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Tuesday, October 12, 1999 - The High Price of Freedom
Emotions run close to the skin. Eyes easily well up with tears. This is the final day of visiting cemeteries. As well, after days of spending time with each other, the Veterans have had many buried memories come to life for them. "When I walk through the cemeteries, looking at my unit's markers, I'll see a name and suddenly there will be a memory of that young man. It's very difficult. And then you lie in bed at night and those memories run through your mind like an old movie." explains a Veteran. We will visit 716 Canadian graves today in just two cemeteries. Montecchio and Coriano Ridge. The landscape speaks to the men it swallowed up. Rolling hills and deep, angled ridges. The rains had come early in the fall of 1944, and with it brought feet of sludge mud. When looking out toward Coriano Ridge, one Veteran remarks, "There must have been a hundred tanks down there. A sea of mud and blood to the green hills beyond." Added to the frustration of hilltop vigils by the Germans, the Allies fought long and hard to win the final advance through Italy. During the war, Montecchio was situated on the east end and just to the south of this highly effective defensive barrier. In fact, an antitank ditch which formed part of the line ran through the valley that lies below the cemetery. There are 582 graves here, of which nearly half - 289 - are Canadian, including one unknown soldier. The majority are from the armoured units, and the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery is also heavily represented.
The Coriano Ridge War Cemetery is located in the commune of Coriano, southwest of Rimini and on the western slope of Coriano Ridge. The cemetery contains 1,940 graves, including 427 Canadians (including five RCAF members) are buried here, most of whom gave their lives in the advance to Rimini. Darlene Halsey sends the following e-mail message to the Pilgrimage:
The Veterans are so touched by Mrs. Halsey's e-mail, we gather at the grave site of her grandfather and honour her request. One Veteran turns and says, "This moment has summed up for me exactly what this Pilgrimage is all about."
Our Pilgrimage has come to an end. We celebrate with a farewell dinner and leave the memories behind for a moment. The arguments over the value of the Italian campaign continue to this day, undoubtedly the Germans had to commit divisions that could have been used elsewhere, but could the Italian Campaign have achieved the same results with fewer Allied casualties? The answer will never be known. For the 536,000 Germans who became casualties under the superior Allied air and artillery power the end result would probably have been the same. 
The troops head home It is the ghosts of the 312,000 Allied personnel that became casualties because of bad planning, terrible weather conditions and mistakes by their commanders, who still cry out for the answer to that question.
Direct from Italy Archive
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"Why is it necessary to have a war in order to live in peace? Money interests, the will to dominate, ethnic and religious differences too often prevent a civil and peaceful cohabitation of peoples and leads to the outbreak of blood conflict. But a nation cannot live under oppression. The natural desire for freedom erupts into a justified rebellion and then the blood of too many victims wets the earth, and man is prepared to die in order to reconquer peace and freedom, his unquestionable rights." - Giancarlo Borra - Mayor of Tavullia
