and proved ideal for defence, the Allies continued to push the Germans northwards through the rest of the year. The German prepared defensive line called the Winter Line (parts of which were called the Gustav Line) proved a major obstacle to the Allies at the end of 1943, halting the advance. Operation Shingle, an amphibious assault at Anzio behind the line was intended to break it, but did not have the desired effect. The line was eventually broken by frontal assault at the Fourth Battle of Monte Cassino in the Spring of 1944 and Rome was captured in June. Following the fall of Rome, the Normandy landings (6 June 1944) that began Operation Overlord and the Red Army victories on the Eastern Front, the Italian campaign became of secondary importance to both sides. The Gothic Line north of Rome was not broken until the Spring offensive of 1945. From 1944 to the end of war, the Italian Front was made up of a multi-national Allied force of Americans (including segregated African and Japanese-Americans), Brazilians, British, Canadians, Czechs, French, Greeks, anti-fascist Italians, the 2nd New Zealand Division, Poles, South Africans and Rhodesians as well as members of the British and French empires, including the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, Gurkhas, Indians, Moroccans and forces raised in Mandatory Palestine. On 1 May, SS General Karl Wolff and the Commander-in-Chief of the German 10th Army, General Heinrich von Vietinghoff, after Operation Sunrise (protracted, clandestine, negotiations with the Allies), ordered German armed forces in Italy to make an unconditional surrender to the Allies on 2 May 1945. Dodecanese Campaign The brief campaign in the Italian-held Dodecanese Islands resulted as both Germany and the Allies scrambled to occupy them after the surrender of Italy in early September 1943. The main island of Rhodes was swiftly secured by German forces, but British garrisons were established on most islands by mid-September. German air superiority, tactical prowess, and the absence of Allied reinforcements doomed the Allied effort, however. German forces, including paratroopers and Brandenburger commandos, launched a counter-offensive, capturing the island of Kos within two days in early October. A massive 50-day-long aerial campaign was launched against the island of Leros defended by Italian troops commanded by Admiral Mascherpa, who resisted the German air offensive before the landing of British support troops, which was invaded by the Germans who landed by sea and air on 12 November and surrendered