Among the first American troops to enter the Italian capital at Rome in June 1944 was Corporal David W. Rowlands, a medic in the 338th Infantry Regiment.
The native of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania wrote home to the Pottsville Republican to describe entering Rome:
The eternal city has been spared the ravages of war and its sanctity preserved.
Our entrance to this city not only liberated it from the Germans, but also gave GI Joe his first look at a good city, with fine wines and liquors, and, most of all, the beautiful senoritas.
The ovation accorded the liberators is a tale one can always tell and never forget. Thousands lined the streets, throwing flowers in the paths of the victorious troops.
The women wept with joy, children clapped their hands with glee and the flags of the Allies hang from many buildings, civilian parades flourished here and there, the stores and shops closed for areal Roman holiday.
With the fall of the first European capital to the Allies, we are again on the move. I soon hope to write another episode from Berlin.
Rowlands was a native of Branchdale, Pennsylvania. He survived the Second World War and returned home to Schuylkill County.
The capture of Rome saw the first Axis Power capital to fall to the Allies in the Second World War and marked a major victory. Rome fell on June 4, 1944, just two days before Allied troops hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
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Thank you for writing about Pennsylvania and her citizens. It helps me to envision the world my grandparents and mother lived in. Immigrants always have a rough time, from their leaving the old country, then arriving and adjusting to a different culture and then the discrimination. But if they had a strong determination and patience they hopefully succeeded.