Bloody Cassino
Please note. The following is NOT a historical document. It is simply the story of what my Grandfather saw and experienced at the Battle of Monte Cassino. I'm not a Military historian
At the end of March 1944 the Battalion was moved up to the Cassino front. The town and sixth century Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino were the key to the Germans Gustav Line dominating the approaches to Rome. Jerry had been holding on to this high ground since January, despite direct attacks by the US fifth Army and the British Eight Army . In attempt to out flank the Gustav Line the Allies had made a large amphibious landing at Anzio south of Rome. The landing was almost repelled by the Germans from well prepared positions. We felt that we would never get past the Germans Gustav Line.
The Battalion did not take part in the main assault on Cassino but held defensive positions on the hills surrounding the hill top fortress and had a grand stand view of the battles that took place to capture the mount. The Germans were well dug in and were using some of their toughest troops, the Fallschirmtruppe (German paratroopers). Because for the hilly terrain in that part of Italy the carrier platoon found that their carriers were useless and instead we became part of the supply company bringing ammo, food and water up to the Battalion line and returning down the hill with wounded. Without our much loved carriers the Quarter Master gave us a new method of transport. Mules.
| Mules which are bred from horses and donkeys have to be the most stubborn and head strong animal to walk the face of this earth. No matter how hard you pushed , pulled or swore at the beasts they only do what they wanted to do and only when they wanted to do it. This part of the war was the most depressing for me. Day in day out we would have to coax the mules up the steep mountain sides often in pouring rain with Jerry shelling us. The engineers would let off hundreds of smoke pots which filled the valleys with a heavy layer of fog that hid the movement of allied troops but the Germans had the whole area zeroed in and the shells would still come down on us. |  |
Watching the Battle of Monte Cassino was like watching a scene from hell. The artillery exchanges between our artillery and the Germans was deafening and turned the landscape into an arid waste land, not a tree was left standing. We would watch the American air force bomb the monastery of Casino with hundreds of B17 Flying Fortress's turning it into just a mound of rubble.
| Despite all this shelling and bombing the Germans still held onto their mountain top strong hold. All assaults by allied troops were knocked back by the German paratroops leaving many of our dead in the side of the mountain. With the heavy rain that started to come down at the beginning of May the roads turned to mud, adding to the misery of the troops. I was starting to think that we would never conquer Cassino and that we would be in this hell for years. |  |
I saw an attack by the Gurkhas one day. These brave little men from Nepal attacked the Germans with a ferocity I've never seen and I'd hate to have been on the receiving end of their attack. But even the Gurkhas could not make the Germans budge and their commanding officer called off the attack because the Gurkhas were taking to many casualties, but the Gurkhas ignored this order and continued to attack. Their blood must have been really up. In the end the Gurkha officers stopped sending supplies up to the forward Gurkha troops in a desperate effort to make them pull back. This worked and what was left of the Gurkha Battalion retreated back down the mountain.
The blood letting around Monte Cassino carried on until May 18th when the brave Polish troops of the 3rd Carpathian Division stormed hill 393 in one of the most heroic attacks of the Second world war. The 12th Podolski Regiment raised the Polish National flag on top of the ruins of the Monastery finally claiming this bloody hill side for the Allies after five months of heavy fighting.
