Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino, one of the major battles of the Second World War. My dad, a private in the Medical Corps, saw action at Cassino and described the experience in the unpublished war memoir, Memoirs of a Non-Combatant, he wrote in the 1980s. Below is an extract from this section of the manuscript, a tale of bleak horror and endurance with little room for my dad’s characteristic dark humour.
“Back to Venafro for a few days’ rest, then to Cassino. It had been bombed and shelled continuously for two months and the Germans still held it, or at least what was left of it. The town itself was razed to the ground, the front line positions being in tunnels and basements, and nobody at all ventured above ground in daylight. The hill behind the town, on which the monastery was situated, stood out a mile and you could see the bombs and shells falling but the Jerries didn’t suffer many casualties from them as they just drew back into their caves and tunnels. The hill behind the monastery was one of the main factors: ‘Mount Cairo’, where the Jerry observation posts could see for miles.
There were two positions halfway up to the monastery, which everybody nearly passed out with fear when their turn came to go there, at least I did: ‘Hangman’s Hill’ and ‘Castle Hill’. You only stayed there for twenty-four hours as you were under constant attack and just getting there and back was a feat in itself. But with a casualty tied to a stretcher in the pitch black it was horrific. Actually we didn’t mind so much once we were in Cassino because you hardly ventured out and there were plenty of hiding places, but it was getting in and out that was worrying.
As soon as it got dark four of us would creep up to what remained of the bridge. The regular bridge over the Savio had been blown months ago and the only way into town was the remains of a Bailey bridge. If you went over normally you’d just climb over the girders into the water and climb out again, but with the wounded that was again very difficult.
As I said, we’d got to the beginning of the bridge at sunset. As soon as word came that there had been casualties, we’d get to the other side, pick up the casualties on a stretcher and make our way to the bridge. Now came the very nasty and tricky bit. Jerry knew that someone would have to use the bridge and they had fixed up a Spandau machine gun with fixed sights, which triggered a burst of gunfire about every eighteen seconds. As the bridge consisted of one girder about six to eight inches wide, we’d carry the stretcher to the edge of the girder and wait for the m/g to fire. As soon as it finished, we knew we had eighteen seconds to get to the other side. Just putting one foot in front of the other and feeling for the edge was one thing, but the weight of a man on a stretcher, and not knowing if the other bearer was keeping step with you, was the most worrying.
I suppose we were at Cassino for about three weeks before we were pulled out for a rest. The usual delousing, showering and change of clothes until we went into Cassino again, this time for the big one.
It was the beginning of May. The two companies went forward to cross the Savio with the infantry, but some of us stayed with HQ about a mile behind and formed a main dressing station. The biggest artillery barrage of the war started at midnight. We began to get the first casualties about two hours afterwards and they came non-stop until someone relieved us about seven hours later.
One incident I remember well. A German officer, wounded in both legs, had to be carried piggyback about a hundred yards. I felt a very hard object pressing into my back, but as they had all been searched for arms I had no reason to think anything of it. Suddenly I stepped into a mortar hole, dropped the German and fell on top of him. At which he screamed ‘Gott in Himmel!’ and shouted a mouthful of German swear words before I managed to get him up and carried him to the ambulance, at which point I realised that the hard object was missing. I searched the mortar hole afterwards and found a Luger pistol with ammo which he had stuffed in his shirt but, after the incident in the mortar hole, decided to get rid of. I eventually sold the Luger to some Canadians for thirty pounds.
After we’d had a couple of hours’ sleep we made our way towards Cassino to relieve A Company, who’d had a direct hit and lost a lot of men killed and wounded. The next five or six days were bloody hell. In every battlefront that I was in before and after Cassino, although it was grim and frightening, there would always be something funny that someone would say or do, either by accident or design, but not at Cassino. In fact there were things happening there that I’d prefer not to recall.
One that made me feel ill was after we had relieved A Company when we went forward to take over a small house right on the river bank. Inside was a dead German soldier who had obviously died of his wounds. Having experienced this sort of thing before, we quite rightly guessed that he had been booby-trapped. One brave soul lay down and lifted his ankle about an inch off the ground while we passed a rope around it. A Bren carrier backed in and tied the rope to a chain. We then retreated into a shell hole and waited.
The Bren carrier moved him about two feet before the booby trap went off. We immediately hit the deck and were covered with debris and earth. When I opened my eyes, the poor guy’s leg, with part of the rope still attached, was lying across my back. As I pushed it off I discovered that I had been lying right on top of another German, who was lying face upwards but had been squashed into the ground by a tank. I was promptly sick, the first and only time.
Lt. Manchello was killed soon after and a sergeant was killed by a shell burst. Three of the lads were badly wounded and crying for help. Yes, the badly wounded really did cry and scream, not as the war films would have you believe, and we tried time and again to get to them but, because of the heavy fighting, could get nowhere near them.
Suddenly our CO appeared and wanted to know why the bloody hell we weren’t going in after the men. We told him it was suicide to go in there, at which he said ‘Rubbish. Follow me,’ and off he marched, stick under his arm as though he was on parade. We followed, though not feeling so confident as him, until he was stopped by a German officer who, pointing his revolver at his head, told him that we were all prisoners.
‘Get out of my bloody way, I have three wounded men in there and I’m taking them back.’
He actually pushed the German out of the way. Suddenly I noticed that all firing in the immediate area had stopped and the only sounds I could hear were my knees knocking and my heart pounding. I think all attention was on the duel between the CO and the Jerry officer.
‘Pick those men up and get them back,’ roared the CO, which we promptly did.
I believe he received the MC for that. Eventually we were relieved by the 8th Indian Division and so ended for us the worst five days of the war.
We went back to Piedmont for a few days, a clean-up, kitted out, fed after a fashion and then on the search for wine, women and song. Geordie didn’t care much for women or singing, just vino. I preferred women first, then wine – the singing could take care of itself.”
Robert Grossmith 