans a few miles short of Bologna and the British in the flooded Romagna. Behind the front, SS and army units massacred civilians in anti-partisan sweeps — at Sant'Anna di Stazzema in August and around Monte Sole (Marzabotto) at the turn of September and October. A hard mountain winter followed.

Victory in Italy. In spring 1945 the rebuilt armies struck again: the Eighth Army across the Senio on 9 April and through the Argenta Gap, the Fifth Army out of the mountains from 14 April. Polish and Italian troops entered Bologna on 21 April, the Allies raced over the Po, and the Resistance rose across the north, freeing Milan and Genoa. Mussolini was caught and shot by partisans on 28 April. German envoys signed the surrender at Caserta on 29 April; it came into force at 2 p.m. local time (12:00 GMT) on 2 May 1945, six days before VE Day.

Why the whole route

Italy was not one battle but a chain of them, and each makes sense only beside the others. Driving it end to end shows the problem the armies faced: a long, narrow peninsula of mountains cut by rivers, where every ridge could become a new defence line. It shows who fought here — Americans and British, Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians and Gurkhas, Poles, French, Moroccans and Algerians, South Africans, Brazilians, Greeks, the Jewish Brigade, and Italians on both sides — and how heavily civilians paid. The tour follows their road north, stop by stop.

Using your location

Tap the 📍 button at the top right and allow location when your phone asks. You then get a blue YOU dot on the maps, the distance and direction to every stop, a Near me list of the ten closest waypoints, and a pop-up when you reach one — within about 120 m of a green HIGH pin, 300 m of a yellow MEDIUM and 800 m of a red LOW area. The app has to be open on screen, and it works when opened from its web address (https://…). Mountain roads and deep valleys can make GPS jumpy, so treat distances as a guide. Your location never leaves your phone — nothing is sent or stored anywhere. Tap Turn off to stop.

Using the map buttons

The Google Maps button on every stop opens a pin on the exact waypoint — not directions from where you are — so you can see the spot first and ask for directions when you want them. On the Tour tab each day also has a big Google Maps route button that loads the whole day's stops, in order, as one route; in the mountains check that the route does not send you up an unpaved track. Tap ✓ on a stop to mark it visited — the tick is remembered on this device only.

Where the sources disagree

This guide was written and then checked by independent researchers against official histories, war-graves and museum records and other sources. Where they could not agree, or a story is disputed, the text says so. The main cases:

Casualty figures. Totals for the campaign differ between sources. Allied losses are usually given as about 310,000–330,000 killed, wounded and missing (60,000–70,000 dead); German losses were at least as high. Where sources disagree, this guide gives a range.
The bombing of Monte Cassino abbey. On 15 February 1944 Allied bombers destroyed the abbey. The British and final US official histories conclude that German troops were not using the abbey before the bombing; some veterans and older accounts maintain otherwise. Most of the people killed inside were Italian civilians sheltering there; about 230 is one widely cited count.
Clark and Rome. In late May 1944 General Mark Clark turned most of the Anzio breakout towards Rome instead of Valmontone, where it might have cut off the retreating German Tenth Army. Historians still argue whether this let the Germans escape; the guide gives both views and no verdict.
The Marocchinate. In May–June 1944 soldiers of the French Expeditionary Corps, mostly Moroccan colonial troops, committed mass rapes and killings of Italian civilians. Estimates of the number of victims range from about 2,000 to 12,000 or more, depending on the source.
Prisoner killings and massacres. US soldiers killed about 70 Italian and German prisoners near Biscari, Sicily, on 14 July 1943. German reprisal massacres such as the Fosse Ardeatine, Sant'Anna di Stazzema and Monte Sole (Marzabotto) killed hundreds at a time; victim counts vary between older and newer research, and the guide gives the ranges.
The Mafia and the invasion of Sicily. A post-war story says the Mafia and Lucky Luciano smoothed the American advance. Historians have found no evidence that they influenced the fighting, though the Allied military government did later appoint some Mafia-linked figures to local posts.
Quotes and phrases. Famous phrases such as Churchill's “soft underbelly” are hard to pin to a written source. The guide uses a quotation only where the wording and who said it could be checked; otherwise it paraphrases.
Map pins and battle maps. Every pin carries an accuracy label. The battle maps are schematic: front lines, arrows and unit positions are drawn by hand from historical maps and are approximate.

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⬇ Into Europe · Italy 1943–194582 pages · 6.3 MB

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Origins — why the Allies went into Italy

Background briefing · read before the timeline

In May 1943 the war in North Africa ended in an Allied victory, and the Allies found themselves with a great army in the Mediterranean and no agreement on what to do with it next. This page explains why they chose Sicily and then the Italian mainland, how Italy changed sides in the middle of the campaign, how the armies on both sides were organised, and what happened when — from the first landing to the last surrender.

1 · After North Africa

Victory in Tunisia. The last Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered on 13 May 1943. Around a quarter of a million German and Italian soldiers went into captivity (sources give figures between roughly 230,000 and 275,000), a loss on the scale of Stalingrad. The southern shore of the Mediterranean was now in Allied hands, and Italy — its fleet, its cities and its airfields within reach of Allied bombers — lay across a narrow sea.

Casablanca, January 1943. Roosevelt and Churchill and their chiefs of staff had met at Casablanca from 14 to 24 January 1943, while the fighting in Tunisia was still going on. The American planners, led by General George C. Marshall, wanted to concentrate everything on an invasion of France across the Channel as soon as possible. The British, led by Churchill and his army chief General Sir Alan Brooke, argued that it could not succeed in 1943 and that the forces already in the Mediterranean should not stand idle. The compromise was to invade Sicily next — Operation Husky — to reopen the Mediterranean to shipping and, it was hoped, to shake Italy out of the war. The conference also agreed a combined bomber offensive against Germany, and Roosevelt announced that the Allies would demand unconditional surrender.

Churchill against the planners. Churchill spoke of southern Europe as the Axis's "soft underbelly" — a phrase that stuck, although it comes from his conversation rather than his speeches or books, and the idea owed as much to Brooke. Knocking Italy out, the British argued, would force Germany to replace Italian troops in Italy and the Balkans, pull German divisions away from Russia and France, and give the Allies airfields close to southern Germany. The Americans feared an open-ended drain on the men and landing craft needed for France. At the Trident conference in Washington in May 1943 they compromised again: the cross-Channel invasion was fixed for May 1944, seven divisions would leave the Mediterranean for Britain that autumn, and Eisenhower was to plan operations to eliminate Italy from the war. The decision to land on the Italian mainland was taken in July, with the Sicilian campaign already under way.

Was it worth it? Historians still argue. Supporters of the campaign point to the German divisions held in Italy for almost two years, the airfields around Foggia from which the US Fifteenth Air Force bombed Austria, southern Germany and the Romanian oilfields, and Italy's surrender. Critics answer that a peninsula of mountains and rivers suited the defender, that the Allies tied down as many of their own troops as they did German ones, and that the cost — for soldiers and Italian civilians alike — was out of proportion to the result. Both views are found in the official histories and in modern accounts.

2 · Italy leaves the war

The fall of Mussolini. Defeat in Africa, invasion and bombing broke the regime's credibility. At a session of the Fascist Grand Council that ran through the night of 24–25 July 1943, a majority voted for Dino Grandi's motion asking the King to resume his full powers. On the afternoon of 25 July King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini, had him arrested as he left the royal villa, and appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio head of government. Crowds celebrated the end of Fascism in the streets — but Badoglio announced that the war would go on alongside Germany, and Germany poured divisions into Italy.

The armistice. Badoglio's envoys negotiated in secret. On 3 September 1943, in an army camp at Cassibile near Syracuse, General Giuseppe Castellano signed a short armistice with Eisenhower's chief of staff, Major General Walter Bedell Smith. It was made public by Eisenhower and Badoglio on the evening of 8 September, on the eve of the Salerno landing. Before dawn on 9 September the King, Badoglio and the high command left Rome for Brindisi, leaving the armed forces without clear orders.

Operation Achse. Germany had prepared for exactly this. In little more than two weeks its forces disarmed the Italian army in Italy, southern France and the Balkans and took Rome after brief fighting at Porta San Paolo. Some Italian units fought back: on the Greek island of Cephalonia the Acqui Division resisted, and thousands of its men were shot after they surrendered (the exact number is disputed). Somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 Italian soldiers who refused to go on fighting for Germany were deported as "Italian Military Internees"; most estimates put their dead at roughly 37,000–50,000.

Two Italys. On 12 September German paratroopers freed Mussolini from his mountain prison on the Gran Sasso, and Hitler set him up at the head of the Italian Social Republic (RSI) — a Fascist state in the German-occupied north, run from Salò on Lake Garda under close German control. In the south the King's government declared war on Germany on 13 October 1943 and the Allies accepted Italy as a "co-belligerent". Its first troops, the 1st Motorised Group, fought at Monte Lungo in December 1943; by 1945 six Italian Combat Groups and many thousands of support troops served alongside the Allied armies. Italians therefore fought on both sides until the end.

The Resistance. On 9 September 1943 the anti-fascist parties in Rome formed the Committee of National Liberation (CLN); in the occupied north its counterpart, the CLNAI in Milan, came to direct partisan bands of Communists, Socialists, the Action Party, Catholics, monarchists and former soldiers. Common estimates speak of around 100,000 partisans by summer 1944 and more than 250,000 at the rising of April 1945. They paid heavily — estimates of partisan dead range from about 35,000 to 50,000 — and German and Fascist reprisals deliberately killed at least 15,000 civilians. The war in the north was in part a civil war between Italians, and memories of it are still sensitive.

3 · How the armies were organised

Every rung is built from about three of the rung below it, plus a headquarters. British and Commonwealth divisions were built of brigades and battalions; American divisions of three regiments, each of three battalions. The example on the right follows the Canadian battalions that fought through Ortona at Christmas 1943. Figures are approximate establishments — units in Italy were usually under strength. Above the army group sat Allied Force Headquarters in the Mediterranean: Eisenhower, then General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson from January 1944, then Alexander from December 1944.

Army Group2 armies + army troops · several hundred thousand men · General

15th Army Group (Allied Armies in Italy in 1944) — Gen. Sir Harold Alexander; Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark from December 1944

is made of ▼

Field Army2–4 corps · 100,000+ · Lieutenant General

Eighth Army — Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery; Lt. Gen. Sir Oliver Leese from the end of 1943; Lt. Gen. Sir Richard McCreery from October 1944 · Fifth Army (US) — Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark; Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott from December 1944

is made of ▼

Corps2–4 divisions · 30,000–60,000 · Lieutenant General

British V Corps — Lt. Gen. Charles Allfrey (Moro River and Ortona, December 1943)

is made of ▼

Division3 brigades + artillery, engineers, signals, medics · ~17,000–18,000 · Major General

1st Canadian Infantry Division — Maj. Gen. Chris Vokes

is made of ▼

Brigade3 infantry battalions + HQ · ~2,500 · Brigadier (US equivalent: a regiment under a colonel)

2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade — Brig. Bert Hoffmeister

is made of ▼

Battalion4 rifle companies + support company (mortars, carriers, anti-tank guns) · ~800 · Lieutenant Colonel

The Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada — the two battalions that fought through Ortona's streets, 20–28 December 1943

is made of ▼

Company3 rifle platoons + HQ · ~120 · Major or Captain

Rifle companies A–D — at Ortona they "mouseholed" from house to house through the walls rather than cross the streets

is made of ▼

Platoon · SectionPlatoon: 3 sections · ~37 · Lieutenant. Section: ~10 riflemen around a Bren light machine gun · Corporal

The section was the Commonwealth equivalent of the American rifle squad of 12 under a sergeant

Who fought on the Allied side

Eighth Army at various times: British corps and divisions; I Canadian Corps (until it left for north-west Europe in February–March 1945); the 2nd New Zealand Division; the 4th, 8th and 10th Indian Divisions, with Gurkha battalions; Lt. Gen. Władysław Anders's Polish II Corps; the 3rd Greek Mountain Brigade; the Jewish Brigade; and Italian co-belligerent Combat Groups. Fifth Army: American divisions — among them the African-American 92nd Division, the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 10th Mountain Division — British corps at Salerno, Anzio and later; Gen. Alphonse Juin's French Expeditionary Corps of French, Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian troops until the summer of 1944; the Brazilian Expeditionary Force from 1944; and the 6th South African Armoured Division from late summer 1944.

In the air and at sea the Allied air forces in the Mediterranean — British, American, Commonwealth, and from 1943 the Italian co-belligerent air force — and the Royal and US Navies supported every landing and much of the land fighting.

The German side. Kesselring convinced Hitler in autumn 1943 to fight for Italy south of Rome rather than fall back to the northern Apennines as Rommel advised; in November 1943 he took command of the whole theatre.

Formation	Commander(s)	Where it fought
Army Group C (Commander-in-Chief South-West)	FM Albert Kesselring, Nov 1943 – Mar 1945 (Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff stood in after Kesselring was injured in a road accident in October 1944); Vietinghoff from March 1945	All German forces in Italy; its envoys signed the surrender at Caserta
Army Group B	FM Erwin Rommel	Occupied northern Italy in Operation Achse; its headquarters left for France in November 1943, when Army Group C took over the whole of Italy
10th Army	Vietinghoff, Aug 1943 – Oct 1944; then Joachim Lemelsen; Traugott Herr from Feb 1945	Salerno, the Winter and Gustav Lines, Cassino, the Adriatic front, the Gothic Line, the Argenta Gap
14th Army	Eberhard von Mackensen, Nov 1943 – Jun 1944; Lemelsen and others after	Anzio, the retreat from Rome, the western Gothic Line and the Bologna front
Army Liguria	Marshal Rodolfo Graziani (RSI)	Mixed German–Italian army guarding the Ligurian coast and the French frontier from August 1944
Key corps	XIV Panzer Corps — Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin; I Parachute Corps — Alfred Schlemm	Cassino; Anzio
Key divisions	1st Parachute (Richard Heidrich); Hermann Göring Panzer Division; 16th SS Panzergrenadier "Reichsführer-SS"	Ortona and Cassino; Sicily, Salerno and Anzio; the 16th SS carried out the Sant'Anna and Monte Sole massacres

4 · The campaign at a glance

The whole campaign, in order. Where sources disagree the more cautious figure is used and the disagreement is noted.

10 Jul 1943

Sicily. Operation Husky: the US Seventh and British Eighth Armies land on 26 beaches on the south and east coasts, under Alexander's 15th Army Group. Scattered airborne drops precede them.

25 Jul 1943

Mussolini falls. After the Grand Council votes against him, the King dismisses and arrests him. Marshal Badoglio takes over and secretly seeks terms.

17 Aug 1943

Messina. American troops enter the city, ending the 38-day campaign — but over 100,000 German and Italian troops have already been ferried to the mainland.

3 – 9 Sep 1943

Italy changes sides; the mainland invaded. The Eighth Army crosses to Calabria (3 Sep); the armistice signed that day at Cassibile is announced on 8 September; Clark's Fifth Army lands at Salerno and British paratroops sail into Taranto (9 Sep). Germany disarms the Italian army.

1 Oct 1943

Naples. After the Salerno beachhead survives German counter-attacks, the Allies enter Naples, whose people had risen in the Four Days (27–30 September). The Foggia airfields fall on the Adriatic side.

13 Oct 1943

Italy declares war on Germany. The Fifth Army is fighting across the Volturno. Kesselring falls back from line to line towards the Gustav Line.

Nov – Dec 1943

The Winter Line. Mountain battles at Monte Camino, San Pietro and Monte Lungo; on the Adriatic the Sangro and Moro crossings and the street fight for Ortona (20–28 December). Montgomery leaves for England at the turn of the year.

17 – 22 Jan 1944

Cassino and Anzio. The first battle for Cassino opens, and the US 36th Division's crossing of the Rapido fails at heavy cost. On 22 January VI Corps lands at Anzio almost unopposed — then is sealed in.

15 Feb 1944

The abbey destroyed. Allied bombers flatten the monastery of Monte Cassino, believing it part of the German defence. Post-war evidence indicates German troops were not inside it; they occupied the ruins afterwards. The attacks that followed failed.

11 – 18 May 1944

Operation Diadem. A combined offensive along the Gustav Line. The French corps breaks through the Aurunci mountains; the Poles take the monastery on 18 May. In the weeks that follow French colonial troops commit mass rapes of civilians — the Marocchinate; estimates of the number of victims range from about 2,000 to 12,000 or more, depending on the source.

4 Jun 1944

Rome. The Anzio breakout (23 May) links with the main front (25 May); Clark turns for Rome rather than blocking the German retreat at Valmontone, and enters the capital two days before D-Day. Historians still debate the choice.

Jun – Aug 1944

The pursuit north. Siena, Ancona, Livorno and, in August, Florence on the Arno. Seven divisions are withdrawn for the landings in southern France on 15 August. On 12 August an SS unit massacres the villagers of Sant'Anna di Stazzema.

25 Aug – Oct 1944

The Gothic Line. Operation Olive on the Adriatic; Rimini falls on 21 September; the Fifth Army breaks through the passes north of Florence but stalls short of Bologna. Around Monte Sole (29 Sep – 5 Oct) the SS kill some 770 civilians.

Nov 1944 – Mar 1945

Winter. Stalemate in the mountains and the flooded Romagna. On 13 November Alexander broadcasts that partisans should hold back for the winter. The Brazilians take Monte Castello on 21 February; the Canadians leave for the Netherlands.

9 – 25 Apr 1945

The spring offensive. The Eighth Army attacks across the Senio (9 Apr), the Fifth out of the mountains (14 Apr). Bologna falls on 21 April; the Allies cross the Po; on 25 April the Resistance proclaims the general insurrection.

28 Apr – 2 May 1945

The end. Partisans shoot Mussolini on 28 April. The German surrender signed at Caserta on 29 April takes effect at 2 p.m. local time (12:00 GMT) on 2 May — six days before VE Day. What happens place by place is the Timeline tab.

Counting the cost. Figures vary widely with who is counted and when. Allied casualties in Italy are usually put at around 310,000–330,000, of whom roughly 60,000–70,000 were killed; German losses are estimated at over 330,000, excluding the men who surrendered in May 1945. Italian losses — soldiers on both sides, partisans, internees and civilians killed by bombing, shelling and massacres — ran to many tens of thousands more. Allied bombing alone is estimated to have killed some 60,000 Italian civilians during the war, about two-thirds of them after the armistice.

Sources for this page Italian campaign, 1943–45 (Wikipedia) Armistice of Cassibile (Wikipedia) Sicily 1943 — US Army Center of Military History Naples–Foggia — US Army CMH Anzio 1944 — US Army CMH Rome–Arno 1944 — US Army CMH North Apennines — US Army CMH Po Valley 1945 — US Army CMH Monte Cassino — Imperial War Museums Canada in Italy, 1943–45 — Veterans Affairs Canada The Italian campaign — NZHistory Was "soft underbelly" Churchill's phrase? — Hillsdale Churchill Project Further reading: the British and Commonwealth official histories of the Mediterranean campaign, and the US Army "Green Books" on Sicily and Italy.

Key figures

A campaign of many nations

The Italian campaign was fought by generals who often disliked each other and by soldiers from five continents. These are some of the people who shaped it, from Sicily in July 1943 to the German surrender on 2 May 1945.

Read how the command worked ▾

At the top. Eisenhower ran the Mediterranean from Algiers until January 1944, then the British general Maitland Wilson, then Alexander from December 1944. Alexander commanded the Allied armies in Italy for most of the campaign; Clark took over from him in December 1944.

Two armies side by side. The US Fifth Army (Clark, then Truscott) fought on the western, Tyrrhenian side of the Apennines; the British Eighth Army (Montgomery, Leese, then McCreery) on the eastern, Adriatic side. Each held troops of many nations: French, Brazilians and South Africans served under the Americans at times, and Poles, Canadians, New Zealanders and Indians under the British.

The other side. Kesselring commanded the Germans for most of the campaign, with corps commanders such as von Senger holding the line. Mussolini’s Social Republic fought beside them in the north, while Italian partisans, and a royal Italian army on the Allied side, fought against them.

22 people who shaped the war in Italy. Tap a name to read their story, the medals they earned and what became of them. Coloured ribbons are shown only for decorations with a matching ribbon; others are listed inside the card.

Allied commanders

Born 10 Dec 1891, London · died 16 Jun 1969, Slough

An Irish Guards officer decorated for bravery in the First World War, Alexander commanded the Allied ground forces in Sicily and Italy under a string of titles — 15th Army Group, then Allied Armies in Italy. Charming and unflappable, he managed Americans, British, French, Poles and many others by tact rather than orders. Critics, Montgomery among them, thought his grip too loose and the campaign short of direction. He accepted the bombing of the Monte Cassino abbey in February 1944 and planned the May 1944 offensive, Operation Diadem, that finally broke the Gustav Line. Made field marshal with seniority from 4 June 1944, the day Rome fell, he became Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean in December 1944 and received the German surrender in Italy, signed at Caserta on 29 April 1945 and effective on 2 May.

Decorations

Military Cross — Battle of Loos, 1915 (gazetted January 1916)
Distinguished Service Order — the Somme, 1916

After the war: Governor General of Canada 1946–52 and Minister of Defence 1952–54; created Earl Alexander of Tunis.

Born 17 Nov 1887, Kennington, London · died 24 Mar 1976, Alton, Hampshire

Fresh from El Alamein and Tunisia, Montgomery had the Sicily plan changed so that his Eighth Army and Patton’s Seventh Army landed side by side in the south-east on 10 July 1943. His drive up the east coast stalled south of Catania, around Primosole Bridge and the slopes of Etna, while Patton swept west and north; their rivalry became legend. On 3 September 1943 his army crossed the Strait of Messina to Reggio Calabria (Operation Baytown), then pushed up the Adriatic side of Italy, crossing the Sangro and the Moro rivers in the winter mud while his Canadians fought for Ortona. At the end of December 1943 he handed over the Eighth Army and left for England to prepare the Normandy invasion.

Decorations

Distinguished Service Order — Méteren, near the Belgian border, 13 October 1914, where he was shot through the lung

After the war: Commanded 21st Army Group from Normandy to the Baltic; Chief of the Imperial General Staff 1946–48; Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.

Born 11 Nov 1885, San Gabriel, California · died 21 Dec 1945, Heidelberg, Germany

Patton’s Seventh Army landed around Licata, Gela and Scoglitti on 10 July 1943 and held off counter-attacks at Gela. Given a supporting role, he swung west, entered Palermo on 22 July and then raced Montgomery along the north coast, reaching Messina on 17 August — by which time more than 100,000 German and Italian troops had escaped to the mainland.

Caveat. Sicily also stained his name. On 3 and 10 August he struck two soldiers suffering from battle fatigue in field hospitals, Privates Charles Kuhl and Paul Bennett. Eisenhower made him apologise; when the story broke in November he was left without a fighting command for months. The same campaign saw the Biscari massacre of prisoners by men of the 45th Division; their defence cited Patton’s pre-invasion speech, and how far his words encouraged the killings is still argued.

Decorations

Distinguished Service Cross — wounded leading tanks in the Meuse-Argonne, 26 September 1918

After the war: Led Third Army across France and Germany in 1944–45; died after a road accident in Germany in December 1945.

Born 1 May 1896, Madison Barracks, New York · died 17 Apr 1984, Charleston, South Carolina

Clark led the Fifth Army ashore at Salerno on 9 September 1943, and when German counter-attacks nearly split the beachhead he went forward under fire, winning the Distinguished Service Cross. In May 1944 his troops broke out of Anzio; in December he took over the whole Allied army group and on 2 May 1945 the German surrender in Italy took effect.

Caveat. Two decisions still divide historians. The 36th Division’s crossing of the Rapido in January 1944 failed with about 1,700 casualties; Texan veterans demanded a Congressional inquiry in 1946, which cleared him. And after Anzio he turned most of his force north-west towards Rome, which he entered on 4–5 June, instead of driving everything to Valmontone to cut off the retreating German 10th Army. Critics call it vanity; defenders say the trap could not have been closed.

Decorations

Distinguished Service Cross — under fire on the Salerno beachhead, September 1943

After the war: US High Commissioner in Austria, then UN commander in Korea who signed the 1953 armistice; president of The Citadel 1954–65.

Born 27 Oct 1894, London · died 22 Jan 1978, Wales

A Coldstream Guards officer wounded three times on the Western Front, Leese had led a corps under Montgomery from El Alamein to Sicily. He took over the Eighth Army at the turn of 1943–44, when it was stuck in the Adriatic mud. In spring 1944 he moved most of the army in secret across the Apennines to the Cassino front, and in May its British, Canadian, Polish and Indian divisions broke into the Liri valley in the last battle of Cassino. In August he persuaded Alexander to switch the main effort back to the Adriatic, and Operation Olive broke into the Gothic Line between Pesaro and Rimini. The breakthrough was costly and did not end the war in Italy that year. In late September he left for South-East Asia.

Decorations

Distinguished Service Order — the Somme, 1916

After the war: His South-East Asia command ended after a failed attempt to remove General Slim. Later a noted grower of cacti and president of the MCC.

Born 1 Feb 1898, Market Harborough, Leicestershire · died 18 Oct 1967, Templecombe, Somerset

A cavalryman who walked with a limp after a wound at Arras in 1917 cost him several toes, McCreery commanded the British X Corps inside Clark’s Fifth Army: it landed at Salerno in September 1943, crossed the Volturno in October and the Garigliano in January 1944. On 1 October 1944 he took over the Eighth Army, the only cavalryman ever to lead it, as it slogged through the rain on the Romagna plain. His best moment came in April 1945: with amphibious tracked carriers across the flooded ground by Lake Comacchio he forced the Argenta Gap, a narrow strip of dry land between floods and marsh, and opened the way to the Po. In February 1945 he pinned Italy’s Gold Medal on the partisan leader Arrigo Boldrini in Ravenna.

Decorations

Military Cross — mounted patrol near Solre-le-Château, 9 November 1918

After the war: Commanded British forces in Austria, then the British Army of the Rhine 1946–48.

Born 9 Jan 1895, Chatfield, Texas · died 12 Sep 1965, Alexandria, Virginia

A former cavalryman, Truscott trained the US 3rd Infantry Division to march at the fast “Truscott trot” and led it in Sicily, where he won the Distinguished Service Cross, and through the first winter in Italy. In February 1944 he replaced Lucas at Anzio, held the beachhead against the German counter-offensive and in May led VI Corps’ breakout towards Cisterna and Rome. After commanding the corps in the landings in southern France he returned in December 1944 to lead the Fifth Army to the Po and the Alps. At the American cemetery at Nettuno on Memorial Day 1945, the cartoonist Bill Mauldin later wrote, he turned his back on the dignitaries and spoke to the graves.

Decorations

Distinguished Service Cross — Sicily, 11 July 1943
Legion of Merit
Purple Heart
Army Distinguished Service Medal, several awards

After the war: Succeeded Patton at the head of Third Army in Germany; later a senior CIA officer.

Born 14 Jan 1890, Kearneysville, West Virginia · died 24 Dec 1949, Great Lakes, Illinois

Lucas took over VI Corps in September 1943 in the last days of the Salerno battle and led it through the autumn in the mountains. On 22 January 1944 his corps landed at Anzio almost unopposed; about 36,000 men were ashore by midnight. Instead of striking at once for the Alban Hills, he spent a week building up the beachhead, and by the time he attacked on 30 January Kesselring had ringed it with troops. Weeks of desperate defence followed, and on 22 February Clark replaced him with Truscott.

Caveat. His caution is usually blamed for Anzio’s failure; Churchill complained that he had hoped for a wildcat and got a stranded whale. Many historians reply that two divisions could not have held the hills, and that the plan itself was too thin.

Decorations

Army Distinguished Service Medal (two awards)
Navy Distinguished Service Medal
Silver Star
Purple Heart

After the war: Commanded Fourth Army in the United States for the rest of the war; then headed the US military advisory group in China (1946–48) and was deputy commander of Fifth Army in Chicago.

Born 16 Dec 1888, Bône (Annaba), Algeria · died 27 Jan 1967, Paris

Born in French Algeria, Juin brought the French Expeditionary Corps to Italy from November 1943: Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, African and French soldiers who proved superb in the mountains. They fought on the Belvedere heights north of Cassino in the winter. In May 1944, in Operation Diadem, Juin argued for and led the decisive move: his Moroccan and Algerian divisions and goumiers crossed the Aurunci mountains, which the Germans thought impassable, and broke the Gustav Line in two days. That opened the Liri valley and the road to Rome. The corps left Italy in July 1944 for the landings in southern France.

Caveat. The same advance brought the marocchinate, mass rapes and killings of civilians in southern Lazio by soldiers of his corps. A story that Juin promised his men a free hand has never been documented.

Decorations

Legion of Honour — Grand Cross

After the war: Resident-General in Morocco, a senior NATO commander, and from 1952 Marshal of France; buried at Les Invalides.

Born 11 Aug 1892, Krośniewice-Błonie, Russian Poland · died 12 May 1970, London

Wounded and taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1939, Anders spent nearly two years in Soviet prisons, including the Lubyanka in Moscow. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 he was freed to raise a Polish army from deported prisoners, and in 1942 led it out through Iran. Many of its men, and their families, had come straight from the gulag. In May 1944, in the last battle of Cassino, his two divisions attacked the ridges above the monastery; after a week of heavy losses the Poles raised their flag over the ruined abbey on 18 May. The corps went on to take Ancona in July 1944, broke into the Gothic Line and entered Bologna on 21 April 1945 — by which time Yalta had handed their home provinces to Stalin.

After the war: Stripped of his citizenship by communist Poland, he lived in exile in London. At his wish he is buried among his soldiers in the Polish cemetery at Monte Cassino.

Born 21 Mar 1889, Richmond, Surrey · died 4 Jul 1963, Windsor

Raised in New Zealand, Freyberg won the Victoria Cross on the Somme in 1916 and led New Zealand’s division throughout the Second World War. It arrived in Italy in October 1943 and fought on the Sangro and at Orsogna that winter. In February 1944 he led a New Zealand Corps at Cassino. Sure that the Germans were using the abbey, he pressed for its bombing on 15 February; his attacks then and in March, including the Māori Battalion’s fight at the railway station, failed at great cost. His deputy, Howard Kippenberger, lost both feet to a mine. The division fought on north and raced to Trieste, arriving on 2 May 1945, where Yugoslav partisans were already in the city.

Caveat. After the war it became clear that German troops had not been inside the abbey before the bombing.

Decorations

Victoria Cross — Beaucourt, Battle of the Somme, November 1916
Distinguished Service Order and three Bars (First and Second World Wars)

After the war: Governor-General of New Zealand 1946–52; made Baron Freyberg.

Born 13 Nov 1883 · died 17 Sep 1968, Rio de Janeiro

Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy in August 1942 after U-boats sank its ships, and Mascarenhas, then about sixty, was chosen to lead the only Latin American ground force to fight in Europe. About 25,900 Brazilians reached Italy from July 1944 and fought under the US Fifth Army in the Serchio valley and the northern Apennines. After failed attacks in the winter, they took Monte Castello in February 1945 and Montese in April, their costliest battle. At the end of April, around Collecchio and Fornovo di Taro, Mascarenhas received the surrender of the German 148th Infantry Division and Italian Fascist units — some 14,700 men and two generals.

After the war: Made marshal by the Brazilian Congress in 1946; chief of the armed forces general staff 1951–54.

Allied soldiers

Born 20 Jun 1925, Kingston, Texas · died 28 May 1971, air crash in Virginia

Slight and baby-faced — he had enlisted at 17 with a falsified birth date — Murphy landed with the 3rd Division at Licata on the first day of the Sicily invasion and was made corporal within days. He fought on the mainland from the Salerno beachhead through the winter mountains, suffering repeated bouts of malaria. He missed the Anzio landing in hospital but rejoined his company for the battle of Cisterna at the end of January 1944 and became a platoon sergeant. On 2 March 1944, near Anzio, he knocked out a German tank with rifle grenades after his men had shot its crew — his first Bronze Star. He left Italy with his division for southern France in August 1944, where he earned the Distinguished Service Cross and, in January 1945, the Medal of Honor.

Decorations

Medal of Honor — near Holtzwihr, France, 26 January 1945
Distinguished Service Cross — southern France, August 1944
Silver Star, twice — France, 1944
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star with “V”, twice — the first for the tank near Anzio, 2 March 1944
Purple Heart, three times — all for wounds in France

After the war: Became a Hollywood actor and played himself in To Hell and Back (1955); buried at Arlington.

Born 2 Apr 1910, Cabano, Quebec · died 8 Aug 1980, Quebec City

In the battles for Ortona in December 1943 the Canadians had to cut the road behind the town. On 14 December Captain Triquet’s company of the “Van Doos”, French Canadians of the Royal 22e Régiment, attacked towards a farmhouse called Casa Berardi with tanks in support. Half his men and all his other officers were soon killed or wounded. Surrounded, he told the survivors, according to his citation, that the only safe place was on the objective, and pushed on; his group and the tanks knocked out four German tanks and several machine-gun posts. He reached the house with two sergeants and 15 men, told them “Ils ne passeront pas” — they shall not pass — and held it until the rest of the battalion arrived next day.

Decorations

Victoria Cross — Casa Berardi, 14 December 1943
Legion of Honour (France)

After the war: Stayed in the reserve army, rising to brigadier.

Born 17 Dec 1924, Bholupura, Rajputana · died 1 Jul 1982, Bholupura, Rajasthan

On the opening night of the last Cassino battle, 11–12 May 1944, the 8th Indian Division crossed the fast-flowing Gari river south of Cassino under heavy fire. Next morning Kamal Ram’s company was pinned down by machine-guns. Aged 19, he volunteered to work round the flank, crept up to the first post and attacked it alone, shooting the gunner and killing a second German with the bayonet. He knocked out a second post, then helped a comrade finish a third. Later that day he shot a German in a slit trench and captured two more, clearing the way for his company. King George VI presented his Victoria Cross in Italy that summer, during his visit to the troops.

Decorations

Victoria Cross — Gari river, 12 May 1944 (London Gazette, 27 July 1944)

After the war: Stayed in the Indian Army after independence and retired in 1972 as an honorary lieutenant.

Born 7 Sep 1924, Honolulu · died 17 Dec 2012, Bethesda, Maryland

Inouye was a Honolulu teenager when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He joined the 442nd, a regiment of Japanese Americans raised while many mainland Japanese American families were held in camps. He fought with it north of Rome in summer 1944 and in the Vosges mountains of France, winning a battlefield commission. In spring 1945 the 442nd returned to Italy to attack the western end of the Gothic Line. On 21 April 1945, on the Colle Musatello ridge near San Terenzo, he was shot in the stomach but kept attacking German machine-gun posts until a rifle grenade shattered his right arm. He prised a live grenade from his shattered right hand, threw it, and kept directing his men until he was carried away.

Decorations

Medal of Honor — Colle Musatello, 21 April 1945 (first awarded as the Distinguished Service Cross, upgraded in 2000)
Bronze Star
Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster

After the war: Lost his right arm. US senator for Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012.

Born 17 Dec 1919, Cheyenne, Wyoming · died 13 Jul 2010, St. Maries, Idaho

The 92nd “Buffalo” Division was the only African American infantry division to fight in Europe, in an army that kept Black and white soldiers apart. On 5 April 1945 Lieutenant Baker’s platoon attacked the German strongpoint around Castle Aghinolfi, above the coast north of Viareggio. He knocked out machine-gun posts, an observation post and a dugout, killing nine Germans himself; most of his 25 men were killed or wounded. The next night he volunteered to lead a battalion advance through minefields and heavy fire. He received the Distinguished Service Cross. Only in 1997, after an Army-commissioned study found that Black soldiers had been passed over, was it upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

Decorations

Medal of Honor — Castle Aghinolfi, 5–6 April 1945 (presented by President Clinton, January 1997)
Silver Star
Bronze Star with “V”, twice
Purple Heart, twice

After the war: Stayed in the army until 1968, then worked for the Red Cross for nearly 20 years. The only one of the seven Black Second World War soldiers honoured in 1997 still alive to receive his medal.

Found as a cub in Iran, 1942 · died 2 Dec 1963, Edinburgh Zoo

Wojtek was a Syrian brown bear cub bought in 1942 near Hamadan, Iran, by Polish soldiers who had just come out of the Soviet Union. He grew up with their supply company, wrestling his friends, riding in their lorries and famously fond of beer and cigarettes. To get him aboard a ship to Italy he was enlisted as a private, with a paybook and a number. His comrades said that at Monte Cassino in May 1944 he helped carry crates of artillery shells, and a bear holding a shell became the company badge. The story is hard to prove, though at least one British soldier later described seeing a bear carrying crates.

After the war: Went with the company to Scotland and lived in Edinburgh Zoo from 1947. Statues stand in Edinburgh, in Poland and, since 2019, at Cassino.

Axis & Italians

Born 30 Nov 1885, Marktsteft, Bavaria · died 16 Jul 1960, Bad Nauheim

A Luftwaffe field marshal, Kesselring persuaded Hitler that Italy could be held far to the south rather than abandoned up to the Alps. From Salerno onwards he fought a skilful delaying war along a chain of fortified lines — the Gustav Line through Cassino, the Hitler Line, the Gothic Line — making the Allies pay for every river and ridge. He had the Anzio beachhead ringed within days. His harsh anti-partisan orders of 1944 promised officers backing for severe measures, and reprisal killings followed under his command. In March 1945 he left Italy to command in the west.

Caveat. In 1947 a British military court in Venice sentenced him to death for the Ardeatine Caves massacre and for inciting the killing of civilians. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he was freed in 1952, officially on health grounds.

Decorations

Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds

After the war: Wrote his memoirs and led the Stahlhelm, a right-wing veterans’ league.

Born 4 Sep 1891, Waldshut · died 9 Jan 1963, Freiburg

An unusual German general: a devout Catholic and a Rhodes scholar at Oxford before 1914. In Sicily he was the German liaison officer with the Italian 6th Army; afterwards he brought the German garrisons out of Sardinia and Corsica. From October 1943 his XIV Panzer Corps held the southern front around Cassino through all four battles. German troops were kept out of the abbey before the Allied bombing; afterwards his paratroopers turned the ruins into a fortress. When the Poles and French broke through in May 1944 his corps fell back towards Rome, and in May 1945 he came to Allied headquarters in Florence to receive the terms of the German surrender.

Decorations

Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves

After the war: Wrote the memoir Neither Fear nor Hope and advised on the creation of the new West German army.

Born 29 Jul 1883, Predappio · died 28 Apr 1945, Giulino di Mezzegra

Italy’s dictator since 1922, Mussolini fell fifteen days after the Allies landed in Sicily: on 25 July 1943 the Fascist Grand Council voted against him and the King had him arrested. On 12 September German paratroopers freed him from a hotel on the Gran Sasso — the SS officer Otto Skorzeny took most of the credit — and Hitler set him up as head of the Italian Social Republic, based on Lake Garda and wholly dependent on Germany. In April 1945 he fled north with a German column; partisans caught him at Dongo on 27 April and shot him and Clara Petacci the next day.

Afterwards: Their bodies were hung up at Piazzale Loreto in Milan on 29 April 1945. He is buried at Predappio.

Born 6 Sep 1915, Ravenna · died 22 Jan 2008, Ravenna

A former army officer, Boldrini took his battle name from the Prussian general von Bülow and organised Communist-led partisans in the flat marshes and pinewoods around Ravenna, country where guerrillas were not supposed to survive. His plan for the liberation of Ravenna, carried out with the advancing Allies in early December 1944, helped them take the city without a battle for its Byzantine monuments. Wounded in the German counter-attacks, his brigade held its ground and then fought alongside Allied units along the Senio front. On 4 February 1945, in Piazza Garibaldi in Ravenna, General McCreery pinned the Gold Medal of Military Valour on him.

Caveat. Later writers tried to link him to the killing of Fascist prisoners at Codevigo in 1945. The killings were investigated after the war, but he was never named as a suspect or charged.

Decorations

Gold Medal of Military Valour — liberation of Ravenna, pinned on 4 February 1945

After the war: First president of the partisans’ association ANPI (1947–2006) and a member of parliament from 1946 to 1994.

Myths and disputes

These bios follow the best-supported version. Where the record is still argued over, this is what the argument is about.

The abbey of Monte Cassino: Allied commanders, Freyberg above all, believed the Germans were using the monastery; they were not inside it before the bombing of 15 February 1944, though their positions ran close by. The ruins then became a German strongpoint.
Clark and Rome: Whether turning towards Rome in late May 1944 let the German 10th Army escape, or whether it would have escaped anyway, is still debated.
Lucas at Anzio: Blamed for caution; defended by historians who argue that a quick dash inland would have been cut off.
Patton: The slapping incidents are well documented. His share of blame for the Biscari prisoner killings is disputed; the soldiers tried cited his speech, and one was convicted, one acquitted.
Juin and the marocchinate: The crimes are documented; French military courts convicted over 150 soldiers. The alleged “licence” speech by Juin has no documentary source.
Kesselring: Admired as a defensive general, convicted as a war criminal; his early release in 1952 caused outrage in Italy.
Mussolini’s rescue: The Gran Sasso raid was planned by the Luftwaffe paratroop command and led by Major Harald Mors’ men; Skorzeny’s role was later inflated by propaganda and his own memoirs.
Kamal Ram: Often called the youngest Indian VC; some sources rank him second-youngest.
Wojtek: The shell-carrying at Cassino rests on his comrades’ accounts; there is no official record of it.
Boldrini: Accused by later writers over the Codevigo killings; post-war investigations never named him as a suspect and he was never charged.
Truscott at Nettuno: The famous Memorial Day scene comes from Bill Mauldin’s account.

Sources: Wikipedia; the US Army official history (Fisher, Cassino to the Alps); Veterans Affairs Canada; NZHistory; Congressional Medal of Honor Society; London Gazette citations via victoriacrossonline and VCGCA; ANPI; National WWII Museum.

The armies

Who fought in Italy

No campaign of the war in the West was more international. Between the landings in Sicily on 10 July 1943 and the German surrender on 2 May 1945, soldiers from five continents fought their way up the peninsula in two Allied armies: the US Fifth Army on the western side of the Apennines and the British Eighth Army on the eastern, Adriatic side, both under a single Allied army group. Facing them was the German Army Group C, with Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic behind its lines. Italy itself was split: from October 1943 the royal government fought on the Allied side, and partisans fought the Germans and Fascists in the occupied north.

All numbers here are approximate. Divisions came and went, and totals differ between official histories, cemetery records and later research, depending on whether Sicily is included and whether “casualties” means the dead only or also the wounded, missing and captured. Where sources disagree, a range is given.

The whole campaign in numbers

Sicily and Italy, July 1943 – May 1945

At the peak, in May 1944, the Allies had a ration strength of about 620,000 men in Italy against some 365,000 Germans; counting everyone in the theatre, totals of about 1.3 million Allied and 440,000 German troops are given. Sicily alone cost the Allies about 5,700 dead and the Axis about 9,000 dead and some 127,000 prisoners; over 100,000 German and Italian soldiers escaped across the Strait of Messina.

On the mainland the US official history counts 312,000 Allied casualties of all kinds (killed, wounded, missing) from September 1943 to May 1945, and 434,646 German casualties, including 48,067 killed and 214,048 missing, most of them captured. Other estimates put Allied dead at about 59,000–70,000, and German dead anywhere from under 40,000 to 150,000, depending on the source. At least 150,000 Italian civilians died in bombing, shelling, massacres and hunger; partisan dead are counted at 35,000–50,000, and German and Fascist reprisal killings claimed roughly 15,000–22,000 civilians.

Allied dead (mainland) ≈ 59,000–70,000 · Allied casualties ≈ 312,000–330,000 · German dead ≈ 48,000 (US official history), other estimates higher · civilians ≥ 150,000 dead · totals vary by source and by what is counted

The Allied armies

US Fifth Army

Formed in North Africa and landed at Salerno on 9 September 1943, the Fifth Army fought up the western side of Italy to the Po and the Alps under Clark and then Truscott. Its American core changed over time. The 3rd, 36th (Texas) and 45th (Thunderbird) Divisions fought from Sicily or Salerno through Cassino and Anzio before leaving for southern France in August 1944. The 34th (Red Bull) served from Salerno to the end, including Cassino and Anzio; the 1st Armored Division fought at Anzio and to the Po; the draftee divisions 85th, 88th and 91st fought from the spring and summer of 1944 through the Gothic Line.

Three formations stand out. The 92nd “Buffalo” Division, the only African American infantry division to fight in Europe, held the Ligurian coast and Serchio valley from late 1944. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Japanese Americans with the 100th Battalion that had fought since Salerno, became one of the most decorated units in US history for its size. The 10th Mountain Division arrived at the turn of 1944–45, climbed Riva Ridge at night in February and opened the Fifth Army's spring offensive on 14 April. The army also led British, French, Brazilian, South African and Italian troops.

US divisions in Italy: up to 7–8 at a time · US dead: ≈ 20,400 on the mainland + ≈ 2,800 in Sicily · Fifth Army casualties, all nations: 188,746 (US official history)

British Eighth Army

Montgomery’s desert army landed in south-east Sicily and crossed to Calabria on 3 September 1943, then fought up the Adriatic side under Montgomery, Leese and McCreery. Its British divisions included the 78th (Battleaxe), 4th, 46th, 56th (London) and 1st Infantry Divisions and the 6th Armoured Division, with the 1st Airborne landing at Taranto; the 50th and 51st Highland Divisions fought in Sicily before leaving for Normandy. British X Corps (46th and 56th Divisions) served inside the American Fifth Army at Salerno and on the Garigliano, and the British 1st Division fought at Anzio. Commandos fought at Termoli and Lake Comacchio.

The Eighth Army was really an imperial and allied army: at different times it contained the Canadian, Polish and New Zealand corps and divisions, three Indian divisions, South Africans, Greeks, the Jewish Brigade and Italian combat groups. Its hardest battles were Primosole in Sicily, the Sangro, the last battle of Cassino, the Gothic Line and Coriano ridge in September 1944, and the Argenta Gap in April 1945.

UK dead: ≈ 18,700 on the mainland, plus a share of the ≈ 2,900 British and Canadian dead in Sicily

Canadians — I Canadian Corps

The 1st Canadian Infantry Division and 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade landed near Pachino on 10 July 1943, fought through central Sicily, and crossed to the mainland in September. In December 1943, after hard fighting on the Moro River, they took Ortona in eight days of house-to-house fighting; the month cost the 1st Division several hundred dead (sources give from about 500 to 700). The 5th Canadian Armoured Division joined them, and as I Canadian Corps they broke the Hitler Line in the Liri valley in May 1944, broke into the Gothic Line and fought at Coriano and Rimini in September, then across the rivers of the Romagna. In February–March 1945 the corps moved to north-west Europe. Canadians also made up a large part of the joint US-Canadian 1st Special Service Force, which fought at Monte la Difensa and Anzio.

More than 93,000 served · peak ≈ 76,000 · 25,264 casualties, including more than 5,900 dead, Sicily included (Veterans Affairs Canada)

New Zealand — 2nd New Zealand Division

Freyberg’s division, including the 28th Māori Battalion, arrived in Italy in October 1943. It fought on the Sangro and at Orsogna in the winter of 1943, then as part of the New Zealand Corps in the second and third battles of Cassino (February–March 1944), attacking the railway station and the bombed town. It went on to Florence in August 1944, Faenza in December and the Senio in April 1945, and reached Trieste on 2 May 1945.

More than 2,100 killed and 6,700 wounded in Italy (NZHistory; another tally gives ≈ 1,700 dead from September 1943)

Indian Army — 4th, 8th and 10th Indian Divisions

Soldiers from every part of undivided India, and Gurkhas from Nepal, served in three divisions with British units mixed in. The 8th Indian arrived at Taranto in September 1943 and crossed river after river on the Adriatic — Biferno, Trigno, Sangro, Moro — before its night crossing of the Gari at Cassino in May 1944 and the fighting on to the Gothic Line and the Senio. The 4th Indian fought on the ridges above Cassino in February and March 1944, where Gurkhas held Hangman’s Hill below the abbey, and left for Greece late in 1944. The 10th Indian arrived in 1944 and fought in the Tiber valley, the Apennines and the final offensive. Kamal Ram’s Victoria Cross was one of several won by Indian soldiers in Italy.

Three divisions plus Gurkha units · dead ≈ 4,100 (India, Pakistan and Nepal, September 1943 – May 1945, one widely cited tally; other counts differ)

Polish II Corps

Anders’ corps was built largely from Poles deported to the Soviet Union in 1939–41 and released in 1941. It came to Italy in early 1944 with the 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division, the 5th Kresowa Infantry Division and the 2nd Armoured Brigade (later a division). In May 1944 it attacked the ridges above Monte Cassino and raised its flag over the abbey on 18 May. It then fought up the Adriatic, taking Ancona in July 1944, broke into the Gothic Line and entered Bologna on 21 April 1945. The corps kept growing by recruiting Poles who had been forced into the German army and later captured.

≈ 50,000 in May 1944, over 100,000 by the end of 1945 · 11,379 casualties, 2,301 killed in action · over 1,000 buried in the Polish cemetery at Monte Cassino

French Expeditionary Corps

General Juin’s corps arrived at Naples from November 1943. Most of its soldiers came from French North Africa and the colonies: the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division, the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division and the 1st Motorised Infantry Division (the former 1st Free French Division, with many West and Central African tirailleurs), plus Moroccan goumiers — irregular mountain troops in units called tabors. Tunisians, Senegalese, Malagasy and French from France and Algeria served alongside them. After hard fighting on the Belvedere heights in early 1944, they broke through the Aurunci mountains in May 1944, the key move that unlocked the road to Rome, and went on to Siena before leaving in July 1944 for southern France.

Caveat — the marocchinate. During and after the May 1944 breakthrough, soldiers of the corps, mostly North African troops and especially goumiers, committed mass rapes, killings and looting in the villages of southern Lazio (the Ciociaria). Estimates of victims range from 2,000–3,000 women (Italian Ministry of Defence, 1997) to about 12,000 or more (victims’ associations); about 800 men were also killed. French military courts tried 207 soldiers and convicted 156, and France compensated 1,488 victims in 1947. The crimes shaped Italian memory of the liberation, for example in Moravia’s novel La ciociara.

Peak ≈ 110,000–112,000, average ≈ 76,000 · dead ≈ 5,200–6,600+ · about 23,000 wounded (French Ministry of the Armed Forces)

South Africans — 6th South African Armoured Division

The division landed at Taranto in April 1944, with a British Guards brigade attached, and joined the pursuit north of Rome through Chiusi to Florence in August 1944. It spent the winter in the Apennines under American command and in April 1945 took Monte Sole and Monte Caprara south of Bologna before crossing the Po. South African Air Force squadrons also flew throughout the campaign.

One armoured division · ≈ 710–800 dead (the division reported 711 killed, 2,675 wounded, 157 missing)

Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB)

Brazil was the only Latin American country to send ground troops to Europe. The first 5,000 men reached Naples on 16 July 1944, and the FEB fought under the US Fifth Army in the Serchio valley and the northern Apennines. After costly winter attacks it took Monte Castello on 21 February 1945 and Montese in April, then trapped the German 148th Division at Collecchio and Fornovo, taking some 14,700 prisoners. A Brazilian fighter squadron flew P-47s alongside the Americans. The dead were buried at Pistoia before being moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1960.

≈ 25,900 sent · ≈ 450–470 killed in action (some tallies higher or lower) · over 20,000 prisoners taken

The Jewish Brigade

Formed in late 1944 from Jewish volunteers of British-ruled Palestine, the brigade of about 5,000 men landed at Taranto in November 1944 and went into the line on the Senio in March 1945, fighting at Alfonsine and in the final offensive. After the war its men helped Holocaust survivors reach Palestine. In 2018 Italy awarded its flag the Gold Medal of Military Valour.

≈ 5,000 men · 30–57 killed (sources differ) · 33 buried at Ravenna War Cemetery

Greeks and other contingents

The Greek 3rd Mountain Brigade, a few thousand men raised in the Middle East from the Greek government in exile, fought under I Canadian Corps at Rimini in September 1944 and was renamed the Rimini Brigade. Many smaller groups served too, among them Newfoundland gunners, Cypriot and Palestinian units, African pioneer companies and Australian air squadrons.

Greek dead ≈ 115

Italian co-belligerent forces

After the armistice of 8 September 1943 the King’s government declared war on Germany on 13 October. A small Italian motorised group of about 5,700 men went into the line in December 1943 at Monte Lungo, near Cassino, failing at first and then taking the hill. It grew into the Italian Liberation Corps, which fought up the Adriatic in 1944, and by 1945 into six combat groups (Cremona, Friuli, Folgore, Legnano, Mantova, Piceno) of about 9,000 men each, four of which fought in the final offensive. Tens of thousands more served the Allies as muleteers, labourers and support troops, and the Italian navy and air force fought on the Allied side.

Combat troops ≈ 20,000–50,000; with support units ≈ 266,000–326,000 · ≈ 1,900 killed in the combat units, plus ≈ 740 in auxiliary units

The partisans and the CLN

The resistance began in September 1943, when Germany occupied Italy and disarmed its army. The Committees of National Liberation (CLN), set up by the anti-Fascist parties, directed the struggle; in the north it was led by the CLNAI in Milan. The biggest formations were the Communist Garibaldi brigades and the Action Party’s Giustizia e Libertà brigades, with Socialist, Catholic and non-party “autonomous” units, many of them ex-soldiers. They fought in the Apennines and the Alps, sabotaged roads and railways, sheltered escaped Allied prisoners and rose in the cities, from Florence in August 1944 to Genoa, Turin and Milan in April 1945. 25 April is Italy’s Liberation Day. The Germans answered with reprisals, among them the Ardeatine Caves, Sant’Anna di Stazzema and Marzabotto.

≈ 70,000–100,000 in summer 1944, over 200,000–250,000 by April 1945 (estimates vary widely) · partisan dead ≈ 35,000–50,000

The Axis forces

German Army Group C

Kesselring commanded the German forces in Italy from November 1943 to March 1945, followed by von Vietinghoff. The 10th Army held the southern front, including the Gustav Line at Cassino; the 14th Army, formed in late 1943, sealed off Anzio and later held the western Apennines; an Army Liguria guarded the north-west from 1944. The best German units in Italy were the paratroopers of the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division (Ortona, Cassino) and the 4th (Anzio); the Luftwaffe’s Hermann Göring Panzer Division (Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, until summer 1944); the 15th, 29th and 90th Panzergrenadier Divisions; and the 16th and 26th Panzer Divisions. The 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division committed the massacres at Sant’Anna di Stazzema and Marzabotto in 1944. Army Group C surrendered under the Caserta agreement, signed on 29 April and effective on 2 May 1945.

Peak ≈ 365,000 ration strength, ≈ 440,000 in all (May 1944) · 434,646 casualties incl. 48,067 killed (US official history); other estimates of the dead run much higher

Italian Axis forces: 1943 and the Social Republic

In Sicily the Italian 6th Army fought beside the Germans; it lost about 4,700 dead, and many of its coastal troops surrendered quickly. After the armistice the Germans disarmed the Italian army and shipped some 600,000–700,000 soldiers to camps in Germany, where tens of thousands died. In the north Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic raised its own forces: four divisions trained in Germany (Italia, Littorio, San Marco, Monterosa), which fought mainly on quiet sectors, on coast defence and in the Garfagnana attack of December 1944; the National Republican Guard; the Black Brigades of the Fascist party; and the Decima MAS naval commandos. Most of their fighting was against partisans, a civil war marked by atrocities on both sides.

Sicily: ≈ 4,700 Italian dead · Social Republic dead ≈ 35,000 · paper strength several hundred thousand (figures disputed)

At a glance

Nationality	Main formations	Approx. peak strength in Italy	Approx. deaths in the campaign	Where they fought hardest
United States	Fifth Army: 3rd, 34th, 36th, 45th, 85th, 88th, 91st, 92nd, 10th Mountain, 1st Armored; 442nd RCT	up to 7–8 divisions (no single agreed figure)	≈ 23,000 incl. Sicily	Salerno, Rapido/Cassino, Anzio, Gothic Line, Apennines
United Kingdom	Eighth Army; X Corps; 1st, 4th, 46th, 56th, 78th Inf., 6th Armoured	the largest national contingent for most of the campaign	≈ 18,700 + share of ≈ 2,900 in Sicily	Primosole, Salerno, Sangro, Cassino, Anzio, Coriano, Argenta
Canada	I Canadian Corps: 1st Inf. Div., 5th Armoured Div., 1st Armoured Bde	≈ 76,000 (93,000 served)	≈ 5,900 incl. Sicily	Sicily, Ortona, Hitler Line, Gothic Line, Rimini
New Zealand	2nd NZ Division incl. 28th Māori Battalion	one reinforced division	≈ 1,700–2,100	Orsogna, Cassino, Florence, Faenza, Senio
India & Nepal	4th, 8th, 10th Indian Divisions; Gurkha battalions	three divisions	≈ 4,100 (counts vary)	Sangro, Cassino, Gari, Gothic Line, Senio
Poland	II Corps: 3rd Carpathian, 5th Kresowa, 2nd Armoured	≈ 50,000 (May 1944) → 100,000+	≈ 2,300	Cassino, Ancona, Gothic Line, Bologna
France & French Africa	CEF: 2nd Moroccan, 3rd Algerian, 4th Moroccan Mountain, 1st Motorised; goumiers	≈ 110,000–112,000	≈ 5,200–6,600	Belvedere, Garigliano, Aurunci, Siena
South Africa	6th SA Armoured Division	one armoured division	≈ 710–800	Chiusi, Florence, Apennines, Monte Sole
Brazil	FEB: 1st Expeditionary Infantry Division	≈ 25,900	≈ 450–470	Monte Castello, Montese, Collecchio
Jewish Palestine	Jewish Brigade	≈ 5,000	30–57	Senio
Greece	3rd Mountain (Rimini) Brigade	a few thousand	≈ 115	Rimini
Italy (Allied)	Italian Liberation Corps; six combat groups	20,000–50,000 combat troops	≈ 900–1,900 (counts vary; + ≈ 740 auxiliaries)	Monte Lungo, Filottrano, Senio, Po
Italian partisans	Garibaldi, Giustizia e Libertà, Matteotti, autonomous brigades	200,000–250,000+ (April 1945)	≈ 35,000–50,000	Apennines, Alps, northern cities
Germany	Army Group C: 10th & 14th Armies; paratroop, panzer and panzergrenadier divisions	≈ 365,000–440,000 (May 1944)	≈ 48,000 (US official history); other estimates much higher	Salerno, Ortona, Cassino, Anzio, Gothic Line
Italian Social Republic	Italia, Littorio, San Marco, Monterosa; GNR; Black Brigades; Decima MAS	disputed	≈ 35,000	anti-partisan war, Garfagnana

Deaths are for mainland Italy, September 1943 – May 1945, unless Sicily is stated; national figures come from different sources and do not add up exactly to the totals above.

Sources: Wikipedia; E. F. Fisher, Cassino to the Alps (US Army official history); Veterans Affairs Canada; NZHistory; French Ministry of the Armed Forces; Italian and Brazilian Wikipedia; Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Weapons

Weapons & equipment

The weapons and kit that both sides used in Sicily and Italy, from the landings of July 1943 to the German surrender on 2 May 1945 — rifles and machine guns, anti-tank weapons, guns, tanks, mines, landing craft and the mules that carried the war into the mountains. For each one you will see when it was used, how it worked, what it did well, where it fell short and which places in this guide it is linked to.

Filter the cards by type with the buttons, or tap a row in the timeline to jump straight to that card.

What was used, and when

Use in Sicily and Italy, from the landings of 10 July 1943 to the surrender that took effect on 2 May 1945. The shaded bands are the phases of the campaign that this guide follows; red ticks mark key moments. Some dates are approximate.

In general useFew units, or first / last deliveriesKey moment

Ammunition

Each army had its own rifle cartridge, so Americans, British and Germans could not share rifle and machine-gun ammunition. Within each army, though, the rifle and the machine guns fired the same round. The one exception was 9 mm: the British Sten fired the same pistol cartridge as the German MP 40, so captured German ammunition could be used.

Ammunition	Fired by	Types	How it was carried	Notes
.30-06 Springfield 7.62 × 63 mm	M1 Garand, BAR, Browning M1919	M2 ball M2 armour-piercing M1 tracer	Garand: 8-round clips in a 10-pocket cartridge belt (80 rounds), plus cloth bandoliers. BAR: 20-round magazines in a belt. M1919: 250-round cloth belts in steel boxes.	A powerful, long-range round shared by the whole US rifle squad and its machine guns.
.303 British 7.7 × 56 mm R	Lee-Enfield rifles, Bren, Vickers	Mk VII ball Tracer and armour-piercing	Rifle: 5-round chargers in cloth bandoliers of 50. Bren: 30-round magazines, usually loaded with 27–28 rounds, in webbing pouches — every man in the section carried some.	A rimmed cartridge, the reason for the Bren's curved magazine. Used by all British and Commonwealth forces and by the British-equipped Polish II Corps.
7.92 × 57 mm Mauser “8 mm Mauser”	Karabiner 98k, MG 34, MG 42	s.S. ball SmK armour-piercing Tracer	Rifle: 5-round stripper clips in leather pouches on the belt. MG: belts of 50, linked into long belts, in steel boxes; 50-round drums for the assault.	The MG 42's enormous rate of fire meant the whole section carried ammunition for it.
9 × 19 mm Parabellum “9 mm”	MP 40, Sten, pistols	Ball	32-round box magazines in pouches.	Common to the Sten and the MP 40: British troops and Italian partisans could use captured German ammunition.
.45 ACP 11.43 × 23 mm	Thompson, M1911A1 pistol	Ball	Thompson: 20- or 30-round box magazines in canvas pouches.	Heavy, slow bullet: hard-hitting close up, weak beyond about 100 m.
Anti-tank rockets and bombs	Bazooka, PIAT, Panzerschreck	Bazooka: 60 mm rocket (M6A1) PIAT: bomb of about 1.1 kg Panzerschreck: 88 mm rocket	In tubes or cases carried by the loader and other men of the team; PIAT bombs in three-round carriers.	All used a shaped-charge warhead, which punches a jet of metal through armour. Also used against houses and bunkers.
Artillery shells	25-pounder, 105 mm, 88 mm, K5	High explosive Smoke Armour-piercing	25-pounder: shell and cartridge loaded separately. 105 mm: “semi-fixed” — shell in a brass case whose propellant bags could be removed. 88 mm: one-piece rounds.	At Anzio, by 14 February 1944, VI Corps artillery was firing about 20,000 rounds a day (US Army official account).
Rockets	Nebelwerfer	15 cm high explosive and smoke 21 cm high explosive	By truck to the launch site; each 15 cm rocket weighed some 32–36 kg.	The 15 cm rocket had its motor at the front and its warhead behind, so the warhead burst above the ground.

The drawings are simplified diagrams that show the main parts; they are not to scale. Figures vary with the model and the source: where sources disagree, a range or an approximate value is given.

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Waypoints for your sat-nav

📍 Download waypoints

Every stop in the guide as a file you can save and open later in Google Maps, Google Earth, a Garmin or another navigation app. Each point has its name, the story in brief and how accurate the pin is.

Into Europe — Italy 1943–1945 · 109 points

⬇ GPX fileGarmin, Organic Maps, OsmAnd, Gaia GPS and most sat-navs ⬇ KML fileGoogle My Maps and Google Earth

How to use the file

Google Maps. On a computer, open Google My Maps, choose Create a new map, then Import, and pick the KML file. On your phone the points then appear in Google Maps under Saved → Maps.

Google Earth. Open Google Earth, choose Projects → Import KML file.

Garmin. Plug the device into a computer and copy the GPX file into its Garmin/GPX folder, or import it with Garmin Express, BaseCamp or the Garmin Connect app.

Phone navigation apps. Organic Maps, OsmAnd, Gaia GPS and others: open the GPX file from your Downloads or Files and choose the app.

Where the file goes. On a computer or Android phone it lands in Downloads. On an iPhone it goes to the Files app, in Downloads.

Pins marked LOW or AREA are the centre of a search area, not an exact spot. Much of the land is private: view from the road.

Credits

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributorsThe map imagery is made from OpenStreetMap data, available under the Open Database License, with sea and country outlines from Natural Earth (public domain). Tap to read the licence.

Coordinates are navigation aids, not proof that a soldier stood on that exact spot. Front lines on the maps are approximate.

Explore the guide

Briefing

The accuracy rule

Words to know

The story in brief

Why the whole route

The campaign in date order

Plan your tour

The campaign: why Italy, and how

Battle maps

The decisive factors

Two clocks: Italy and the rest of the war

Key sites of the whole campaign

Museums & memorials

Sources

Origins — why the Allies went into Italy

1 · After North Africa

2 · Italy leaves the war

3 · How the armies were organised

4 · The campaign at a glance

Read more

Key figures

Allied commanders

Allied soldiers

Axis & Italians

The armies

The whole campaign in numbers

The Allied armies

The Axis forces

At a glance

Weapons & equipment

What was used, and when

Ammunition

Map

More