The Scottish War Graves Project

apanderson · Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 6903 Location: Stirlingshire

No. of Identified Casualties: 1620

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 positions known as the Trasimene, Arezzo, Arno and Gothic Lines. Florence, which was taken by the Allied forces on 13 August 1944, was the centre of the Arno line and the point from which the attack on the German Gothic Line defences in the Apennines was launched. The site for the war cemetery was selected in November 1944 for burials from the hospitals established in and around Florence but the greater part of those buried here lost their lives in the fighting in this area from July to September 1944. After the war, 83 graves were moved into the cemetery from nearby Arrow Route Cemetery, when it proved impossible to acquire the site in perpetuity. Most of these burials were from the fighting in the Apennines during the winter of 1944-1945. Florence War Cemetery now contains 1,632 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.

apanderson · Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 6903 Location: Stirlingshire

Name: COWAN, ROLAND HILL
Initials: R H
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Private
Regiment/Service: Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
Unit Text: 1st Bn.
Date of Death: 28/07/1944
Service No: 14620863
Additional information: Son of William and Gertrude Annie Cowan, of Falkirk, Stirlingshire.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: VI. C. 10.
Cemetery: FLORENCE WAR CEMETERY

Photograph of Pte. Cowan kindly supplied by Mr. John Cowan of Stenhousemuir.