For the Allied armies fighting their way up the Italian boot in early 1944, Rome was the prize that could be won through one of the greatest offensives of the war.
In May 1944, I Canadian Corps drove up this valley toward the Italian capital, facing the infamous "Hitler Line" a bastion of concrete bunkers fronted by wide swaths of tangled barbed wire,.
At one end stood the formidable Monte Cassino, at the other, Rome.
The Liri Valley was a long, flat corridor through miles of rugged mountains.
For the Allied armies fighting their way up the Italian boot in early 1944, Rome was the prize that could be won through one of the greatest offensives of the war