Rimini, which had been hit previously by 373 air raids, had 1,470,000 rounds fired against it by Allied land forces; by the end of the battle, only 2% of all buildings in the city escaped damage.

[2][3] Around 55,000 refugees fled to the north, to the hinterland, and to the independent Republic of San Marino,[2][3] where they sheltered in the country's railway tunnels.

[4][5] As the Allied frontline approached the city, naval bombardment followed,[3] and remaining citizens hid in makeshift shelters or in the caves by the Covignano hill.

[2][7] On 25 August 1944 the Eighth Army launched Operation Olive, attacking on a three Corps front up the eastern flank of Italy into the Gothic Line defences.

The area between Viale Ceccarini, Riccione's principal high street, and the Rio Melo, a river lined with a port, became a no man's land until the Battle of Rimini had finished.

[9] The Hotel Adria, no longer extant, was requisitioned for soldiers engaged in the Battle of Rimini to take four days' leave on the beach.

To Riccione's northwest, the ancient town of San Lorenzo in Strada was heavily fortified by General Richard Heidrich's 1st Parachute Division, who barricaded themselves in the church with instructions to fight until the end.

The battle in San Lorenzo, which included sword-fighting in the church, claimed 31 soldiers and 124 wounded or missing, with the Canadians reduced to 18 men before they suspended their attack on 6 September.

[9] On the night of 12–13 September, a second attack on San Lorenzo, supported by the 3rd Greek Battalion and the 20th New Zealand Armoured Regiment, claimed the church after four and a half hours.

Initially, the Greeks attacked Monaldini and Monticelli, two small agricultural hamlets about 500 metres (1,600 feet) southwest of San Lorenzo.

[16] During the night of 13–14 September, the 1st Canadian Brigade gathered on the southern bank of the Marano Stream, north of San Lorenzo in Strada.

As the Greeks and New Zealanders approached the defensive positions, they came under fire from infantry, Panzerschreck anti-tank rockets, self-propelled guns, and emplaced Panther turrets.

On the left flank, the 3rd Greek Battalion attacked the hamlet of Casalecchio, a crossroads with a few houses and a church, supported by New Zealand tanks and infantry.

Several attempts were made to knock out the remaining Panther turret with aircraft and artillery, but it finally fell to one of the New Zealand Shermans working around its flank.

[22] Despite the Queen's Bays' armoured column being destroyed at Montecieco, the German troops were forced to retreat to Vergiano and the Marecchia river, chased also by the Indian divisions returning from the Battle of San Marino.

Albert Kesselring, in charge of the German defence in Italy, suggested that soldiers defend the city to exert maximum damage on the attacking forces.

General Heinrich von Vietinghoff established a defensive line north of the Marecchia river, and persuaded Kesselring, also in light of a heavy rain that evening that began at 18:00, that any unsupported defence of the city would not last long.

[7] Marshal Willi Trageser of the 2nd Parachute Division was charged with destroying both the Arch of Augustus and the Ponte di Tiberio,[23] Rimini's definining Augustan monuments at either end of its decumanus maximus.

It seemed absurd to me to destroy a historical monument of this kind to achieve no result, given that the arch was isolated in the middle of a square and, therefore, traffic could have continued perfectly well, both to the right and left of the monument itself.As for the Ponte di Tiberio, Trageser reported to his command that "the bridge had blown",[25] when instead, according to Trageser, several attempts to detonate the bridge had failed, leading to minimal damage.

[26] On 29 January 1957,[23] during road maintenance works,[25] undetonated sticks of ammonal were found on the bridge, which was temporarily closed to ensure their safe removal.

[15][13][27] Gothic Line historian Amedeo Montemaggi [it] suggested that the Allied command had assigned the Battle of Rimini to the provisional Greek government, who had asked for a prestigious military result, because of its feasibility and the city's proximity to the Rubicon, made famous by Julius Caesar's crossing, lending the battle a historical-cultural importance.

[15] On 16 January 1961, Giovanni Gronchi, President of Italy, gave the city of Rimini the Gold Medal for Civil Valour by presidential decree, with the following motivation:[7] Faithful to its most noble traditions, [Rimini] suffered stoically the most serious destructions of the war, and took a very valid part in the liberation struggle, attesting, with the sacrifice of numerous of her children, her most pure faith in a better, free, and democratic Italy.