 was free, liberated after 21 years of fascist rule. He entered the eternal city from the south, acclaimed by cheering multitudes. Through the streets where the chariots of the Caesars once rolled, tanks and trucks rumbled past historic landmarks. Colosseum, the Forum, the Victor Emmanuel Memorial, tomb of Italy's unknown soldier. The Piazza Venezia, where Mussolini looked down from his balcony upon the people that he had led to sorrow and ruin. The liberation of Rome was part of the All-Out Offensive in Italy, coordinated with drives upon the Nazi fortress from England and Russia. The Germans were driven from Rome exactly nine months and a day after the beginning of the Allied campaign in Italy. Conceived by the combined chiefs of staff, the campaign had two phases. In phase one, we sought to achieve certain preliminary objectives with a limited amount of troops and equipment. What were the objectives of phase one? Most important of all was securing complete control of the Mediterranean. Even after clearing the Axis out of North Africa and overrunning Sicily in 38 days, our shipping was still threatened by Axis air attacks from the Italian mainland. Our second objective, to exploit Mussolini's overthrow by knocking Italy out of the war. Our third objective was to capture the main Nazi air fields at Folger. Fourth, we wanted to engage the enemy at the quickest point of contact and force him to withdraw as many divisions as possible from the Russian front and the invasion front in Western Europe. Phase one of the Italian campaign began on September 3, 1943, when the British Eighth Army and Messina, under General Montgomery, pushed across the narrow straits toward Calabria on the toe of the boot and landed there virtually unopposed. The towns of the toe were swiftly occupied, and the Eighth Army pressed north up the peninsula. By September 8, we had swiftly accomplished one of our objectives when General Eisenhower announced the capitulation of Italy. The Italian fleet surrendered, and 66 Italian divisions laid down their arms. On September 9, the Fifth Army, composed of American and British troops and a General Mark Clark, headed for Salerno, 28 air miles south of Naples. The furthest point which could be protected by an umbrella of fighter planes from our bases in Sicily. At 5 AM, the first wave went in. Seized German film shows the Germans entrenched on high ground overlooking the harbor and beaches. They had moved in the day before, determined to prevent our landings. Despite heavy enemy fire, the first wave swarmed ashore with timetable precision. But before we could consolidate our positions, the Germans intensified their attacks. We made a gun, slowed up our landings, and imperiled the entire beachhead operation. Quite heavy support from the combined fleets. The situation grew more critical. We went into the struggle in great numbers, seriously hampering the landing of additional troops and equipment. Support from the RAF and the 9th American Air Force reached its peak when 1,860 sorties were flown against German troop concentrations on September 14. On that day, the German news agency announced that Salerno was another Dunkirk. Actually, the beachhead had been secured, despite heavy losses. Meanwhile, the 8th Army was pressing north. On September 16, patrols of the 8th and 5th made contact. The 8th was a threat to the German left flank, while the 5th Army counterattacked from the beachhead. The Germans fell back fighting before the Allied assault. Tommy's and Doughboy's drove them out of the foothills and pressed out. The German withdrawal was complete. General Clark's order of the day read, we are here to stay. Side by side with the 8th Army, the 5th Army will advance. On September 27, the 8th captured the Foggia airfields, achieving two more of our objectives. Our Mediterranean shipping was now relatively safe from air attack. And from Foggia, we could bomb southern Germany and the Balkans. As the Russian armies advanced, we could operate in close support with them, bombing rail junctions and military installations in the German rear. Budapest, El Grae, Bucharest, Loesti, Sofia. On October 1, three weeks and a day after the Allied landings at Salerno, the 5th entered Naples, one of the great ports of the world. The damage done by the Germans was soon repaired, and it rapidly became our main supply artery. As our troops pushed north, they passed countless thousands returning to their battle-scarred homes. This was once a farmhouse near Frankel-Easy. The farmer had refused to give up his livestock to feed German engineers. He and his family were locked into the house, and a charge of explosives was set off in the cellar. It was a family of five. We reached the Valterno River. There, the campaign became a battle of rivers and mountains. Fought through autumn torrents, unrest was slow. Sometimes clung to their rain-soaked positions for 30 days without relief. It rains as we struggle forward. Throughout the centuries, there have been hundreds of wars in Italy, and only once has it been conquered through these mountains. Winter brought snow, ice, and freezing temperatures. A topographical map shows how the mountains lie like an endless row of fortresses, each protected by its moat. A river at right angles a thwart our line of march. Here, weeks were consumed, forcing a single pass, crossing a single river. 100 men often held up 1,000. Let us see on this typical situation how the Germans defended a pass and the methods we used to capture it. Beyond the demolished bridges, the Germans laid minefields and emplaced machine guns and anti-tank guns to cover the minefields and bridgehead. Further back, they built pillboxes and concealed artillery just over the crest of the mountains. To take a position like this, we first had to lay down a tremendous artillery barrage. Behind this, our infantry had to swim the river at night, clear a way through the minefield, and put the machine guns and anti-tank guns out of action. Only then could pontoon bridges be put down, and our artillery brought across. As our guns went to work on the pillboxes and on the enemy artillery in the mountains, the infantry captured the pass by working around the enemy's flank, storming the pillboxes from side and rear, and silencing them with grenades and flamethrowers. Much of the time, the going was too steep for vehicles, and muscle and mule took over. Supplies were brought through over precarious trails. The army fought its way through the Sangro Valley. Their attack on Artona was met by determined Nazi resistance. Powered by tanks, the Germans counter-attacked desperate. For 18 days, tank battles and hand-to-hand infantry fighting raged through the streets, finally driven into the northwest corner of the town. Exhausted, the enemy pulled out. The 8th pressed after them. The tide of battles swept over Artona and left it in its wake. Our visit at the central front, it was three months since we had crossed the Valturno. We had advanced 12 miles in this sector, sometimes at the cost of a manor yard, and were facing Casino, keyed with a strong Gustav line, which the Germans had orders to hold at all costs. Casino lies on the northern slope of the Leary Valley, through which runs the Via Cazilina, highway number six. The position of the valley and the mountains overlooking it from both sides would take us forward to the foot of the last mountains, barring our way to Rome. Our plan was to force the Rapido River both to the north and south of the town. While the southern force maintained pressure, the northern unit was to circle through the mountains behind it, clean the Germans out of their positions there, and storm the town from north and rear. At Hangmans Hill, this unit fought for days. Other vantage points changed hands again and again. Finally, another force, which had crossed the Rapido from the south, fought its way into one third of the town. There, superb enemy resistance turned the battle into a stalemate. The Gustav line ran across the peninsula and was anchored at Casino. To break the stalemate, we tried an end run, amphibious landings at Anzio and Natuno. The Germans were caught off guard, and for several days, American and British troops encountered only light opposition as they landed and consolidated the beachhead. It was up to the German high command to determine the importance of this new threat to their flank and rear. Marshal's Rommel and Kessel ring decided against falling back and brought in 13 fresh divisions from their dwindling strategic reserves. More and more, we were accomplishing our objective of diverting Nazi divisions from the western and Russian front. Heavy Luftwaffe raids supported those 13 divisions as they sought to drive us into the sea. Back three powerful German attacks, holding the 100 square miles of beachhead area with innumerable small infantry fights, tremendous artillery barrages, the price to hold the Anzio beachhead, casualties, men captured by the enemy, shown in these Nazi films. Back at Casino, the fight continued. The Germans held an obvious advantage by their occupation of the Benedictine Abbey above the town. They were asked to abandon it and refused. We had no alternative but to bomb the Abbey to save soldiers' lives. 43 Allied planes tried to blast the enemy out of the town with a load of 1,144 tons of bombs. The Germans took cover in caves and tunnels, fighting at Casino. Preparations were underway for phase two of the campaign, the all-out assault. Phase one, the preliminary campaign, was going to an end. Reinforcements and great quantities of new equipment were brought in. Our forces were regrouped, British and Polish troops in the Leary Valley, Americans in the west along the Garigliano River, the French Expeditionary Corps in the center. By sunset May 11th, preparations had been completed. All along the front, the German dominated heights were under the muzzles of Allied guns. At 11 p.m., they went into action. The push was well underway. General Alexander, commander of the Allied forces in Italy, told his troops that to them had fallen the honor of striking the first blow in the great final invasion of Fortress Germany. Between Casino and the western coast, the powerful blows launched by the British, Poles, French and Americans shattered the Gustav line. By May 17th, only Casino remained in German hands. Behind tanks hampered by the wreckage, British, Indian and Polish troops fought their way in. Casino fell, and the Gustav line had ceased to exist. Prisoners were brought in on every sector of the front. Thousands more were slain. Those who were taken alive were beaten, exhausted, hopeless. The power of our offensive was written in their dazed, haunted faces. But there were still 17 German divisions in Italy that had to be battered to pieces. The Adolf Hitler line swung back like a gate, then crumbled beneath the sledgehammer Allied blows. On May 23rd, the Anzio troops broke out of their beachhead area, and two days later, the two groups met at Borgo Grappa. After four months of anguished fighting, the beachhead forces had accomplished their mission to threaten the German rear and compel them to fall back. The road to Rome was lined with the wreckage of Nazi legions, blasted by Allied air power as they fled before the reunited Fiftham, mounting fury of the Allied drive through the Nazis back to the outskirts of Rome. Films taken by Italian anti-fascists show the evacuation of Rome, one of the greatest blows of the war to Nazi prestige. The streets were deserted as the Nazis left. Who speaks again, most symbols in the Piazza San Pietro to receive the Pope's blessing.