French troops in Italy clear Siena road for Allied advance.

French troops in Italy clear Siena road for Allied advance. French soldiers of the Allied Fifth Army in Italy, which liberated the city of Siena on July 3, 1944, prepare to blast a German-built road block from a gateway of the city to clear the path for advancing Allied Armies. After freeing Siena, which is 31 miles (50 kilometers) south of Florence, the Allies made further progress, advancing on the west towards the port of Livorno (Leghorn), on the Tyrrhenian Sea, and cutting the road to Arezzo on the northeast. Since the Allies in May, 1944, broke through the German Gustav line across the Italian peninsula from Minturno through Cassino to the Adriatic, in two months the U.S., British, French and Polsih troops had advanced 150 miles (240 kilometers), and liberated 18,000 square miles (46,000 square kilometers). Rome, the Italian capital, was freed on June 4, 1944.