It was on 15th February 1944 that the Abbey was destroyed by aerial bombardment, but the story begins some four months earlier, when the battle front was at Capua, 50 miles or so away to the south-east.
On 14th October 1943 two German officers called on the Abbot and informed him that it was advisable to evacuate the Abbey and remove all valuables to a place of safety. The story is told in full by Majdalany2 and there is no need to repeat it, except to quote one remark of Captain Becker's: "Like Santa Clara in Naples and San Lorenzo in Rome, your Abbey will be reduced. It is a sad thing for your monastery, beautiful and important as it is. Mais, c'est la guerre. The order is not to let them get beyond here. Rome ils ne Fauront pas jamais".3
The insistence of the Germans was such that the Abbot reluctantly agreed, and in the next fortnight all the books and portable treasures were removed to Spoleto and, apart from a small caretaker party which included the Abbot, the monks were evacuated to Rome.
Anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of military tactics who looks at the first illustration will see at a glance that Monastery Hill is the key point of this excellent defensive position, and the Germans, at all times professional soldiers of the highest quality and especially masters of defence technique, were not slow to act. They blasted positions in the solid rock which made the hill almost impregnable.4
It has now been established beyond doubt that the Germans did not use the Abbey buildings as part of their defence plan. In December they informed the Abbot that a neutral zone 300 metres wide had been established round the Abbey, but in January 1944 this zone was abolished5 and all civilians in the Cassino area were forcibly evacuated, with the exception of the Abbot, five monks and three sick families in the monastery.
At this point it will be of interest to quote General von Senger und Etterlin who, as Commander of 14th Panzer Corps in Xth German Army, was responsible for the defence of Monte Cassino:6 "The neutralisation of an outstanding building high up in the middle of a battlefield was a most extraordinary if not an impossible-looking attitude on both sides. It was an instance of the judgment of the leading men on either side who on our side realised that the occupation served nothing and on the Allied side that destruction served nothing. . . It must be presumed that the Vatican found means of conveying news to the other side through its international channels". He goes on to say that the military argument for the destruction was "purely psychological".
To take the last point first, it is true that "Monastery Hill", as we called it, had a very depressing psychological effect on us. To quote an officer's contemporary account: "Everyone knew that on this hill were plenty of German eyes glued to super race-glasses, eager and ready to spot the slightest move, which would be rewarded by a sharp stonk".7
With regard to von Senger's first point, two other cases of historic buildings in a battle zone immediately come to mind. The Cathedral of Cologne (the Dom) stands next to the main railway station and bridge over the Rhine, and the Basilica of St Laurence at Rome adjoins the main railway marshalling yard. Both areas were subject to heavy aerial attack, and while our own photographs show the Dom apparently undamaged, an official German photograph of the interior (which the writer has seen) shows very heavy damage by blast. The damage to St Laurence's Basilica required almost complete reconstruction.
Aerial bombardment is the least accurate form of modern attack and the blockbuster type of bomb the most devastating, short of the use of nuclear weapons. The effect of this kind of weapon on the Abbey is shown in the second illustration (see photographs). Not only is the eastern wall destroyed, but the whole mountainside has been sliced away, which must have been most uncomfortable for any Germans outside but close to the wall.
The American Air Force was notorious for the inaccuracy of their bombing. As the inhabitants of Tunis used to tell us: "When we saw planes with British markings we knew we were safe and that they would bomb La Goulette (the port of Tunis), but when the Americans came over we took cover". Also the crews were none too particular in what they did with any spare bombs still in the aircraft after leaving the target. It is all very well to say that there must be Germans down there somewhere, but we were also down there, and though a miss may be as good as a mile it is not so funny when you happen to be at the wrong end of the mile. The Commander of the Eighth Army (General Leese) had his personal caravan destroyed in this way, fortunately in his absence, when it was a good eight miles from the target area, and the present writer's unit also suffered casualties inflicted by our allies on the same occasion. All this goes to show that it is extremely unlikely for any building in a target area to escape heavy damage.
We now come to the attitude of the Allied commanders to the destruction of the Abbey. First it must be said that there is no evidence of any request for its neutralisation being made from the other side of the line. The only request for information was made by Sir D'Arcy Osborne, which was answered, after much delay, on 14th February (the day before the bombing) by the denial on the authority of the German Embassy that there was any considerable (grossere) concentrations of German troops in the "immediate vicinity" of the Abbey.8 It is hard to see how the Allied command could regard this vague statement as anything more than a part of the German cover-plan.
General von Senger is not only a good Catholic, but also a Benedictine oblate, and he would not appreciate the totally different stand-point of Allied generals who were neither. To the average Briton the word "Abbey" conveys the idea of a ruin like Fountains or Tintem. "Monks" had surely been abolished by Henry VIII. The naivete of questions asked in Italy is hardly credible, such as: "Tell me, George, why are there so many Roman Catholic churches in this country?" or "Why has a little place like this (Fermo on the Adriatic) got an Archbishop? In England we have only two for the whole country, Canterbury and York". Field Marshal Alexander, in conversation with the present writer a year after the event, said: "Before the bombing of the Abbey I had a good look at it through my field-glasses and I came to the conclusion that it was not, architecturally, very impressive. Now that it has been destroyed, they will be able to get lots of dollars from America and will be able to put up something really good!" This remark was in a sense prophetic (except that not many dollars were forthcoming), for the Abbey has been rebuilt just as it was before and all the books and treasures have been restored, so it might appear that nobody is very much the worse off now except the Italian government which had to foot most of the bill, a just penalty for having fought on the wrong side.
Another incident which illustrates the British attitude to monasteries occurred in September 1945 as we were approaching Monte Laverna, a wooded hill crowned by a monastery where St Francis of Assisi received the stigmata. The Ayrshire Yeomanry (Royal Artillery) were ordered to take up battery positions, and whenever they did so they were promptly shelled. It seemed certain to them that they were being observed from the monastery (another building under Papal protection like Monte Cassino), so they put two shells into the top storey, and were never troubled again. This minor incident never reached the papers, but it was quite impossible to convince the Ayrshires (of good Covenanting stock) that the Germans were not using the monastery as an observation post, and that their shells had not poked the enemy in the eye.
It has often been said that generals fight their battles on the lessons of the last war in which they were previously engaged. It is certainly true that two of the lessons of World War I were deeply impressed on the minds of our commanders. The first was the necessity of avoiding casualties as far as possible, and in view of this it is hardly to be expected that any building, of whatever historic or aesthetic value, could be considered in the balance against the lives of men. One of the biggest factors in maintaining our morale was that we knew that our generals were "casualtyconscious", and that heavy casualties were only accepted when absolutely necessary. One might here recall WavelPs retort when he was accused of inactivity: "A big butcher's bill is not always a sign of good generalship".
The other lesson well learnt was the effect on operations of winter weather and heavy bombardments. When asked to renew his attack on Cassino the New Zealand Commander (General Freyberg, v.c.) answered in one word: "Passchendaele".9
Finally, it should be borne in mind that the Allies were composed of many nations, each with a different approach to war. The British and Commonwealth forces were fighting for their home countries which were not "enemy-occupied" indeed, but under attack. In effect, they were fighting an enemy who was misbehaving, in order to compel him to comport himself in a more orderly manner, unlike the French and the Poles who were fighting to get back to their homes and families. The Indian troops were professional soldiers of the best type, who regarded battle as "just another job". Veterans of Keren, they found Cassino much the toughest proposition that they had met in the course of the war. The greater part of the Free French forces was composed of colonial troops under French regular officers, and included the fierce Moroccan Goums, who were said to be paid by piecework; excellent allies in broad daylight, but one had the uncomfortable feeling that a British or American ear, acquired on a dark night, was indistinguishable from a German one and would have equal value as currency at the pay table.
It was the Poles who were the most dedicated of all the Allied soldiers, for they fought with but little hope of return to their homes, and were inspired with a fanatical desire to hit the Germans as hard and as often as they could. It is said of them that at one time, when their casualties rendered the Polish Corps ineffective as a fighting unit and no more Polish reinforcements were available, General Anders said that he would find his own replacements. When further asked: "From where?", he replied: "From the other side", and set out on a tour of the prison camps to enlist the Poles who had been forced into the German army. In the end it was not the British or the American or the French flag which flew from the Abbey ruins, but the Polish one, and nobody would grudge them that final triumph who has seen the Polish cemetery on that blood-soaked piece of ground hard by the Abbey and has read the poignant inscription: "We Polish soldiers, for our freedom and yours, have given our souls to God, our bodies to the soil of Italy, and our hearts to Poland".
Hitler is said to have been fascinated by the Cassino battleground, as the nearest to the Ypres sector in which he fought as a corporal in 1914-18. It had a fascination for other people too, whether they were veterans of the former war or not. During the day it was courting disaster to move about or to expose oneself for the briefest moment to possible snipers, so night became day and day night. At dusk the porters assembled for their nightly journey into the town with supplies. The last two miles could not be covered by wheeled transport and mules were fully employed in the mountain sectors, so everything, even drinking water, had to be carried in by men. Different regiments would have different methods; one would use the minimum of men and loads so heavy that a man who fell could not rise without assistance, another would use more men who were at the same time more mobile. Both systems had their good points and casualties among the porters were not heavy, partly due to the effective smoke-screen provided by the artillery which went by the code-name No Name, and partly because both sides were taking in their supplies at the same time. The first mile of the supply route followed sunken lanes and was comparatively easy; it was the second that earned for itself the name of the "Mad Mile". It began at Two Corpse Corner, where the lane debouched into Highway Six on the banks of the Rapido river. Here the Sappers had erected two Bailey bridges side by side over the nine-foot deep river, and usually one or both had been damaged by the enemy during the day. If both were out of action one had to sidle across on the girders, no easy matter when carrying a heavy load. From the further bank the road ran straight to the Hotel Continental, one of the main German strongpoints. Apart from the hazards of craters and other traps for the unwary there were two Spandau positions sited to shoot up anyone who happened along. They were known to us as Spandau Joe and Spandau Willie; Willie fired across the road, his bullets coming at an uncomfortably low level, about waist high, but he could be dodged fairly easily. Joe, on the other hand, fired straight down the road and luckily set his sights rather high, as was proved by one of our most frequent visitors, the lieutenant-colonel commanding a Light A.A. regiment, who had fought at Ypres in the Coldstream Guards and who liked to introduce his young officers personally to battle. "That gun is firing high," he said, "I'll show you." He climbed on to the top girder of the Bailey bridge and held his stick above his head, where it was shattered by bullets. "There you are. I told you so."
A most unpleasant feature was the great number of corpses, the aftermath of three attacks, which it was quite impossible to bury. The only thing to do was to creep out and quicklime the more offensive ones. Another problem was washing and shaving, for the water brought in was strictly limited to drinking and cooking. We would draw water from a convenient crater—the one most in use had a pair of German legs floating in it—and dose it liberally with creosote before putting it to ablutional use. The German Paratroopers in the town received only cold food, but we always did our best to give even the most forward troops hot food. So close were the enemy that when they smelled our frying bacon they invariably sent over a shower of grenades. Dealing with casualties was another headache, as they had to be kept till nightfall and included a high proportion of head injuries,10 so stores of blood plasma were kept and emergency operations were carried out in extremely difficult conditions.
Visits to the forward positions were an eerie and unpleasant experience, as it was necessary to walk on the lips of the bomb craters which adjoined each other in the manner of a honeycomb. At any moment the smoke might become a bit thin, and a slip into a crater sometimes occurred from which it was impossible to extricate oneself unaided. The actual positions were well covered by rubble and would stand a direct hit, though one company headquarters was in a horrible, claustrophobic place where it was impossible to sit upright, and section posts were liable to elimination by bazooka fire. Communication was difficult, as the Germans could and did tap in on telephone conversations. ("We know you. You are all gentlemen" was one example of a message from the other side.) The New Zealanders and the Welsh Guards got over this by conversing in Maori and Welsh respectively, resulting in a shower of pamphlets from the German side—in Hindustani! There were other forms of fun and games, too. On the occasion of Hitler's birthday (20th April) the Germans hung out a lot of large swastika flags in prominent places. The Welsh Guards had unearthed an oil painting of a Cassino worthy, possibly an ex-Mayor, to which they added a moustache and a lock of hair over the forehead. When hung up so as to be visible to our foes, this did not seem to amuse them and they promptly shot it down.
Living in these conditions was entirely without attraction and it was always with an extraordinary feeling of relief that one turned the corner and placed Monte Trocchio between oneself and the Monastery Hill, but it seemed to draw casual visitors like a magnet. On Easter Sunday two American soldiers drove up from Naples, parked their Jeep by the Bailey bridge and walked into the town in broad daylight. Both were rather drunk and they walked without attracting German attention to within shouting distance of our positions. As they stood rubbernecking and swaying slightly, a German fired a burst and nicked one of them across the back of his thighs. "When that happened I guessed I'd better scram!" he remarked afterwards, and amazingly they got away without being hit again or treading on a mine. It was the mines which in the end effectively discouraged most of the swanners, and, when the war had moved on, half a million mines were lifted in the town area alone.
The end came at last in May, when the ground had dried out sufficiently to allow armoured movement. The British on the left and the Poles on the right mounted an overwhelmingly powerful pincer movement which closed on the road west of Cassino and the enemy withdrew, still biting hard in rearguard actions. Rome fell a month later and our advance continued throughout the summer for some 300 miles, ending only when the central Apennines and the winter weather stopped us again for a further six months; but that is another story.
Cassino, so costly in human life and suffering, and thus deprived at the last of the full victory that would have made it worthwhile, was in the end little more than a victory of the human spirit; an elegy for the common soldier; a memorial to the definitive horror of war and the curiously perverse paradoxical nobility of battle.