AMERICAN MILITERY CEMETERY

AMERICAN MILITARI CEMETERI (CIMITERO MILITARE AMERICANO)

The American Cemetery and Memorial of Nettuno was made a temporary war cemetery just two days after the Allied debarkation in Anzio and Nettuno which occurred al 2:00 am on 22 January 1944. In 1956 it was made a permanent cemetery. There are 7861 soldiers buried here who died during the Sicilian campaign, in the Salerno debarkation, and in the debarkation and beachhead of Anzio and Nettuno. Among these victims there are also sixteen women who were Red Cross workers or military and civil auxiliaries. Past the monumental gate and a small artiflcial lake, a vati fleld unfolds with the graves of the fallen, lined with great oaks and laurel hedges. The graves, all identical and quite simple, are divided into ten sections. Behind them the imposing mausoleum in travertine slands, in whose central perislyle a bronze monument is placed with the dedication, To our brothers-in-arms, that is, the American soldiers and marines who died in these campaigns. On the left and the right of the peristyle is a chapel and a museum room. The chapel has walls of Carrara marble upon which are engraved tIhe names, rank and mililary corps to which each of the more than three thousand missing soldiers belonged, and whose bodies rest in unknown graves. In the museum room, on its western wall, there are three frescoes: Occupation of Sicily, Strategy ofthe Air Invasions and The Naples-Foggia Campaign. The map on its eastern wall shows The Debarkation in Anzio and Nettuno and the Occupation of Rome.
This is a very moving place which painfully recalls the sacriflce of thousands of American boys, as they are affectionately remembered in Italy, those who came to Europe and died also in the defense of freedom and democracy of the Italian people.