Forli Cremation Memorial
- Country Italy
- Total identified casualties 771 Find these casualties
- Identified casualties from Second World War
- GPS Coordinates Latitude: 44.23291, Longitude: 12.06031
Location information
Take the Highway A14, Bologna to Taranto, and come off at Forli. Follow the road into the town of Forli and the Indian War Cemetery can be found on the left hand side, opposite the Communal Cemetery.
Visiting information
This Cremation Memorial is situated in Forli Indian War Cemetery which lies in the Commune and Province of Forli.
ARRIVAL
Routes to Forli Indian War Cemetery are signposted. The cemetery is within a large municipal communal cemetery.
PARKING
There is a large car park adjacent to the cemetery.
A footpath runs alongside the main road from the car park to the main entrance of the cemetery, approximately 100 m from the car park.
ACCESS, LAYOUT AND MAIN ENTRANCE
There is one step up from a cobbled area to the main entrance gates.
The double entrance latched gates are metal and approximately 2 metres wide. The sections open inwards to a paved area inside the cemetery.
A tempietto building stands on the left side of the cemetery at the main entrance, where the Register Box is located. Two stone steps lead up to the Register Box.
A Cremation Memorial is located midway along the rear boundary of the cemetery.
Stone pathways wind all around the cemetery, with level grass elsewhere. There are two stone benches alongside the pathways.
ALTERNATIVE ACCESS
There are several routes from the car park into the cemetery. The paths leading to the main entrance follow through sculptured gardens with flat, flagstone, winding, paths, and lead into the Indian Army War cemetery.
Access from the carpark is flat, level and on wide concrete, paved, or tarmac paths.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The cemetery is permanently open.
History information
On 3 September 1943 the Allies invaded the Italian mainland, the invasion coinciding with an armistice made with the Italians who then re-entered the war on the Allied side.
Following the fall of Rome to the Allies in June 1944, the German retreat became ordered and successive stands were made on a series of defensive lines. In the northern Appenine mountains the last of these, the Gothic Line, was breached by the Allies during the Autumn campaign and the front inched forward as far as Ravenna in the Adratic sector, but with divisions transferred to support the new offensive in France, and the Germans dug in to a number of key defensive positions, the advance stalled as winter set in.
The site of this cemetery was selected in December 1944 by the 10th Indian Division, which had come into the line in the Adriatic sector south of Cesena at the beginning of October 1944. The division had played an important part in the heavy fighting, in appalling weather, between then and the end of the year, suffering considerable casualties. It had been preceded on the Eighth Army front by the 4th Indian Division which had left to go to Greece, and during the fighting in the spring of 1945, the 8th Indian Division also fought on this front.
FORLI INDIAN ARMY WAR CEMETERY contains 496 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.
Within the cemetery, is the FORLI CREMATION MEMORIAL commemorating nearly 800 Hindu and Sikh officers and men of the Indian Army. This is one of three specific cremation memorials in Italy, the others being in Sangro River War Cemetery and in Rimini Gurkha War Cemetery.