SALERNO WAR CEMETERY

LOCATION

The War Cemetery lies between Battipaglia and Pontecagnano on the north side of the main SS18 coast road, leading south from Salerno. It is 14 kilometres south of Salerno and about 6 km from the Battipaglia exit from the autostrada A3.

CEMETERY INFORMATION

made with the Italians who then re-entered the war on the Allied side. Allied objectives were to draw German troops from the Russian front and more particularly from France, where an offensive was planned for the following year. Commonwealth and American forces landed near Salerno on 8-9 September 1943 and there was fierce fighting for some days in the bridgehead that they established. The site for the cemetery was chosen in November 1943 and it contains many burials resulting from the landings and the fighting that followed, but graves were also brought in later from a wide area of south-western Italy. The 59th General Hospital was in the vicinity of Salerno at the end of 1943 and early in 1944. Salerno War Cemetery contains 1,846 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 107 of them unidentified. One casualty of the First World War is also commemorated in the cemetery by special memorial, his grave in a local civil cemetery having been lost.

Grave of the Duke of Wellington at Salerno.

©Paul Reed 2006