Did Italians & Romanians fight side by side in Russia?

[sexyscorp66]

I've wondered for quite a while whether Italian and Romanian troops ever fought side by side or collaborated on joint operations on the eastern front.I know the Italian 8th and Romanian 4th armies held lines north west of Stalingrad bur I haven't found any evidence of them working together nor photos of the two axis partners' troops together.
The only instance I can find is a reference to Italian troops participating in the occupation of Odessa after the Romanian entry into the city on October 16th 1941.If this is the case then I am frankly astonished that the Italians didn't report or even try to restrain the massacres of the Jews by the Romanians where tens of thousands were burned alive in artillery warehouses-having read of Italian soldiers protecting jews from the equally murderous Croatian ustache.

[plemenito]

Short answer is yes, although how effectively they fought "side by side" is debatable. They were stationed across the Don River along with Hungarian and German forces opposing the Soviet counterattacks in defense of Stalingrad. May be the closest Romanian & Italian forces fought together, although the resulting Soviet "Operation Uranus" pretty much broke the Italian forces.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati ... Uranus.png