Commonwealth War Cemetery Bologna

On 3 September 1943 the Allies invaded the Italian mainland, the invasion coinciding with an armistice made with the Italians who then re-entered the war on the Allied side. Following the fall of Rome to the Allies in June 1944, the German retreat became ordered and successive stands were made on a series of defensive lines. In the northern Appenine mountains the last of these, the Gothic Line, was breached by the Allies during the Autumn campaign and the front inched forward as far as Ravenna in the Adratic sector, but with divisions transferred to support the new offensive in France and the Germans dug in to a number of key defensive positions, the advance stalled as winter set in.

During the winter months, Bologna lay tantalizingly just out of reach of the Allied armies; the town became their first major objective in the spring of 1945 and was taken on 21 April by Poles from the Eighth Army and Americans from the Fifth Army.

The cemetery was opened as a garrison cemetery in June 1945 and later, burials were brought in to it from the surrounding area. Bologna War Cemetery contains 184 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War:
* United Kingdom: 125
* Canada: 31
* Australia: 3
* New Zealand: 5
* South Africa: 11
* India: 3
* Malta: 2
* Palestine: 1
* Pioneer Corps of Southern Africa: 1
* Unidentified: 2

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Source

• Text: Commonwealth War Graves Commission & STIWOT
• Photos: Lennard Bolijn