 June 4, 1944. Rome was free. Liberated after 21 years of fascist rule, the army entered the eternal city from the south. Acclaimed by cheering multitude through the streets where the chariots of the Caesars once rolled, tanks and trucks rumbled past historic landmarks. Colosseum, the Forum, the Victory Manual Memorial, tomb of Italy's unknown soldier. The Piazza Venezia, the line he looked down from his balcony upon the people 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 faces. In phase one, we sought to achieve certain preliminary objectives with a limited amount of troops and equipment. What were the 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 airfields 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 and the 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 8th, 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 9th, the Fifth Army composed of American and British troops under General Mark Clark headed for Salerno, 28 a.m. Isle south of Naples. The furthest point which could be protected by an umbrella of fighter planes from our bases in Sicily. At 5 a.m. 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. 88 millimeter guns slowed up our landings and imperiled the entire beachhead operation. Despite heavy support from the combined fleets the situation grew more critical. The Luftwaffe was thrown 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 1860s sorties were flown against German troop concentrations on September 14th. 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 16th the pros of the 8th and 5th made contact. The 8th was the threat to the German left flank while the 5th Army counter-attacked from the beachhead. The Germans fell back fighting before the Allied assault. Tommies and billboys drove them out of the foothills and pressed up. 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 27th 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, Elgré, Bucharest, Loesti, Sofia. On October 1st three weeks and a day after the Allied landings at Salerno the 5th Enthoed 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 Frankalese. The farmer had refused to give up his livestock to feed German engineers. He and his family were locked into the house and the charge of explosives was set off in a cellar. It was a family of five. One month after our landing we reached the Valterno River. There the campaign became a battle of rivers and mountains. Fought through autumn torrents. Wind, rain, our progress was slow. Advanced units sometimes clung to their rain-soaked positions for 30 days without relief. Mardin Meyer followed the rains as we struggled 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. The 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. A hundred men often held up a thousand. Let us see on this typical situation how the Germans defended the 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. Then 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. In the east the Eighth Army fought its way through the Sangro Valley. Their attack on Ortona was met by determined Nazi resistance. Powered by tanks the Germans counter-attacked desperately. For 18 days tank battles and hand-to-hand infantry fighting raged through the streets. The Germans were finally driven into the northwest corner of the town. Out fought, exhausted, the enemy pulled out. The Eighth pressed after them. The tide of battles swept over Ortona and left it in its wake. When General Eisenhower visited the central front it was three months since we had crossed the Valturno, 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. Possession 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 Ancio 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 after 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 Luftbuffer raids supported those 13 divisions as they sought to drive us into the sea. We beat back three powerful German attacks holding the hundred square miles of beachhead area with innumerable small infantry fights and tremendous artillery parades. We paid a heavy price to hold the Ancio beachhead in casualties and in men captured by the enemy showing these Nazi fears. 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. One month later 543 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. Behind the fighting at Casino preparations were underway for phase two of the campaign. The all-out assault. Phase one the preliminary campaign was growing 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. By dawn the big 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. On May 18th Casino fell and the Gustav line had ceased to exist. Prisoners were brought in on every sector of the front. Thousands more were slain. The men 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 adult 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 anguish fighting the beachhead forces had accomplished their mission to threaten the German rear and compelled 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 Fifth Arm. In 12 days the mounting fury of the Allied drive threw the Nazis back to the outskirts of Rome. Films taken by Italian anti-fascists showed the evacuation of Rome. One of the greatest blows of the war to Nazi prestige. The streets were deserted as the Nazis left. After 21 years a free Rome laughs again. A free Rome speaks again. A free Rome reads again. A free Rome assembles in the piazza San Pietro to receive the Pope's blessing. A free Rome prays remembering the day.