Over the past decade, author and U.S. Marine veteran Andrew Biggio interviewed more than 30 U.S. Army soldiers who fought on the Gothic Line as part of his research for his best-selling books The Rifle and The Rifle 2. Many were in their late 90s or older. But they had vivid, emotionally distraught recall of what happened from Sept. 1944 to April 1945 in the northern ItaIian Apennine mountains. As he describes in the podcast many of the soldiers had been on the front lines for almost two years - far longer than most other Allied Force troops fighting in other parts of Europe or in the Pacific theater. And as Allied Forces marched across northwest Europe towards Berlin, the Gothic Line U.S. army troops attacking up heavily fortified mountain-top bunkers knew they were ``bait'' to keep German troops pinned down in Italy as the end neared in the six-year war. Morale was low and the death toll was high. Having survived north Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Cassino, the mental and physical exhaustion drove many to either desert or even commit suicide. Upon the war's end and American veterans returned to the U.S. the country feted the heroes of the Normandy beaches, the Battle of the Budge, Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal heroes. But Gothic Line survivors were belittled by fellow veterans as few knew of the brutality and often futile task of combat on the Italian ``Forgotten Front.''

When the U.S. Fifth Army launched its part of the Allied Force Gothic Line one-two punch pincer movement to capture Bologna it began with a one of WW II's most daunting tasks: conquer the imposing heights of Monte Altuzzo 50 kilometers north of Florence. After initial success the offensive bogged down and turned into a WW I type of trench warfare because of a snowy, frigid winter in the mountainous terrain. Eighty years on, the Gotica Toscana Museum, located just below Monte Altuzzo in Tuscany, holds annual day-long re-enactments to not only honor the bravery of the American soldiers but also as a way to engage younger generations who know little or nothing about this dark chapter of Italian history. As Andrea Gatti, a former chairman of the Gotica Toscana museum, said: Italian students learn in school about Roman Empire history or the history of the founding of Italy in the 1800s but the WW II story is still taboo for some because of the bloody civil war that raged in Italy when the Gothic Line offensive began. Tens of thousands of civilians were murdered in cold blood by retreating Nazis and Italian Fascists. And because there was never an Italian version of the Nuremberg trials where Nazi war criminals were tried and convicted, suspicion and vengeance still fester within families, communities and politics in Italy.

Gatti also explains why knowing the history of what happened on the Gothic Line in Italy as well as the rest of Europe in WW II is vital to understand and appreciate the value of the European Union, which grew from the ashes of the conflict.

More than 60,000 Indian troops served in the Allied Force armies that fought and died to free Italy from German and Italian Fascist tyranny even though the soldiers from India did not have democracy in their homeland. Serving as volunteers under British command in the Adriatic sector of the Gothic Line offensive, Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs, Gurkhas and others fought side by side - primarily as fierce mountain fighters. They covered the flank of British soldiers on their right coming up the hills over looking the Adriatic Sea and American Fifth Army on their left, who began a campaign a few weeks after the British Eighth Army attack, up the center of Italy as part of a one-two punch, pincer movement to capture Bologna.

There are more than 5000 Hindu, Moslem, Gurkhas, Sikhs and other ethnic Indian soldiers buried or cremated in three Commonwealth grave cemeteries in and around the Gothic Line. Fifteen years ago Dhruv Ratti moved to Italy to work as a chemical engineer for an Italian company. He, like almost all other Indians of his generation, were never taught in school about the approximately 2.5 million Indian soldiers who volunteered to fight in WW II under British command, including the 60,000 who faced combat in Italy. Living near the Adriatic Sea, Ratti was told about a war cemetery near his house. He visited only to discover Indian soldier tombstones, some of whom came from villages near his home town and who had fought and died on the Gothic Line offensive - a battle that claimed more lives of his countrymen than any other in WW II. The emotion triggered by that visit launched Ratti on a two-fold mission that continues to this day: gain recognition in Italy for those Indian soldiers in the same way that American, Canadian, British, Australian and other Western nation troops are honored - a quest that he has yet to fulfill. That mission parallels an effort to counter anti-immigrant scapegoating by Italian and other European politicians as well as the general public who do not appreciate the fact that the "freedom they enjoy has been nourished by Indian blood.'''

The second goal of his mission is to bring awareness to more than 1 billion people on the Indian subcontinent whose forebears fought in Italy and in other parts of WW II.

In 2021 Ratti made important headway on the latter goal when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Italy. Ratti presented him with a display, including cemetery photographs, detailing Indian soldier sacrifice in Italy - a story that has been ignored in Indian history because it happened before the country gained independence from Britain in 1947. With Modi's encouragement, Ratti continues to work on various film and documentary projects in order to inform younger Indian generations of their ancestors WW II history.

Ratti has also worked tirelessly to get the British Commonwealth Grave Cemetery Commission to rectify Indian tombstone language errors in Italy as well as sacrilegious flaws listing Muslim soldiers at cremation sites.

In addition in this podcast episode, Ratti also tells the story of how there were also Indians, some motivated by their quest for independence from Britain, who fought on the Axis side in WW II. And how both the Indians who fought with the British in WW II and those that were part of Indian Nationalist Army that formed during WW II, helped accelerate India's successful drive for independence from Britain.