Mediterranean and North Africa · United States vs Germany
Liberation of Rome
4 June 1944
Clark turned the Fifth Army toward Rome rather than cutting off the German Tenth Army, and entered the city two days before the Normandy landings. Rome was the first Axis capital to fall.
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Day by day
— Rome
Kesselring declared Rome an open city and his rearguards left it on the night of the 3rd, blowing nothing but the odd lorry. II Corps and the 1st Armored come in on the Casilina and Appia roads through the afternoon and Clark is at the Capitol on the morning of the 5th. The first Axis capital has fallen; the Tenth Army, which the breakout from Anzio was meant to trap, is withdrawing intact through the hills to the east.