The Florence American Cemetery,70 acres in extent, is one of fourteen permanent American World War II military cemetery memorials erected on foreign soil by the American Battle Monuments Commission. The site was liberated on 3 August 1944 by the South African 6th Armoured Division , and later became part of the zone of the U.S. Fifth Army . It is located astride the Greve River ,and is framed by wooded hills which rise several hundred feet to the west. The site was selected as a permanent cemetery after a survey of temporary cemeteries established in northern Italy during World War II revealed that there was at least one major objection in every instance sites as a permanent cemetery. The 4,402 servicemen and women interred in the cemetery represent 39 percent of the temporary burials originally made between Rome and the Alps . Most died in the fighting which occurred after the capture of Rome in June 1944 . Included among them are casualties of the heavy fighting in the Apennines shortly before the war's end.