Americans and at least one soldier (or perhaps a partisan) from some other army fighting in Italy in 1944.
We don't commemorate that many World War Two anniversaries here, but we would note a significant one that's likely to get lost with all of the focus on a huge World War Two anniversary this week.
On this day, in 1944, the Allies took Rome.
Fighting in Italy, which had commenced with the invasion of Sicily in 1943 and then spread to the Italian mainland with Allied landings in September 1944, had been a hard slog all the way. The Italians collapsed but the Germans put up a stout resistance, although the fact that it was a resistance and that they proved incapable of pushing the Allies off of the Italian peninsula pointed inevitably towards how the war would resolve.
The Allies had been pushing towards and around Rome for months and attempted the infamous seaborne landings at Anzio in an attempt to accomplish it. It's occupation on this day in 1944 was actually a strategic blunder as in order to accomplish it Gen. Mark Clark allowed the German 10th Army to escape.
Americans entered Rome on this day in 1944. The Canadian Army passed through the city without stopping the following day. The German Tenth Army would be responsible for doubling Allied casualties in the following weeks, so while the occupation was momentous, it wasn't without significant delayed costs that would have been avoided to some degree if a different more strategic approach had been taken.
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