Cassino - the Italian campaign

Cassino

The Division was to enjoy only a brief respite before being called upon to participate in a new attack on a strong point which would prove the most tragically elusive prize of the entire campaign for the New Zealanders. They now marched across to the other side of Italy to join the Allied forces massing before the town of Cassino.

The Germans' success in blunting the Allied offensive prompted an effort to push through the strategically pivotal Liri Valley and on to Rome. The problem was that the entrance to the valley was just over ten kilometres wide and was overlooked by the 500-metre high monastery of Monte Cassino. Augmented by the Germans' meticulous deployment of minefields, fortifications and flooding though demolition of stop-banks, Cassino was a defender's dream and an attacking army's nightmare. New Zealand involvement in this challenging task was in part due to the failure of the American 5 Army's attack on Anzio in a sea-borne attack intended to by-pass the German front line.

Temporarily heading a New Zealand Corps bolstered by the inclusion of the 4 Indian Division, Freyberg now steeled himself and his forces for the battle ahead. Desperate to minimise casualties, he requested a massive bombardment of the German defences to precede the assault by his troops. Approved by the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean himself, General Sir Harold Alexander, the subsequent aerial bombardment on 15 February laid waste the historic monastery and its environs. Controversy about this decision would persist long after the war was over. Tragically for the waiting New Zealand soldiers, most of the German defenders survived and exploited the ruins to create an even more formidable set of defences.

They nevertheless proceeded with the plan, which involved the Indian Division attacking Cassino from the north, while the New Zealanders were to attack the town from the south with the hope of punching an opening for the Allies into the Liri Valley. It fell to the 28 (Maori) Battalion to initiate the attack on the town's well-defended railway station on 17 February.

After one of the fiercest and costliest battles in the annals of this legendary unit, the Maoris seized positions in and around the station. But the equally courageous engineers behind them were thwarted in their efforts to clear a path through the flooded terrain for reinforcements. Without that much needed support the isolated Maori soldiers were forced to withdraw after a withering counter-attack by German infantry backed by tanks. It was the first of numerous bitter disappointments for the New Zealanders at Cassino.

A series of other brave but unsuccessful assaults ensued. After another heavy bombardment, New Zealand forces fought their way into the devastated town on 15 March. Once again, the Germans put up tenacious resistance from hidden positions in the maze of rubble that was once Cassino. After eight days of fighting, Freyberg decided the cost was proving too high and he ordered his troops to cease seeking to advance. Shortly afterwards in early April, the New Zealand Division withdrew from the Cassino area, having suffered almost 350 deaths and many more wounded.

Cassino did not eventually fall until May 1944 to British and Polish troops, with support from New Zealand artillery. The Gustav Line was finally breached. Allied forces entered Rome on 4 June, two days before D-Day. The success of the cross-channel invasion meant that the Italian campaign became an undeniably secondary theatre of operations, with seven Allied divisions redeployed to France in August 1944. The Italian campaign's main purpose was now to divert part of the German war effort and to tie down forces which might otherwise have been used to defend France and Germany itself.