From the collection of the Imperial War Museum
7th December 1944: A British jeep passes a sign on the side of the road in Ravenna in Northern Italy warning people not to loot. It optimistically suggests the Second World War would end soon.
The Allies had many reasons to believe this to be true. Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had been arrested and dismissed the year before, and the Allies had worked their way through the country, defeating Axis powers.
The war would end a few months after this photograph was taken.