|
A showcase of some of the most significant as well as some of the quirkier stories broadcast by BBC News in World War II.
HOW TO SUBMIT A STORY/PHOTOS:
Please attach your story, in Word or Text format, to your email and we'll get it online as soon as possible. Please provide information about the author, (Location, date, unit information and photographer if photos are included.)
Posting your photos is very important so please send in as many as you can. You can send in your photos by email or snail mail but we cannot return the latter. Captions: In your email, write a brief caption about each photo, linking it to the number of the photo.
Name, Rank, Base(s) and Squadron(s), and year(s) of the story and photos should always be listed.
Click here to submit a story & photos
|
|
The Battle of Monte Cassino |
|
News / Articles _______________________________
Last Updated: 25/04/2008
The meaning of the difensive battle in Italy Last Updated: 25/04/2008
Last Updated: 18/04/2008
Last Updated: 01/04/2008
Last Updated: 24/03/2008
Last Updated: 23/03/2008
Last Updated: 23/03/2008
Was the Italian Campaign worth it? Last Updated: 23/03/2008
Honour sought for 'Soldier Bear' Last Updated: 25/01/2008
Veterans Remember Monte Cassino Last Updated: 17/05/2004
British Memories of Monte Cassino Last Updated: 13/02/2004
Last Updated: 13/02/2004
Battle of Monte Cassino Photos - 7 Last Updated: 24/03/2008
Battle of Monte Cassino Photos - 6 Last Updated: 24/03/2008
Battle of Monte Cassino Photos - 5 Last Updated: 24/03/2008
Battle of Monte Cassino Photos - 4 Last Updated: 24/03/2008
Battle of Monte Cassino Photos - 3 Last Updated: 24/03/2008
Battle of Monte Cassino Photos - 2 Last Updated: 24/03/2008
Battle of Monte Cassino Photos - 1 Last Updated: 24/03/2008 |
|
Few people today realize that British and American soldiers fought in a battle that compares to Stalingrad for human suffering. The Battle of Monte Cassino was a mini-war within World War II. It was Europe’s largest land battle and was fought over six months with over 300,000 casualties.
The Monte Cassino Experience Project is an ongoing educational project designed to collect and disseminate the personal experiences of those who fought in the Battle of Monte Cassino in a short-story format. Our intention is to build a collection of personal accounts of the battle from all sides thus remembering and honoring them. These stories will find a permanent home on the pages of this website so, we invite all veterans and civilians who served to contribute. |
|
Testimonials
Leonard Dziabas - 88th Infantry Division You couldn't get away from it, no matter where you were or where you went the monastery was right there looking at you.It looked like a great big eye, you couldn't get away from it no matter where you were or where you went, the monastery was right there looking at you. It was like the landscape of the Moon. The trees were shredded, no leaves, no foliage of any kind it was very desolate and very eerie looking.
Colonel Harwant Singh - 8th Indian Division We were close up with the Germans and there was almost a hand to hand fight. There was a hand grenade thrown. It burst near me and I was hit in the forearm but I carried on after tying some bandages. Then I was hit in the back. It was difficult to figure out just where I was hit. Then I was hit on the side and on the neck, so I was injured in three places. Anyway, I did not realize all this. I was encouraging my boys, and they were encouraging me as well.
Sergeant Carl Storm - 36th (Texas) Infantry Division We had no idea how horrendous the situation could be, how deadly. They had strung barbed wire on the German side of the river, they had dug entrenchments, set up machine-gun nests and positions, they had mined everything on both sides. There was no place for us to hide, everything was wide open. We recognized that this would not be an easy task, so we just cut cards for it... I lost, and had to lead the attack. My orders were to take my platoon of 36 men half a mile down a sunken road and attempt to cross the swollen Rapido (Gari) River. At 11pm we set out. I was up in front of them. You couldn't see much because it was foggy and pitch dark and as I turned around and looked back, two German shells came in and they hit right in my platoon. My entire platoon except my runner and myself were killed or wounded. Immediately, artillery fire started coming in on us, mortar fire and the ground just shook and one of my men all of a sudden yelled at me "Sarge, so & so just got killed, he got a bullet through his forehead". A sniper had got him. It was a perfect defense setup. We started to launch the boats, and then we found out that some of them had holes in them. We were overloaded with grenades and ammunition so our men had extra weight on them and some of them just drowned.
Josef Klein - Officer 1st Division Fallschirmjäger When a building is intact, it is very difficult to remain undetected, but when a building has been bombed, you have excellent cover. So when the Indians attacked, they were lost before they even started. The Allied commanders didn't do themselves a favor with the bombardment of the abbey, and even more so in the city because there they forced the men into close combat. We were Fallschirmjaeger, we were trained in close combat. I remember a very young Englishman, he was from the Essex Regiment, suddenly he was standing in front of me, not even a yard away and he reached for his weapon, and when he reached for it, I had to shoot him. I felt sorry for him. It was a crime of the Allied generals to force these men up this hill... it was a crime. We could have stoned them to death. They bled to death. We heard them cying, it was terrible. To shoot at these men was hard, it wasn't easy, but in that situation it was them or us.
Bill Hawkins - Corporal 1/4th Essex Regiment - Castle Hill The New Zealanders who had attacked the castle, they'd laid white tape on the ground and we were to follow these white tapes to take us up to the castle. It was at night and the only time you could see these white tapes was when the gun flashes and the explosions lit up the tape. You'd follow the tape, but then you'd come to a dead end because the shells had cut the tapes and they were useless. So, you was going in the darkness, more or less, except for the flashes. After a four hour climb we looked for shelter in the ruins of the castle. There was a slot in the stonework and a sniper was on the other side there somewhere, he had gotten a bee line through there and as soon as he saw a movement through there, there was a shot. They seemed to be everywhere, the bullets seemed to be coming from all over the place at times. One of the Bren gunners was in a pit on my left, and one of the German stick grenades came in and I ended in his pit. He put his Bren gun down, picked up the grenade and he got up and threw it out. He done two, but the third one, he just wasn't quick enough. All the fire had stopped and the Germans were coming in and taking the wounded back and all this sort of thing, it was unbelievable.
Ken Bond - 1/4th Essex Regiment It was rocky terrain to the left and a fall away to nothingness on your right. More than one of our chaps slid and fell over the side, you never saw him again. It was so sheer. They bombed the town so much that it destroyed all the roads and the New Zelanders could not get their tanks forward. They just couldn't move for the amount of bomb craters. The officer that was with us, he was there right by me and I think he got killed more or less straight away. The Germans came down between us and the castle, and of course they were the best German troops that they had and it was a shamble, a hell of a shamble. The screaming and the wailing was unbelievable. A place of slaughter is the very word I use it myself many a time, a place of slaughter, outright slaughter.
Josef Klein - Officer 1st Division Fallschirmjäger We couldn't believe it. Not the monastery! It was inconceivable to the monks too. They said "They'll never bomb the monastery." But they did. Of course our positions were under fire all day, as was the monastery or what remained of it. They didn't know exactly where the paratroopers were so they simply blasted away at what remained of the walls.
Adolf Kardinal - 15th Polish Lancers We lost our country because of the Germans and by beating the Germans now, we would regain our freedom and our country. When the bombardment started, we were sitting in the bunker, and we came out to watch the artillery bombardment and it looked like a lit up Christmas tree. And we cheered and shouted at that view. We advanced on Monte Cassino and there was bitter resistance with machine gun fire coming in from every direction. We couldn't even fire back because we were not prepared for it. I saw a German shooting at me and laughing from the top of his bunker. He was laughing and firing his machine gun. On the left there were three friends of mine and they were shouting at me to roll over otherwise you'll get killed, so I did. The chap on my left, rolled over in my place and at that moment a mortar round landed right on his back and exploded. You see your friends being killed in front of your eyes and there's nothing you can do about it. We heard the bugle playing and we knew that we achieved something when we saw the Americans going to Rome on that road. We were very proud.
Bradford A. Evans - B-17 Pilot The order that they gave me was to lead the bombing of the monastery and to reduce it to rubble. Our intelligence officers said that it was occupied by the Germans. Just as soon as the bombs had dropped I left the cockpit and went back to the bomb bay doors to observe the impact of the bombs.
Thomas Lindhall - US Bomber Pilot In the initial briefings they said that if anyone had any feelings about going against this religious target they would be excused from taking this mission without any prejudice. It was deemed at a much higher level of authority to be a necessary target so I just took it as I would have any other target.
Franz Schulz - Officer 1st Division Fallschirmjäger No German soldier ever set foot in the monastry. Only one member of our battallion ever went up there, the battalion doctor who was called in a few times to treat women and children.
Luigi Proll - Italian Soldier The sky turned black with flying fortresses. They practically hid the sun. They flew over the abbey and dropped their bombs. They felt that they were the liberators of Europe, the champions of democracy, and they were. The defenders of Democracy against genocide and all the other deeds. Not against the Germans, that's another matter, but against the Nazi-Fascists.
Viola Annunziata - Refugee The first bombs fell next to the church. It was crowded with people and many people were killed there. Very few people left during the night when the shooting had stopped so that the people could leave, but hardly anyone left, no one believed it would happen. We stayed there. The husband of the lady who was with us said "Are you crazy to stand around here? Come I'll take you to a safer place." He took us to St. Benedict's cell and we were saved. We just prayed. From morning till night we did nothing but pray.
Douglas Lyne - Royal Artillery Down came 500 tons of bombs on the mother of monasteries, foundation home of Benedictine Christendom and bang went about 1500 years of history. By destroying a building of that kind you make it much more easily defensible and the Fallschirmjäger were much more dangerous in the ruins than they would have been in the standing building.
Cardinal Agustin Mayer Monte Cassino's motto was Pax. This monastery especially dedicated to peace, this cultural monument, played a major role in the building of the Christian West. It's senseless destruction by the machinery of war was hard to bear. There was an agreement mediated by Pius XII, with the German army that an area within a 300 meter radius of the monastery was off limits for German soldiers and no soldier bearing arms was allowed in the monastery.
Werner Issmer - 1st Division Fallschirmjäger Whoever held Cassino, controlled the road to Rome. The Via Casilina was the road that lead to Rome. There was no other way for soldiers with heavy guns and vehicles to get through to Rome. The Allies wanted to be in Rome by autumn 1943. That's why Cassino was so important and so fought over.
Antonio Ferraro - Refugee I wasn't overly concerned at the time, but I was worried about what was going to happen. Taking away the treasures meant that Monte Cassino was fair game. That's the way I saw it. I lay on my back on the ground, looking at Monte Cassino. All of a sudden, the heavens darkened. I rather not remember, it was a bad time.
Morris Courington - 36th (Texas) Infantry Division We expected to loose people but, not that way. We tried about four or five times to get people up the cliff to the monastery. We didn't have time to mourn the dead, we had to keep moving. There was another river, another hill... we had to keep moving, so you go back on a tour many years later and go to the cemetery and you cry the tears that you couldn't cry then. I never saw one tear shed by any of our soldiers. I guess it was a silly macho thing of our generation, and now that we're old we cry too much... and it comes easy, and we still sometimes try to suppress the tears, but they're there.
Fred Atwood - British Soldier When you look at it, you're down there and that thing's up there on the cealing looking down on us. You're not going to tell me that there's nobody in there, because their shelling was so accurate, the mortaring was so accurate and the gunfire was so accurate. Now when you're flat on the ground, it's not so accurate.
Doon Campbell - War Correspondent Never in my experience of war, in six different theatres, have I seen anything as spectacular, as mind boggling, as dramatic as that impregnable position of Monte Cassino. It's academic to my mind whether there were any Germans actually occupying Monte Cassino or not because it's value was observation, and in war if you have got a position like that, 1700 feet high, one man can direct fire all around the place.
Tony Edwards - 1/4th Essex Regiment You were living against the monastery, it overtook your life because that was the thing that surrounded everything. After a while, wishes and dreams did not exist, because you used to live hour to hour and day to day. The bombing of the town of Cassino was another mistake, because when it came to attacking the town of Cassino the tanks could not get over the bomb craters and the town of Cassino was one mass of ruins. The Germans used the ruins as an advantage to fire back at the New Zealanders. The fight for Cassino must have been one of the most bitter fighting of the Second World War. Reminiscent of the First World War which was bayonet to bayonet and rifle to rifle.
Antonio Velardo - Refugee It was the last thing that anyone would think of, that that place would be destroyed. Not only was it a centre of Christianity, but it was also a refuge from the war. Because everyone thought "We'll stay here, the front will pass us and we'll return to our homes." I was in my mother's arms and those who... mothers, fathers, young, old, who wandered aimlessly... actually there were people who were wandering about unaware of what they were doing. Obviously, the people in the abbey lost control of themselves. They no longer knew what they were doing. They even ran under the bombs out of sheer desperation.
Gene Jameson - 36th (Texas) Infantry Division Gosh, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombers flew over and we stood up in our foxholes cheering like we were at a football game.
Helmut Ronnefarth - 1st Division Fallschirmjäger We occupied the hilltop and the monastry, they made a bad swap. Before, it wasn't defended. After the bombing, it was.
Wilhelm Prinz - 1st Division Fallschirmjäger We had one man who'd been in France and at Stalingrad. He'd seen it all and he said "This is dreadful. I'd rather be in Russia than face this fire. You can't even lift your head." Such massive superiority in terms of materiel had never been known before.
Josef Wojtecki - 2nd Polish Corps For us it wasn't just war. It was war fighting for the liberation. And about an hour later, I think it was 11 o'clock, they said "The monastery is captured." But we weren't interested. It wasn't important for us. I'm just a soldier so in our position… The monastery was captured, and we just wanted to go and see where our friends were dying.
Major General Eustace De Souza - 8th Indian Division All our troops were seasoned battle veterans. We had fought against Rommel so we were not raw troops. Therefore we were not used as cannon fodder because we could complete any task assigned to us.
Ryszard Kirakowski - Polish Carpathian Regiment The Germans opened fire and threw at us everything that they had, artillery machine guns everything. It was like being in the middle of lightning. It's difficult to describe, nobody wants to remember shouts and shooting and killing. It's something dreadful, it's something that you do because you have to do it otherwise they will do it to you, but it's not pleasant when you are killing someone. I remember when a German tried to throw a grenade at me and I shot him first. He then fell over his grenade, it exploded and I was all covered in his blood. I still have nightmares about that episode but it was necessary.
Edward Grace - Lieutenant Gordon Highlanders It was unbelievable. It was always raining or snowing, or sleeting one was permanently sopping wet. And then the machine gun bullets sweeping over one's head and sometimes of course not always over the head. We lost a lot of men.
From the diary of Major General Fred Walker - 36th Infantry division (Texas) We might succeede (Rapido Crossings), but I don't see how we can. The crossing is dominated by hights on both sides of the valley where German observers are ready. Clark sent me his best wishes, I think he is worried over the fact that he made an unwise decision.
Company commander - 36th Infantry division (Texas) I could hear the paddles slapping the water and then the men yelling when the boat turned over. It curdled your blood to hear those men drown. I had 184 men, 48 hours later I had 17. If that is not mass murder, I don't know what is. |
