soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Spokes wrote:
> Where were the lines in Italy on VE day?
The Allies' final offensive commenced with massive aerial and artillery
bombardments on 9 April 1945.[19] By 18 April forces of Eighth Army in the
east had broken through the Argenta Gap and sent armour racing forward in an
encircling move to meet U.S. IV Corp advancing from the Apennines in central
Italy and trap the remaining defenders of Bologna.[20] Bologna was entered
on 21 April by the Polish 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division and the Italian
Friuli Group from Eighth Army and U.S. 34th Infantry Division from Fifth
Army.[21]. 10th Mountain Division, which had bypassed Bologna, reached the
river Po on 22 April and Indian 8th Infantry Division, on the Eighth Army
front, reached the river on 23 April.[22]

By 25 April the Italian Partisans' Committee of Liberation declared a
general uprising[23], and on the same day, having crossed the Po on the
right flank forces of Eighth Army advanced north-north east to Venice and
Trieste. On the US Fifth Army front elements drove north toward Austria and
north west to Milan. On the army's left flank the 92nd Infantry Division
(the "Buffalo Soldiers Division") went along the coast to Genoa and a rapid
advance on their right towards Turin by the Brazilian division took the
German - Italian Army of Liguria by surprise causing its collapse.[18]

As April came to an end Army Group C, the Axis forces in Italy, retreating
on all fronts and having lost most of its fighting powers, was left with
little option but surrender.[18] General Heinrich von Vietinghoff, who had
taken command of Army Group C after Kesselring had been transferred to
become Commander in Chief of the Western Front (OB West) at the end of 1944,
signed the instrument of surrender on behalf of the German armies in Italy
on April 29 formally bringing hostilities to an end on May 2, 1945.[24

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Campaign_(World_War_II)