Rome: The Forgotten Front
The New York Times Army correspondent in North Africa and Italy during the Second World War was a man named Herbert Mitgang. On June 5th, 1944, he reported back to his section editor that American Infantrymen had captured Rome, officially making it the first conquered Axis capital of World War II.
As far as victories go, it was significant, and it was vastly overshadowed by the events of the next day, when on June 6th, 1944, the D-day landings brought the first battles of the invasion of France.
The banner of the American Army newspaper Stars and Stripes pronounced "WE'RE IN ROME" on the day the city fell. Correspondents raced to Il Messaggero, a newspaper plant on the Via del Tritone, to get the paper out. The next day, however, it ran a one-word headline that referenced Normandy, rather than Italy: "INVASION."
The "dogface" troops who faced heavy enemy resistance on the beachheads of Sicily at Salerno and Anzio for nearly a year and were now riding high on the rush of victory. They were expecting the accolades of a war well fought to rain down for months to come but were left sorely disappointed when they found that their day of glory lasted literally a day.
The greater and more portentous victories on the beaches of Normandy relegated their conquest to that of a smaller stature. Rome became an afterthought when it became clear that Berlin was the objective.
The Allied strategy of the war put a much greater premium on the Nazis rather than Mussolini's fascists, and both factions, the Anglo-Americans and the Russians were on point in their pursuit. The ugly winter and spring war in the 
Mediterranean theater was not glamorous. Despite the obvious grueling sacrifice suffered by the American Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, it still ultimately acquired the callous and undeserved moniker "the forgotten front."
According to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Italy and the Balkans were the soft underbelly of the axis. Yet, the common soldier, enduring heavy shelling in his foxhole with his head down, all along the forgotten hills after the Salerno landing, would argue about how "soft" it was. However, he would fight on, marching into the center of the resurgent fascist empire to replace the fear and tyranny of the occupying German troops with a sense of relief, freedom, and a second chance for democracy.
Sergeant John A. Vita, a 27-year old Italian-American soldier from Port Chester, N.Y., stood on Mussolini's balcony in the Palazzo Venezia and mocked Mussolini's salute, shouting to his adoring crowds lingering below - "Vincere! Vincere! Vincere!" After which, he was thoughtful enough to provide a translation: "Conquer! Conquer! Conquer! - For the Allies!" It was the fulfillment of a promise made to his mother, originally from Reggio, Calabria that he would make a speech from Mussolini's balcony in Rome. He would later show up among the overjoyed Romans, kissing Madeline Carscallen, who had married an Italian in 1935 and survived the Occupation.
Now the Jews could come out of hiding. And so, they did, exiting from monasteries and forests, convents and hospitals. They began the long, arduous tasks of finding their children and reconnecting with their families. Soon the walls of the great synagogue in the Piazza Della Scuola bore paper scrolls bearing the names of the Jewish missing with the hope that the train of communication from word of mouth would ultimately serve to reunite them with their loved ones.
On June 5, 1944, the city of Rome was liberated. The people of Rome flooded the streets to welcome Allied troops with cheers, flowers, wine, and kisses. Shops closed, and jubilant crowds celebrated. The liberation of Rome was not only important strategically but culturally as well. In addition to the extensive network of airfields, rail lines, and roads, Rome was a treasure trove of culture, antiquities, and artifacts.
Liberation day was especially meaningful for 26-year-old Hubbert Guthrie, an American soldier living in Memphis when he was drafted. Plans to liberate Rome started with a surprise amphibious attack on the city of Anzio, just 37-miles away. Guthrie boarded a boat bound for Anzio the morning of January 22, 1944. His flotilla was led by a minesweeping boat circling ahead. It hit a mine and exploded, resulting in casualties. As Guthrie's boat approached the floating wreckage, he spotted a tattered 48-star American flag floating in the water. He scooped it up, wrung it out and saved it. Though oil-stained and torn, he brought it home as a souvenir. "A lot of men died under that flag, every man on that little ship," he said. "Old Glory had a hard life; she did."
Guthrie was one of 36,000 troops that descended on Anzio that first day. The goal was to outflank German troops, draw them away from the Gustav line, (a German defense line running across central Italy) and open the way to Rome. They hoped for a quick defeat, but the battle of Anzio turned in to a 4-month stalemate. The Allies didn't have enough manpower to push forward, and the Germans weren't able to push the invaders back. After months of steady pressure, the Germans retreated. The battle of Anzio resulted in the loss of 7,000 Allied troops.
Guthrie was wounded at Anzio and spent ten days in the hospital. "It seems like everything I went into was a slaughter. I don't know how I missed being killed, but I did," Guthrie said. When the first American tanks finally rolled into Rome on June 5th, they found it largely undamaged. The liberation was a huge military and cultural victory.
Hubbert Guthrie never returned to Europe after WWII. He was interviewed when he was 80-years-old by a Nashville newspaper, The Tennessean, "I never wanted to go back. I left everything over there that I wanted to - part of my soul," Guthrie said.
Along with many other WWII veterans, Hubbert Guthrie has since passed away. He died on March 24, 2006.
The above is just a glimpse, a sketch of the countless faces and stories and names of the human consequences of those who fought and suffered and died in what historians have called The Forgotten Front.