Salerno landings and the Italian armistice
In early September 1943, the strategic picture in the Mediterranean shifted rapidly.
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15 results for “Italia”
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Axis surrender in Tunisia
By May 13th, 1943, the last major pockets of German and Italian troops in Tunisia have laid down their arms, bringing the North African campaign to an end. For United States forces, the road to this day has run through early setbacks such as the defeat at Kasserine Pass and subsequent reorganization and training under new leadership.
Capture of Monte Cassino
On May 18th, 1944, Allied troops finally occupy the shattered ruins of the monastery and town of Cassino in Italy, ending a months-long struggle along the Gustav Line. Earlier attacks in winter and early spring had seen United States and other Allied units bleed heavily against well-prepared German defenses in rough terrain. The controversial bombing of the historic abbey and repeated assaults through mud, rivers, an
Eric G. Gibson
A Medal of Honor story of courage under fire in the Italian campaign of World War II.
George J. Hall
A Medal of Honor story of courage under fire and stubborn infantry grit in the Italian campaign of World War II.
German forces in Italy surrender
After nearly two years of brutal fighting up the Italian peninsula, German Army Group C formally laid down its arms to the Allied command on May 2nd, 1945. United States Fifth Army and its partners had slogged through mountains, rivers, and heavily fortified defensive lines, from Salerno and Anzio to the Gothic Line in the north.
James H. Mills
A Medal of Honor story of relentless courage under fire in the Italian campaign of World War II.
Patrick L. Kessler
A Medal of Honor story of relentless courage under fire in the Italian campaign of World War II.
U.S. bombers strike Rome
By the summer of the Second World War, Allied forces were fighting their way up the Italian boot while strategic air forces targeted the infrastructure that kept Axis armies supplied. On July 19th, 1943, hundreds of bombers from the United States Army Air Forces and the Royal Air Force attacked rail yards and communications nodes in and around Rome. The strikes aimed to disrupt German logistics and pressure Italy’s l
United States troops enter Rome
On that same June weekend, United States soldiers were fighting on the ground in Italy. On June 4th, 1944, elements of the United States Fifth Army entered Rome after months of hard campaigning up the Italian peninsula, past Salerno, Cassino, and the Anzio beachhead. The capture of Italy’s capital marked the first time an Axis capital city fell into Allied hands, a powerful symbol of progress in a campaign sometimes
Battle of El Guettar
A story of hard lessons, desert tank duels, and a young armor force learning fast enough to change a campaign.
Battle of Kasserine Pass
A story of a painful first defeat and how it forced a new army to relearn leadership, tactics, and trust in combat.
Eric Gunnar Gibson
The winter sky over the Anzio beachhead was a low, gray lid, pressing the sound of guns back down onto the men below. Along a shallow drainage ditch called the Fossa Femminamorta, muddy water slid past tufts of grass and shattered reeds. Somewhere ahead, beyond the next bend, German machine guns covered the open fields that stretched away from the ditch, anchoring a strongpoint that threatened the entire attack.
George John Hall
The fields near Anzio were bare and unforgiving—flat, freshly plowed earth broken only by shallow furrows and a few low dikes. On a May morning in 1944, Staff Sergeant George John Hall lay pressed into that thin cover with the rest of his company, the dirt shaking under the hammering of German machine guns. Every time a man tried to crawl forward, grazing fire stitched the ground in front of him. Sniper rounds cracke
James Henry Mills
The draw is narrow and steep, its sides scoured by months of shellfire and rain. At the bottom, the earth is churned to powder. Above it, hidden in the scrub and broken stone near Cisterna di Littoria, German machine guns wait for anything that moves. Private James Henry Mills can hear them before he sees them—the clatter of automatic fire, the sharper crack of rifles, the dull thump of grenades exploding somewhere a