Editor’s Note: The late Sen. Robert Dole and nearly one million other Allied soldiers continued the fight against Nazi Germany in northern Italy after D-Day in 1944, when the world’s attention turned to France. A team from American Heritage recently traveled to Italy to find the spot where Dole was so badly wounded, and learn more about this dramatic but often-neglected phase of World War II. We thank Gabriele Ronchetti, author of several books on the Italian campaign, and the other historians of the Gothic Line Association for their help in the research for this article.
Churchill called Italy the “soft underbelly” of Europe. It turned out to be anything but that as the Allies faced some of World War II’s most costly battles from the invasion of Sicily on July 10, 1943, to Salerno, Anzio, Monte Cassino, and many other bloody encounters.
“In the year before D-Day, the Italian campaign was the single most important front in the war,” historian Gabrielle Ronchetti recalled. “The Allied plan was to use Italy as a bridge into Nazi Germany, to strike at the heart of the Third Reich. Little by little, over many months, the Allies fought their way up the peninsula, liberating Rome on June 5, 1944.”
Then, one day after Rome was taken, the world’s attention turned away from Italy as the Allies landed at Normandy to open up a second front in Europe. Seven American divisions were transferred out of Italy to help in France. But the Allied would continue heroically to struggle on the Italian peninsula with little notice from the press and public.
