A LOYOLA ROME STUDENT’S GUIDE TO WORLD WAR II IN ROME & ITALY By Philip R. O’Connor, Ph.D. Loyola University Rome Center 1968-69 DOWNLOADABLE VERSION AVAILABLE PLEASE DIRECT COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO
[email protected] Tenth Edition – September 2015 LOYOLA ROME STUDENT’S GUIDE TO WORLD WAR II IN ROME & ITALY DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This Guide to World War II in Italy and Rome is dedicated to those who served the Allied cause in the Italian War of Liberation 1943-45. Of special remembrance are the five Loyolans who, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “gave the last full measure of devotion” on Italian soil: John J. Burke, John L. Carmody, Kenneth E. Krucks, Thomas A. McKitrick and Dean P. Reinert. John Felice, founder and guiding light of the Loyola Rome Center for thirty years and whose name was given to the Campus in 2004, was an intelligence officer in the British Eighth Army seconded to the American 12 th Air Force, 47 th Bombardment Group (Light) in preparation for the invasions of Sicily and the Italian mainland. John, who first inspired this Guide, passed away in January 2008, having lived the life of a great man. Another who served was the author’s uncle, Edward O’Connor. He followed his older brother, the author’s father, Philip J., into the U.S. Navy. Philip served in the South Pacific while Ed crewed in a 5-inch gun aboard the light cruiser USS Philadelphia . Before his nineteenth birthday, Eddie O’Connor participated in the invasion of Sicily, the landing at Salerno, the sbarco at Anzio-Nettuno followed by four months of daily missions from Naples to shell German forces besieging the beachhead, and the invasion of Southern France.