The Battles for Monte Cassino: Then and Now

By Jeffrey Plowman and Perry Rowe

The Battles for Monte Cassino encompassed one of the few truly international conflicts of the Second World War. A strategic town on the road to Rome, the fighting lasted four months and cost the lives of more than 14,000 men from eight nations. Between January and May 1944, forces from Britain, Canada, France, India, New Zealand, Poland and the United States, fought a resolute German army in a series of battles in which the advantage swung back and forth, from one side to the other. From fire-fights in the mountains to tank attacks in the valley; from river crossings to street fighting, the four battles of Cassino encompass a series of individual operations unique in the history of the Second World War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781399077101

Jeffrey Plowman

Jeffrey Plowman is a research biochemist by profession who has had a keen interest in military history for over thirty-five years. He has made a special study of New Zealand armor and armored units and has published nineteen books as well as many articles and chapters on the subject. Among his most recent publications are War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940-1941 and Monte Cassino: Armoured Forces in the Battle for the Gustav Line.

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Introduction

Jeff Plowman in the German war cemetery behind the village of Caira during a visit to the Cassino battlefield in September 2008, looking up to where Cavendish Road joined Madras Circus. As he says: ‘It is all very well writing about a battle but there is nothing like visiting the battleground to get a real appreciation of what it was like.’

The After the Battle approach to military history has fascinated me for many years, though the idea of actually putting together a book in the ‘then and now’ format had to remain no more than just a pipe dream. This was because the opportunity to achieve this from across the other side of the world remained an impossibility unless some way could be found to obtain the necessary comparisons. My move into this venture came initially from some research into the history of the deployment of armour by the 2nd New Zealand Division in the Second World War. One thing that amazed me was the wealth of photographs in the possession of New Zealand veterans of that campaign. Throughout its existence the division appointed and maintained a number of official photographers to record all its activities. George Kaye was one of these and he left an incredible record of New Zealand’s involvement in Italy from its arrival in Taranto to the end of the war in Trieste. In addition, the various units of the division often appointed their own ‘official’ photographers, the Reverend Pat Gourdie acting in this capacity for the 18th New Zealand Armoured Regiment as well as his actual role of unit padre. But it did not stop there. New Zealand veterans were known for their willingness to thumb their noses at authority and one way in which this manifested itself was in the extensive number that took cameras with them to Greece, North Africa and Italy, in direct defiance of army orders.

It was with some of these photographs that I ventured into writing for After the Battle, in co-operation with some Italian contacts, using photographic material I had acquired on Trieste. While I was entirely reliant on them for my first article on Trieste (After the Battle No. 109), I was able to visit parts of Tuscany and Massa Lombarda while conducting research for other articles. When I first proposed an article on the involvement of the New Zealand Division in the battle for Florence, Karel Margry came up with the proposal that I widen the article to include the South African side of the story. He would source material from their official histories, the photographs I needed and, if necessary, obtain the comparisons too. But here fate intervened. While on holiday I received an e-mail from Perry Rowe, who had seen my articles and was preparing to visit Italy in 2004 with the long-term view of producing a guidebook of the Italian campaign. As luck would have it our paths would overlap in my hometown on his last night there and my first night back. Thus was born our working relationship.

It was while working towards an article on the battle for Orsogna that we approached Winston Ramsey about doing a book on Cassino. An article was out of the question, as they had already covered it in one of the earlier issues of their magazine but it seemed that it could be done better justice in a book. Cassino, one of those epic battles in the same vein as Stalingrad, had spawned numerous books and we had no desire to add yet another one to those already out there, but it did seem to us that the photographic interpretation in these books had been poor. As an added bonus Perry and his wife were planning to spend an extended period of time in Europe, so there would be the opportunity to explore both the photographic and document archives there as well.

In the process this effort became truly international. In New Zealand we have been indebted to Terry Brown, a retired New Zealand Army officer, who not only made available his extensive research into the 19th NZ Armoured Regiment but also happily conducted further investigations in Archives New Zealand. In England Lee Archer generously copied scores of photographs from various archives, in particular the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum. In France, Jean Paul Pallud very generously offered to search through photographic archives in the ECPArmées Archives in Paris and photocopy the relevant ones for us, while from the Netherlands, Karel Margry located material in the German Bundes archiv.

JEFF PLOWMAN

Perry Rowe is the grandson of a New Zealand Cassino veteran, and it annoyed him that there had been no New Zealand flag on the Historiale — Cassino’s war museum — since it opened in 2005. He was determined to redress the balance, so when he revisited Cassino in June 2008 he asked his mother, who was joining him, to bring a New Zealand flag with her. Before their visit, they had tried contacting the museum director to arrange some kind of low-key, flag-raising ceremony, but to no avail, so in the end they took things into their own hands and went to the museum in person. The day manager agreed to let them raise their flag although there was no one available on the staff to get up onto the roof. In the end, Perry clambered up himself and removed the Austrian flag (the Austrians had never fought there under their own flag hence it was the least justifiable) and finally raised a New Zealand flag to remember the many Kiwis who had fought and died there.

My interest in the history of the Italian Campaign arose after the death of my grandfather who had served there for three months before being critically injured and sent home. While he never spoke of his experiences to his grandchildren, he left a diary, his letters home and his medals, which prompted me to find out more about what he had been through. In 2003, with the upcoming 60th commemorations of the battle of Cassino attracting media attention I decided to make the trip to Italy to see for myself where the New Zealanders had fought. In May and June of 2004 my mother and I spent seven weeks following the ‘Black Diamond Trail’ through Italy, including the week of the commemorations in Cassino.

During my own research before making this trip I had read a few of Jeff’s articles and books, and found that he was easily contactable as he lived in the same city as my parents. As he outlines above, we managed to meet for long enough to arrange for me to find photographic matches for his article on the Battle for Florence (After the Battle No. 129) and our joint article on Tucker’s Panthers (After the Battle No. 132).

The process of researching a book in this format has brought out the caveman in me. I love the hunt for that enlightening snippet of information found in an archive, or the photograph that tells a thousand words. And I especially enjoy the feeling that comes when a particularly obscure or difficult to reach match has been made. In Italy it was the case that only mad dogs and New Zealanders went out in the midday sun. I have startled snakes, bashed through bush, climbed every mountain, forded every stream, followed every by-way. I hope you enjoy the result.

PERRY ROWE

PART I: THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN

After the German surrender in North Africa, the campaign to capture Italy began with the Allied invasion of the island of Sicily. On July 10, 1943, the US Seventh Army and the British Eighth Army landed a total of seven divisions on the southern and south-eastern shores of the island. This is the 152nd Brigade of the 51st (Highland) Division coming ashore on ‘Amber Beach’ near Pachino, at the extreme southern-eastern tip of the island, pictured just after dawn on D-Day.

The Allied Advance to the Gustav Line

The Allies’ decision to invade Italy had its roots in the fall of France in 1940. Considerably weakened by their losses and with other commitments in the Mediterranean and the Far East, the British were in no position to contemplate an invasion of mainland France, let alone Italy. Nevertheless the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made it plain that if the threat of invasion could be neutralised and America persuaded to join them in the war, then a cross-channel invasion was possible. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was one step along the road towards achieving this aim, particularly as the American policy was one of holding the line against Japan, thus allowing for the main emphasis being made on the defeat of Germany. The question was where this effort would be made. The Americans wanted it to be in France, while the British, mistrustful of the Soviet leader Josef Stalin, had a grander strategy of containment of Russian ambitions in Europe. The problem was that the Americans lacked the resources to tackle Europe head-on. They had little in the way of war matériel, very few experienced divisions and were encountering a serious manpower problem in trying to build up their new army. The Allies also lacked sufficient specialised landing craft to deliver these troops to the beaches of France. The Americans tried to propose a landing on the coast of northern France in 1942 to divert German strength away from the Russians but it was strongly opposed by the British. In the end this proposal was buried by the failure of the landings at Dieppe in August of that year.

The small breakwater island, visible behind LCT 622 and known as Isola delle Correnti, allows a perfect comparison. Thirty-eight days after the landing the Allies had conquered Sicily; the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had been overthrown, and Italy was on the brink of surrender. However, it was a disappointing victory for the Germans had pulled off a brilliant escape, successfully evacuating most of their troops and matériel to the Italian mainland, ready to fight another day.

The next step in the campaign was the Allied invasion of the Italian mainland. On September 9, the US Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark landed on the beaches at Salerno, 40 miles south-east of Naples, putting ashore two British infantry divisions under the X Corps and two American divisions under the VI Corps. Here troops of the US 36th Infantry Division come ashore on ‘Yellow Beach’ while LSTs are unloading Sherman tanks of the supporting 191st and 751st Tank Battalions.

Thus, against their will, the Americans found themselves being drawn into Churchill’s Mediterranean strategy, first through the invasion of French North West Africa at the end of 1942 and then Sicily in 1943. While the Sicilian landings could still be fitted into their overall strategy by providing an alternative route into France, via Sardinia and Corsica, events in Italy soon intervened.

The invasion of Sicily itself was allotted to the 15th Army Group under British General Sir Harold Alexander, the landings taking place on July 10, 1943. Shortly afterwards, the already unstable regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini collapsed and the new Italian government began negotiations with the Allies, culminating in an agreement to lay down their arms. This ultimately forced the Allies’ hand and led to landings on the Italian mainland, though here the Allies’ lack of a cohesive strategy for the Mediterranean worked against them. At this stage their intention was simply for a limited advance up the peninsula with the aim of tying down German forces in Italy and securing the airfields around Foggia, which could be used to launch strategic bombers against Germany and the Balkans. Their initial landings were made at the toe of the peninsula, at Reggio di Calabria, by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery’s British Eighth Army, but progress here was slow. The main assault on Italy was eventually launched in the Bay of Salerno by Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark’s US Fifth Army and soon ran into trouble as the troops encountered intense resistance as they fought their way off the beaches. On the same day, British airborne troops were sea-landed unopposed at Taranto but, lacking transport, heavy weapons and armour, were only able to secure Bari and Brindisi before the area was sealed off by the few German troops that were in the region.

The Germans, for their part, had anticipated such a move and had developed a contingency plan. As soon as the Allies announced the armistice with Italy, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, Commander-in-Chief of Heeresgruppe B in northern Italy, responded, his troops acting swiftly to seize the main centres and disarm his Italian troops. In the south the original plan had called for Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, Commander-in-Chief of Heeresgruppe C, to disarm the Italians under his command and retire north but he had argued successfully with Adolf Hitler to attempt a defence of Italy south of Rome. This was partly because of the sheer impracticality of evacuating this territory without having to abandon large numbers of German troops and equipment, and because of the importance of the airfields around Foggia. Thus he disarmed the Italian troops, the only resistance coming from those in Rome but that did not last long.

Yellow Beach today, with the same range of hills at the southern end of Salerno Bay on the horizon.

For the first week the outcome of the battle hung in the balance, the Germans overlooking the beach-head from the arc of mountains that surrounded the Salerno plain and launching very powerful counter-attacks that at one point threatened to throw the Allied troops back into the sea. However, by September 16 the crisis was over and the Fifth Army could begin its northward advance towards Naples. Here men of the 6th Lincolns, part of the British 46th Division, march out of Salerno on September 10, pictured by Sergeant Wackett of the Army Film and Photo Unit (AFPU).

This is the Via Independenza, looking back eastwards across Piazza Mateo Luciano.

In the meantime at Salerno the Germans rapidly reinforced their troops and the situation in the Allied bridgehead continued to deteriorate as the Germans launched attack after attack against it. Eventually these ran out of steam and by September 15 the worst was over. The Germans began to withdraw north, allowing the US Fifth Army to consolidate its positions, at which point it was joined by Montgomery’s Eighth Army.

That same day, the bridgehead troops linked up with the British Eighth Army which had crossed the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland on September 3 and advanced northwards up the Calabrian peninsula. On the 18th the Germans began a planned withdrawal to the north and north-east and by the end of September the Allied armies had pulled abreast, the Fifth Army advancing on the west side of the Apennines and the Eighth Army on the east.

With the Salerno bridgehead secure, the Allies began to gather their strength in preparation for an attack towards Naples. At the same time they turned their attention back to the Adriatic coast. On September 22 two British infantry divisions were landed at Bari and Brindisi, respectively, and an armoured brigade was brought over from Sicily, allowing them to finally advance northwards. Within a matter of five days the heavily bomb-damaged town of Foggia was entered. The port of Termoli was secured a week later by a thrust up the coast, combined with a seaborne assault by commandos. However for the Eighth Army it was the end of the rapid advances they had experienced on the Adriatic. They were now up against some tactically ugly country and some more-determined defence by the Germans as the latter fell back towards their main defensive line.

It was the same over on the other side of the Apennines. Naples fell three days after the fall of Foggia but when the Fifth Army began its advance northwards, the rains of autumn struck in earnest turning the plains of the River Volturno into a sea of mud. Clark eventually launched his attack across the Volturno in mid-October, striking out for the passage through the mountains known as the Mignano Gap. By November patrols on the Fifth Army’s left wing finally ran up against the German Bernhard Line on the lower reaches of the Garigliano river. Three days later, British X Corps was ordered to attack Monte Camino, the southern bastion of the Mignano Gap. Initially they made good progress but soon ran into stiff resistance as they approached the summit and the attack had to be called off, only to be resumed three weeks later. By now the Fifth Army was at the brink of exhaustion and Clark was forced to halt its advance for two weeks.

One thing that was becoming apparent was that the Germans were not going to abandon southern Italy as the Allies had hoped. In fact, even as the battle for Salerno was coming to an end, Kesselring had begun to set in place plans for a series of fortified lines across the lower Italian peninsula to take advantage of its relative narrowness. These lines could be anything from a rallying position to one for delaying actions or one for protracted defence. The first of these, intended only for a delaying action, was a hastily constructed set of fortifications known as the ‘Viktor’ Line along the Volturno river, 25 miles north of Naples, and then following the Biferno river across the Apennines to Termoli. Behind that was the ‘Barbara’ Line, also taking advantage of natural features and for which only light fieldworks were constructed.

The next defensive system, the ‘Bernhard’ Line, was a different matter. Running roughly along the line of the Garigliano, it then crossed the mountains to the Maiella massif, from where it followed the lower reaches of the River Sangro to the Adriatic. It had originally been intended as a holding line with light fieldworks but, following the decision to make a more-determined stand in Italy, it was reclassified as a permanent position. Its defence works were of variable standard, being particularly weak on the Adriatic coast, while it was strongest around the mouth of the Liri valley.

Behind this the Germans established another set of field works that soon became known as the ‘Gustav’ Line, Kesselring assigning his chief engineer, Generalmajor Hans Bessell, to the task of developing these defences. Coinciding with the ‘Bernhard’ Line along the lower reaches of the Garigliano, it turned northward from Monte Valle Martina to the Liri river to just south of Cassino and thence, initially north-east to San Biagio. At Kesselring’s insistence, changes were wrought to a switch line to the rear of it, while later Hitler directed other changes. These involved the incorporation of Monte Cassino into the new defences, a result of a series of long negotiations between the Germans, the Vatican and the Allies in which the Germans agreed not to incorporate the monastery that capped the mountain into their defences and the Allies made assurances that its safety would be provided for.

Naples was entered on October 1. For the next two months the Fifth Army struggled northwards in worsening weather and through difficult terrain, achieving only slow advances against increasing casualties. The Germans, taking astute advantage of steep mountain passes, demolishing bridges over streams and gorges and blocking narrow village streets and hairpin turns on mountain roads, made the Allied columns pay for every yard of advance. Starting at the Volturno river (a natural defensive position, which they had dubbed the ‘Viktor Line’), they delayed from successive rearguard positions — the Barbara Line, the Bernhard Line — with the eventual goal of falling back to a prepared main defensive line running through Cassino, the Gustav Line.

One of the heaviest struggles during this period developed around San Pietro Infine, a mountain village on the southern slope of Monte Sammucro overlooking Route 6 (the Via Casilina), the main inland road from Naples to Rome, at the point where it exits the narrow defile of the Mignano gap. On December 8 and again on the 17th, the US 36th Division launched two attacks on the village, both being costly and unsuccessful, and it was only when troops on the other side of the Route 6 valley captured Monte Lungo and threatened to cut off the German force holding on to San Pietro (the II. Bataillon of Grenadier-Regiment 15 of the 29. Panzergrenadier-Division) that the Germans abandoned the village. Here stretcher-bearer parties of the 141st Infantry Regiment, prepare the bodies of dead comrades killed on Christmas Day for evacuation.

In late 1943 the Germans began the construction of a further line behind that of the Gustav Line, which became more generally known as the ‘Hitler’ Line. This ran from Piedimonte on the lower slopes of Monte Cairo, through Pontecorvo and then on to the sea. This was not a particularly strong defensive position so the Germans built up an elaborate system of defences based around anti-tank ditches and extensive minefields covered by anti-tank guns, of which emplaced Panther turrets were the most formidable. Like the Gustav Line, these defences were strongest around the Liri valley.

The same house at the eastern end of the village as it looks today. (For the full story of the San Pietro battle see After the Battle No. 18.)

Willing hands help to load the dead under the watchful eye of Chaplain Robert N. Alspaugh for interment in the 36th Division cemetery located at Marzanello Nuovo, 45 kilometres further south along Route 6.

With winter fast approaching, for the Allies the question arose as to what to do next. As far as the Americans were concerned they had secured enough ground to cover the vital air bases at Foggia and tie down German forces in Italy. The British, however, still retained their ambitions in the Mediterranean. Thus, when the Allied leaders met at Teheran in November they eventually committed to a deeper involvement in Italy, despite misgivings on the part of Stalin that they had designs on Europe east of Italy. What they also agreed to, however, was a landing in southern France. This required them making a short hop from northern Italy, which in turn meant that they be well north of Rome by the spring of 1944. Thus, whether the Americans liked it or not, they were becoming drawn deeper into the mire that was to become the Italian campaign.

Revised Allied plans for the campaign in Italy called for the Fifth Army to break into the western end of the Winterstellung (German Winter Line) before Cassino with the view to launching a drive up the Liri valley towards Rome. The Eighth Army was given the task of breaking through the main line, after which they were to secure Pescara. From there they were to swing southwest along the route to Avezzano with the aim of threatening the German lines of communication. Then when both armies were poised within striking distance of Rome, a seaborne force was to land south of the River Tiber at Anzio and make a dash for the Alban Hills.

The Allied armies in Italy were under General Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the 15th Army Group, which comprised the US Fifth and the British Eighth Armies. Alexander was one of the most experienced soldiers in the British Army. Born in London on December 10, 1891, the third son of the Earl of Caledon, he was educated at Hawthreys and Harrow Schools before moving to the Sandhurst Military Academy. Commissioned in the Irish Guards in 1911, he served with great distinction on the Western Front throughout 1914-18, being wounded twice, receiving the Military Cross and a DSO and rising to battalion commander. He commanded a Baltic German unit in the Latvian War of Independence 1920-21 and served in Turkey and Gibraltar before attending the Camberley Staff College from 1926-28 and the Imperial Defence College in 1930. From 1934 to 1937 he commanded the Nowshera Brigade on the North-West Frontier in India, returning to Britain in March 1937 for a short spell as aide-de-camp to recently acceded King George VI. In 1938, he took command of the 1st Infantry Division, bringing it to France in September 1939 and successfully leading it during the withdrawal to Dunkirk in May 1940, being placed in command of I Corps in the final stages of that operation. After serving for two years as chief of Southern Command in Britain, he was sent to India in February 1942 to command British forces in Burma, directing the fighting retreat into India against the Japanese. The following August, at the lowest ebb of the war in the North African desert, he was sent to replace General Claude Auchinleck as Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command, and subsequently supervised Montgomery’s Eighth Army through victory at El Alamein and the advance to Tripoli. In February 1943, following the American setback at Kasserine in Tunisia, he was sent to take command of the 18th Army Group, uniting the Allied armies in Tunisia and leading them to final victory in North Africa in May. His command re-designated 15th Army Group, he then led the British Eighth and US Seventh Armies in the invasion of Sicily in July-August and the British Eighth and US Fifth Armies into Italy in September. A man of broad culture, modest and charming, Alexander was the embodiment of the English gentleman soldier, generally regarded with the highest degree of respect, admiration and affection by every one of the nationalities that served under him. However, inclined to lead more by kind persuasion than by giving out firm and clear orders, judgements on his genius as a higher commander differ greatly, both with his contemporaries and with post-war historians.

Commanding the US Fifth Army was Lieutenant-General Mark W. Clark. Born at Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York, on May 1, 1896, the son of a career infantry officer, Clark graduated from West Point in 1917 and served on the Western Front in France with the 11th Infantry, being wounded in the Vosges. Between the wars he served in a variety of staff and training roles, graduating from the Infantry School in 1925, the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth in 1935 and the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks in 1937, and becoming an instructor there in March 1940. He first achieved prominence in May 1942 when he became Chief-of-Staff of US Army Ground Forces but his career after that was meteoric. The next month he was sent to Britain to begin building up the US II Corps there; in July he was appointed commander of the Army Ground Forces in the European Theater of Operations, and in August he became deputy to General Dwight D. Eisenhower when the latter was commander-in-chief of Allied Forces Headquarters for the North African theatre. In that capacity, Clark executed a delicate political assignment in connection with Operation ‘Torch’, the Allied invasion of North Africa, including a daring submarine trip to Algeria in October for secret negotiations with Vichy-French officers, in an effort to persuade them to join the Allies. In January 1943 he was appointed commander of the Fifth Army to plan and execute the Allied invasion of the Italian mainland, landing with it at Salerno in September. Clark was a strong personality, brash, handsome, openly ambitious, and aggressively determined to find glory as a commander. This sometimes led him to disobey orders from his superior Alexander or to make decisions that were more personally motivated than military sound. He also tended to mistrust British intentions and to look down on British commanders, both his superiors and those serving under him. During the Cassino battles, this attitude would particluarly affect his relations with Alexander and with Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery of British X Corps.

Staff Sergeant Earl P. Stanguard and Private Joe Albright-son string up telephone wires at San Pietro after the capture of the village.

The same ruined house still stands on the road leading into the village from the east.

However, there was a strict time limit to these plans. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Theatre, had requested that 68 tank landing ships be kept back in the Mediterranean for the Anzio landings and the Combined Chiefs-of-Staff had approved this but Alexander had to be prepared to release these vessels by the end of January 1944.

Unfortunately, the realisation of these plans was the difficult part. The renewed Eighth Army offensive on the Adriatic coast in late November soon bogged down, thanks to German resistance and the weather. As a result, Montgomery had to call it to a halt after Christmas. On the Fifth Army front, the British finally secured the western bastion of the Mignano Gap at the beginning of December. The following day the Americans became involved in a bloody battle for the village of San Pietro, which only came into their possession after they outflanked it ten days later. At the same time, the British moved up in force to the banks of the lower Garigliano. Then, at the end of the year, a blizzard brought a halt to the fighting. Nevertheless, by the middle of December it had become clear to the Allies that their best prospects of reaching Rome lay with the Fifth Army. For them this involved thrusting as strongly as possible towards Cassino and Frosinone with the view to attracting German reserves that might be deployed against the force landing at Anzio. To achieve this, Alexander set about reinforcing the Fifth Army with troops from the Eighth Army, replacing these with new formations arriving in Italy. As far as the Eighth Army was concerned, with their plans now impracticable, their role became simply one of maintaining pressure on their front to prevent the withdrawal of German troops from the Adriatic. Not that they had much success with this.

The German armies in Italy were under Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, the Oberbefehlshaber Südwest (Commander-in-Chief South-West), a position which he combined with that of commander of Heeresgruppe C. Born in Marksteft in Bavaria on November 30, 1885, son of a schoolmaster and town councillor, Kesselring joined the army as an officer cadet in 1904, entering the 2. (Bayerisches) Fuss-Artillerie Regiment. He graduated from the Military Academy in 1906 and the School of Artillery and Engineering in 1910. Trained as an artillery balloon observer, during the First World War he served on both the Western and Eastern Fronts, being posted to the General Staff in 1917 despite not having attended the War College. From 1922 to 1931 he worked in the Reichswehr Ministry. Discharged from the army, against his wishes, in 1933, he was appointed head of the Luftwaffenverwaltungsamt (Air Force Administrative Office), a civilian government agency involved in the re-establishment of the aviation industry and the covert creation of a new German air force. In June 1936, having by then learned to fly, he became Chief-of-Staff of the Luftwaffe, followed by a posting as commander of Luftkreis (Air District) III in Dresden in 1937. He commanded Luftflotte 1 in the invasion of Poland (for which he was awarded the Ritterkreuz) and Luftflotte 2 during the invasion of France, the Battle of Britain and the invasion of the Soviet Union. In November 1941 he was appointed Oberbefehlshaber Süd (Commander-in-Chief South), and transferred to Italy to command German ground, naval and air forces there and organise the supply by sea and air of German forces fighting in North Africa. He ably supervised the fighting withdrawals in North Africa and Sicily and the counter-measures against the Allied invasion of Italy which earned him the Oakleaves and Swords. A top-class professional soldier, Hitler especially valued him for his optimistic outlook and mastery of defence. Consequently, having decided to favour Kesselring’s strategy for a defence of Italy south of Rome against the withdrawal to northern Italy favoured by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, on November 21, 1943 Hitler made him Oberbefehlshaber Südwest (Commander-in-Chief South-West) and commander of Heeresgruppe C. (Diamonds were added to his Ritterkreuz in July 1944).

The German 10. Armee, opposing the 15th Army Group, was commanded by General oberst Heinrich-Gottfried von Vietinghoff-Scheel. Born in Mainz on December 6, 1887, the son of an artillery general, Vietinghoff joined the army at age 15. Commissioned as a Leutnant in the Kaiser Franz Garde-Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 2, he fought with it during World War I, being awarded both the First and Second Class Iron Crosses. Staying on in the post-war Reichsheer, he first served in several staff functions, then in 1931 became battalion commander in the 14. (Badisches) Infanterie-Regiment, then in 1935 commander of the 1. Schützen-Brigade. In 1936, he was assigned to Panzer-Abteilung 88, a unit of the Condor Legion training Franco’s Spanish troops in armoured warfare during the Spanish Civil War, and in February 1938 became the Wehrmacht’s first Inspekteur der Panzertruppen und Heeres motorisierung (Inspector of Panzer Troops and Army Motorisation). In November 1938 he took command of the 5. Panzer-Division, participating with it in the 1939 invasion of Poland. Appointed to command of the XIII. Armeekorps in October, he led it through the 1940 campaign in the West and during its subsequent stationing in the occupied Netherlands from July. His award of the Ritterkreuz was promulgated on June 24. The following November he took over the XXXXVI. Armeekorps, leading it during the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and the subsequent attack on the Soviet Union in June, first as part of Heeresgruppe Nord and then of Heeresgruppe Mitte. In September 1942, he assumed temporary command of the 9. Armee in Russia, then in December 1942 was appointed commander of the 15. Armee in occupied Belgium and France, responsible for defending the Channel coast. Just retired due to illness and placed in the Führer Reserve, on August 15, 1943 he was sent to southern Italy to take command of the 10. Armee. (The award of the Oakleaves to his Knight’s Cross was made on April 16, 1944.)

Commanding the XIV. Panzerkorps, which would fight the brunt of the Cassino defensive battles under 10. Armee, was Generalleutnant Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin. Born at Waldshut in Baden on September 4, 1891, Senger entered the army as a one-year volunteer in 1910. In 1912 he won a Rhodes scholarship and spent two years as student at Oxford University. On the outbreak of World War I he returned to Germany and fought with the 5. (Badisches) Feldartillerie-Regiment 76 for the next four years, joining the regular army in 1917. Switching to the cavalry after the war, he first served in the 5. (Preusisches) Reiter-Regiment in Pomerania, then from 1921 onwards in the 18. Reiter-Regiment based in Stuttgart. In 1938 he took command of Kavallerie-Regiment 3 in Göttingen but, as it was split up among various divisions, did not himself take an active part with it in the 1939 Polish campaign. Taking over the 2. Reiter-Brigade in February 1940, he led it in the invasion of Holland as part of the 1. Kavallerie-Division in May 1940 and then through Belgium and into northern France, ending up in Normandy. From July 1940 to July 1942 he served as chief of the German delegation at the Franco-Italian Armistice Commission based in Turin. In October 1942 he took command of the 17. Panzer-Division in Russia, leading it with distinction in the winter battles around Rostov and Kharkov which earned him the Knights Cross. In June 1943 he was appointed Wehrmacht commander in Sicily, supervising the successful evacuation of German troops from the island the following August and then being appointed to the same position in Corsica and Sardinia. On October 8, 1943, he took command of the XIV. Panzerkorps in Italy. A cultured and intelligent men, Senger was a superb commander and tactician. A lay member of the Benedictine Order and an Anglophile known for his anti-Nazi feelings, there was also considerable irony in him being selected to defend Cassino. He was also awarded the Oakleaves to his Knights Cross in April 1944.

For their part the Germans had already come to the appreciation that the Apennine range on the Adriatic side would form an impenetrable barrier in winter and had no trouble pulling their formations out of the line there, the 26. Panzer-Division being one of the first to go in early January 1944. At the same time they had recognised the importance of the Liri valley and the difficulties of the Allies operating in the mountains that flanked it, hence they placed their strongest defences at its entrance and the major peaks either side.

German armour in southern Italy. A well-placed assault gun could make all the difference in the defensive battles of late 1943.

By December 1943, the Allies had decided to mount an amphibious landing behind the German lines to turn the enemy defence. The spot chosen was Anzio, 50 miles north of the Gustav Line and 30 miles south-east of Rome, the landing to be carried out by the US VI Corps. The date planned for the operation was January 22, 1944. To prevent the Germans from being able to withdraw forces from the main front to counter the landing, and to force them to commit their reserves, Clark’s Fifth Army was to engage in a strong blow-by-blow attack on the Gustav Line by all its three corps in turn. Once the French Expeditionary Corps and US II Corps had reached the line of the Rapido and Gari rivers and drawn abreast with British X Corps, already lined up along the Garigliano further south, the X Corps would start off the attack with an assault across the river. Then the US II Corps would follow with an assault across the Rapido, and the French would deliver the next blow by continuing their drive across the upper part of the river and into the mountains north of Cassino. It was hoped a breakthrough into the Liri valley would lead to a speedy link-up between Fifth Army’s main force and the US VI Corps advancing from the Anzio bridgehead.

Cassino

Fred Majdalany fought in North Africa, Sicily and Italy and was wounded and awarded the Military Cross. He took part in the battle for Cassino as a company commander with the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers (78th Division) and in 1957 set down his masterly account in Cassino: Portrait of a Battle.

‘At the beginning of January, when the Eighth Army had run into a dead end on the narrow Adriatic front and the Fifth had at last battered its way to the edge of the valley approach to Cassino — to be rewarded by the sight of yet another natural obstacle more formidable than anything it had so far experienced — a natural break in the progress of the campaign had been reached.

‘It was not through any exceptional tactical percipience that the Germans chose Cassino as the hard core of their main defence line. It was already well known. Truthfully the German commander might have said, I got it from a book. For many years the Italian Military College had held it up to students as an example of an impregnable natural defence barrier. Generations of officers had fought imaginary battles of Cassino as a part of their military studies. Had the Allied commanders happened to ask an Italian senior officer where he thought the Germans would be most likely to make a stand south of Rome, he would have replied without hesitation: Why, at Cassino, of course. It is not on record whether any responsible Italian military men were so consulted. On the whole it seems unlikely as there appears to have been no awareness among the higher Allied echelons that Cassino might prove any more difficult than what had gone before.

‘The defence of this sector had been entrusted to the XIV. Panzerkorps of 10. Armee commanded by General von Senger und Etterlin. The essence of the position was its situation of a steep mountain massif towering above the angle made by two wide valleys meeting at right angles. To enter the Liri valley (along which the road to Rome passes) it was necessary to cross the Rapido valley with which it formed an L. Monte Cassino, in the angle of the L, commanded the approach across the first valley, and the entrance to the second. If a force managed to break directly into the second valley away from the immediate vicinity of Cassino, it would still be overlooked at every stage of its progress. That was the heart of the matter.

‘Monte Cassino and the adjacent heights completely controlled the approach to Cassino and the route past it. From the summit of Monte Cassino an observer could watch every move in either valley. Even in moonlight it is possible from this vantage point to pick out the shapes of hills four miles or more away.

‘It may be as well to make it clear at this point that when we speak of commanding heights — and in any account of the Italian campaign the phrase recurs on every page — it does not necessarily mean that soldiers must sit on them to make them so. Heights are commanding because of the observation they afford. Observation is the key to the modern land battle. The combination of modern gunnery techniques and wireless communication means that one man — quite literally one man — with a good view and a wireless set can direct the guns of an entire army within a few minutes on to any target he can see. The seizing of a dominant height is not undertaken merely in order that it may be garrisoned, but primarily in order that an observation post may be established on it. A modern campaign is largely a progress from one desirable line of observation to another.

However, as the Allied troops fighting to get clear of the mountains that had slowed their advance to a frustrating crawl during the bleak and harsh winter months reached points from where they could see the terrain ahead, they had their first glimpse of the mountain feature that stood as a towering sentinel guarding the road to Rome. This feature would become the focus of all their efforts over the next five months: the Monte Cassino, crowned by the massive mediaeval abbey of the same name, with the town of Cassino spread out at its base.

With a population of about 25,000 before the war, Cassino was a rather pleasant town, also a regional market centre, with some popular tourist attractions and offering a convenient break in travels from Rome to Naples. The town had a history dating back to before Roman times. After their defeat of the Sabini in the 4th century BC, the Volsci established a settlement at the base of the Monte Cairo massif and called it Casinum. It came under control of the Samnites in 321 BC but fell to the Romans in 313 BC, who established a colony there. It remained theirs until it was sacked by the Goths in 494 AD. The town that eventually developed on the site of ancient Casinum was known for centuries as San Germano, but on July 28, 1863, the name was officially reverted to ‘Cassino’. This pre-war view is looking down Via Principe Umberto. The church on the left is the Chiesa di Sant’Antonio.

The same view down what is today the Corso della Repubblica. The rebuilt church incorporates parts of the original.

The layout of Cassino was largely determined by the line of Route 6 (the old Roman Via Casilina), which was the main road from Naples to Rome that passed through the municipality.

‘Conversely, having picked out a height on which the enemy will obviously have established observation posts, it becomes necessary to do everything possible to make such posts untenable, by shelling and bombing them and generally making the practice of observation as unpleasant as possible. If some feature such as a water tower or a church steeple presents itself as a vantage point likely to be used by the enemy, it will be necessary to try to destroy it. If a vantage point on a hill feature is proving particularly tiresome as an enemy observation post, it may be necessary to mount a brigade or even a divisional attack against it merely to deprive the enemy of it.

‘The importance of observation is stressed because every soldier who ever sees Monte Cassino at once recognizes it to be just about the finest natural observation post he has ever encountered. This is a key matter in the battle of Cassino, and one which has a considerable bearing on subsequent events.

‘The decision to defend the Cassino line having been made when the Fifth Army was still 60 miles away, General von Senger could set about improving on this natural defence barrier methodically.

‘He blasted emplacements in the solid rock of the mountains. Natural caves were enlarged and adapted to house guns and men. Artificial caves were created and camouflaged to conform with the appearance of the mountainside. Machine-gun nests were constructed behind rocky outcrops, so that they had concealment, protection, and good lines of fire. The zig-zag road up the eastern face of Monte Cassino began to bristle with gun positions, as did the heights which crowd in on the mountain on its northern and western sides. In the deep ravines which run between these ridges and crests mortar emplacements were constructed — for mortars fire at a steep angle and can therefore be hidden away in deep gullies from which they can fire without much danger of being hit back. On the mountainsides the stiff gorse thickets were laced with barbed wire and sown with mines. Approaches to all prepared posts were guarded by trip wires that would set off flares or mines or both.

As the road entered the town from the south, the highway divided into two main streets — the Via Principe Umberto on the left (south) and Corso Vittorio Emanuele II on the right (north) — which ran in straight lines but diverging from each other for about a kilometre until both reached the perpendicular street at the foot of the mountain. Route 6 then continued on its way by making a left turn and exiting the town towards Rome. This oblique aerial photograph, taken by an Allied reconnaissance aircraft on November 26, 1943, gives a perfect view of the town as it was before violence and destruction was meted out in the forthcoming battles. We have marked the most important buildings and features. Most of them would become notorious landmarks during the later fighting. [1] Hotel des Roses; [2] Hotel Excelsior (Continental); [3] Piazza Ciano; [4] Rocca Ianula (Castle Hill); [5] Chiesa di Sant’Antonio; [6] Piazza Principe Amedeo (Botanical Gardens); [7] Municipio (Municipal Buildings); [8] Chiesa del Carmine (The Convent, later The Crypt; [9] Chiesa di Santa Scholastica (The Nunnery).

Via Napoli or Corso Vittorio Emanuele II — the north leg of Route 6 — looking into town, with Castle Hill towering above the built-up area. The large building on the left is the Palazzo Notarmarco, while to the right can be seen the town’s Campanile, or bell tower.

The Corso Vittorio Emanuele has since been re-named the Via Enrico de Nicola. Completely flattened during the 1944 battle, the Palazzo Notarmarco has been replaced by an equally substantial building. Just off to the left is the Cassino war memorial.

‘In the valley both sides of the Rapido were heavily mined, and more trip wires were laid. Gun positions were buried in the banks on the enemy side of the river, and in the ditches, and mounds, and hummocks which are numerous at the entrance to the Liri valley. Farm buildings were fortified, pillboxes and tank turrets were ingeniously submerged in the ground and camouflaged so that they were invisible. All these positions were most carefully constructed and reinforced with steel and concrete so that they would resist the great artillery concentrations which always preceded the Allied attacks. The Germans were used to them by this time and determined to endure them in security if not comfort. In fact the Allied troops were repeatedly disappointed to discover afterwards how relatively little damage even their heaviest barrages inflicted — so skilled had the Germans become at constructing positions that would afford them protection.

‘Cassino town was heavily fortified. Buildings were turned into strong-points. Cellars and ground floors were reinforced. Tanks were concealed inside some of the larger buildings. Tunnels and connecting trenches were constructed between a cellar strong point on one side of the road and a shelter on the other. Many buildings, strong in themselves, were made stronger by the inclusion of a bunker or pillbox inside.

‘To the north of the town, where the Rapido has its source, they dammed it and created diversions so that when the heavy rains came the whole valley was turned into an area of flood and marsh.

‘The work went on day after day while the rearguards kept the Fifth Army at bay, playing for time, weakening the advancing troops, tiring them, making them fight for every yard of ground. For three months the XIV. Panzerkorps worked at these defences and to help them they had a large detachment of the Todt Labour Organization.

‘They did not at this time enter the Monastery itself. An army order had placed it out of bounds and a military policeman saw that this was enforced. But they were all round it, on the heights close by, and along the zig-zag road, and near the crest of the mountain.

‘This was Cassino — the hard core of what the Germans called the Gustav Line — a natural mountain barrier made infinitely stronger by the ingenuity of military engineers: a natural river barrier made infinitely stronger by steel and concrete fortifications and artificial flooding of the wide valley approaches.

Town plan of Cassino as it was before the war. [1] Colosseum (Roman circus); [2] Railway engine shed (The Round House); [3] Railway Station; [4] Funivia (cable-car) to Monastery Hill; [5] Chiesa del Carmine (The Convent, also The Crypt); [6] Municipio (Municipal Buildings); [7] Post Office; [8] Nuovo Stirpe square; [9] Palazzo Notarmarco; [10] Chiesa di Sant’Antonio; [11] Piazza Principe Amedeo (Botanical Gardens); [12] Hotel des Roses; [13] Hotel Excelsior (Continental); [14] Palazzo Bruno; [15] Piazza Ciano; [16] Rocca Ianula (Castle Hill); [17] Chiesa di Santa Scholastica (The Nunnery); [18] Jail.

Cassino’s central square was the Piazza Umberto I, located just north of the Via Napoli. Bounded on one side by the Duomo (Cathedral), or Chiesa Maggiore, and by the Tribunale (Court-house) on another, it was also the spiritual and legal centre.

The replacement cathedral is of a modern design, but in the same place as the original one. The surrounding area was left open in the post-war reconstruction and no longer has the maze of mediaeval streets that existed until 1944.

Via Principe Umberto — the south leg of Route 6 — as it looked at the turn of the century, with Via Arigni to the left, Via Rapido to the right, and the monastery overlooking all from its lofty position.

Now the Corso della Repubblica, still with Via Arigni to the left, but Via Rapido on the right has been renamed Via Guglielmo Marconi.

‘At the beginning of January, when the Eighth Army had run into a dead end on the narrow Adriatic front and the Fifth had at last battered its way to the edge of the valley approach to Cassino — to be rewarded by the sight of yet another natural obstacle more formidable than anything it had so far experienced — a natural break in the progress of the campaign had been reached.

‘It was not only desirable that the tired Fifth should stop to lick its wounds, reorganize, and rest, but it was essential. It had been fighting, almost without pause, for four months. It had had to contend not only with country which entirely favoured the defender, but also with exceptional extremes of winter weather. Wet and frozen, continuously in action, these men had known nothing but mud and mountain for weeks. Sickness brought on by too much exposure to wet and cold was claiming as many casualties as wounds.

‘Now they had reached the bend in the road. Looking across the great valley to Cassino they knew that they faced a barrier more powerful than anything they had yet tackled — and they had tackled a few by this time. It was essential that there should be a pause and a short rest — if only so that the next move could be properly thought out, prepared, and launched. But there was no pause.’

At the point where Via Principe Umberto met up with the street running at right angles (and where Route 6 swung south and out of town) lay the Piazza Galeazzo Ciano. It was surrounded by several nice palazzi, one of which, the Palazzo Danese, housed a comfortable tourist accommodation, the Excelsior Hotel-Restaurant-Garage. It would become one of the main German strongholds during the battle, better known by Commonwealth troops as the Continental Hotel. Just visible on the right is the Palazzo Bruno, another German bastion throughout the fighting. (A palazzo in Italian indicates a large building rather than a palace so, for example, the Palazzo Danese was the property owned by the Danese family.)

Today the space that carried the name of Mussolini’s son-in-law and foreign minister is no longer a square. Both the Hotel Excelsior and the Palazzo Bruno have been replaced by new buildings.

Looking south from Piazza Ciano down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II (now with the Hotel Excelsior on the right) were several other palazzi that were to play a prominent role as German strongpoints in the coming battles: on the right, immediately adjoining the Excelsior, the Palazzo Iucci; opposite this the Palazzo Silvestri; and further down, on the right, the Palazzo Collela (better known as the Hotel des Roses).

The same view today. Palazzo Silvestri and its neighbour were rebuilt further back, the post-war planners taking the opportunity to widen Route 6. Traffic on the highway’s two branches through the town is today one-way and this corner is where the change occurs.

View from the Palazzo Collela (Hotel des Roses) looking back towards the Piazza Ciano. Dating back to the beginning of the 1800s, this palazzo served for a time as the home of the Baron de Rosa who moved to Cassino from Naples around the end of the 19th century. Responsible for the construction of the railway, he used it for a time as a hostel for his railway workers, hence it appeared on some old maps as the Albergo delle Rose (Roses Inn) although it was never a hotel as such. He eventually returned to Naples and sold it to the Collela and Martire families. Thus it is also sometimes referred to as the Palazzo del Cavaliera A. Martire.

Despite the almost complete destruction of the Hotel des Roses during the battle, the rebuilt edifice is quite faithful to the original plans. Many of the lower heavy stone walls survived under the rubble from upper stories, so it was possible to build on these foundations.

At the south-eastern end of town, branching off southwards from Corso Vittorio Emanuele II (Route 6), was Viale Dante which ran in a straight line to Cassino’s railway station. This is the view from the Palazzo Notarmarco, with the Municipio (Town Hall) on the left and — across Via Principe Umberto (the south leg of Route 6) — the Chiesa di Sant’Antonio on the right. The green in front of the Town Hall, featuring the ornamental fountain, was known as the Nuovo Stirpe and the tree-lined square on the right