Circular silver medal with eyelet for ribbon suspension; the face with the image of the Capitoline Wolf with Romulus and Remus, mythical founders of Rome, circumscribed ‘SOUVENIR FOR THE LIBERATION’ and inscribed ‘OF’ and ‘ROME’ above and below the she-wolf, dated ‘5-VI-1944’ below, ‘A-800’ silver purity mark at the base; the reverse with a panoramic view of St. Peter’s Square, inscribed below ‘BASILICA DI S. PIETRO’, circumscribed below ‘ROMA LIBERATA’; diameter 24.93mm (0.98 inch); lacking ribbon. The Medal was created in 1944 and awarded to members of the U.S. Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Mark Clark who entered Rome, which the Germans had declared an open city, on 5 June 1944. Clark had been ordered to harry retreating German forces but chose instead to go to undefended Rome. This decision has since been described “as militarily stupid as it was insubordinate” and although Rome was liberated, the Allies paid a high price in the coming months for Clark’s decision, Allied casualties doubling over the following weeks as the German had had time to dig in on the Gothic Line just north of Florence.
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