By Joe KIrwin

The ferocious 4-month battle that took place at Monte Cassino when Allied Forces attempted to break through the mountains between Naples and Rome and drive the German and Italian Fascist forces out of Italy will always be remembered as the bloodiest and most brutal chapter of the 1943-45 WW II Allied campaign in Italy.

Later in 1944, when Allied armies launched the Gothic Line offensive after the liberation of Rome on June 4, the fighting across the northern Apennines is not as steeped in folklore as Monte Cassino but there were a number of epic battles that equaled in intensity if not in length and casualties. The fierce fighting in the mountain-top town of Gemano overlooking the Adriatic Sea is often referred to as the ``Cassino of the Adriatic'' although some historians insist the battle over the old Roman coastal and port town of Rimini, which, like Gemano, was completely destroyed, was even bloodier. Between the two approximately 80,000 Axis and Allied soldiers were killed on Adriatic front in September 1944.

On the other end of the Gothic Line in Tuscany not far from where the Apennines and Apuane mountains meet, the battle of Monte Castello, Monte Torraccio and Monte Belvedere and nearby Riva Ridge involving American and Brazilian troops is sometimes referred to as the ``Cassino of Tuscany''.

In the center of Italy where the U.S. Fifth Army launched in mid-September of 1944 its part of the Gothic Line one-two punch, pincer movement to capture Nazi headquarters in Bologna, the struggle to control the strategic heights of Monte Battaglia (715 meters) above the Santerno and Valsenio river valleys is often referred to as the ``Cassino of the North.'' It was fought off and on over the course of several months starting from Sept. 27, 1944 when American 88th ``Blue Devil'' troops, aided by Italian Partisans, waged a week-long struggle. Later Welsh troops, under U.S. Allied Force command, battled the Germans near Monte Battaglia in the Santerno Valley and suffered significant casualties, with some of those killed in action buried in a Commonwealth Grave cemetery on the side of the steep mountain canyon walls.

Valerio Calderoni , 64, and a native of nearby Imola, has spent decades roaming the Santerno River Valley, especially over the last 40 years via his work as a veterinarian. For many years Valerio has heard the local stories about the battle of Monte Battaglia some of which clashed when it concerned the role of Italian Partisan freedom fighters and the U.S. Army troops and the relationship between the two. More than 20 years ago Valerio took it upon himself to do extensive research examining archive records in the United States, Italy and Germany to understand the true story of what happened on Monte Battaglia. In 2014 he published his results in a book titled ``Monte Battaglia 1944: from Myth to History. Valerio explained his conclusions and ongoing work in this podcast episode that includes ongoing forensic recovery of fallen soldiers on Monte Battaglia. Valerio is also a board member of the Gothic Line museum in Castel del Rio in the Santerno River Valley.

Soon after the surprise Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii when Japanese forces destroyed much of the U.S. Navy and Air Force Pacific Ocean presence, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the arrest of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans living in the United States. They were forced from their homes, farms and businesses and locked up in internment camps in the deserts of the western United States. Yoshio Nakamura and his family were among those that lost everything. They were considered national security threats that could not be trusted.

Two years after the mass incarceration, the U.S. War Department, entering the third year of fighting WW II fronts in the Pacific and in Europe, faced a troop shortage. Suddenly imprisoned Japanese American men 18-years and older who were born in the United States were seen as a solution instead of spies. So the U.S. government allowed the Japanese-Americans men 18 and over to leave the prison camps but only if they agreed to join the U.S. Army and fight the Nazis in Italy or the Japanese in the Pacific. The injustice and hypocrisy was too much for many of the imprisoned Japanese Americans men and they refused . But for others it was an opportunity to prove their allegiance to the United States. Yoshio Nakamura was one of the latter. Even though his family members remained locked up in the desert until the end of the war, he would join the 442nd Japanese American regiment. It would go onto become one of the most decorated U.S. Army units in WW II.

The 442 regiment arrived in Italy in the summer of 1944 and helped drive the Germans up the coast and into mountain-top fortifications on the Gothic Line. The Japanese American troops were then transferred to France and helped free territory that would allow Allied troops to join American forces that had landed in Normandy. U.S. General Mark Clark, impressed by the Japanese Americans - or Nisei troops as they were known - by their short time in Italy - requested their return for the final Gothic Line thrust in western Tuscany. Their task was to scale the steep, white-marble Tuscan mountains overlooking the sea where German and Italian Fascist troops were hunkered down in artillery bunkers and had used the strategic advantage to block Allied Forces from moving north up the Mediterranean Coast.

Now living in southern California where he was born and raised, 100-year-old Yoshio Nakamura explained why he decided to join the U.S. Army and also recounted in vivid detail a crucial night time climb up Monte Folgorito to destroy one of the enemy mortar and artillery bunkers as as if it occurred recently instead of 80 years ago. Yoshio also recounted how a half century later the U.S. government apologized for the gross imposed on Japanese Americans during WW II.

Over the past decade, author and U.S. Marine veteran Andrew Biggio interviewed more than 30 U.S. Army soldiers who fought on the Gothic Line as part of his research for his best-selling books The Rifle and The Rifle 2. Many were in their late 90s or older. But they had vivid, emotionally distraught recall of what happened from Sept. 1944 to April 1945 in the northern ItaIian Apennine mountains. As he describes in the podcast many of the soldiers had been on the front lines for almost two years - far longer than most other Allied Force troops fighting in other parts of Europe or in the Pacific theater. And as Allied Forces marched across northwest Europe towards Berlin, the Gothic Line U.S. Army troops attacking up heavily fortified mountain-top bunkers knew they were ``bait'' to keep German troops pinned down in Italy as the end neared in the six-year war. Morale was low and the death toll was high. Having survived North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Cassino, the mental and physical exhaustion drove many to either desert or even commit suicide. Upon the war's end and American veterans returned to the U.S. the country feted the heroes of the Normandy beaches, the Battle of the Bulge, Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal. But Gothic Line survivors were belittled by some fellow veterans who knew, like most Americans and Europeans, of the brutality and often futile task of combat on the Italian ``Forgotten Front.''

Biggio's work with U.S. WW II veterans on the Gothic Line in Italy and other theatres stems partly from his own military service. He has done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and upon returning to civilian life he started projects to help wounded vets rehabilitate and adapt to civilian life. He currently resides in the Boston area and works in law enforcement. He is also the founder of Boston's Wounded Vet Run, which is an annual motorcycle ride honoring and supporting vets. His two books The Rifle and The Rifle 2 are available online or your local bookstore.