On February 22 Alexander sent an appreciation, drafted by Harding, to the British Chiefs of Staff. He envisaged three possible outcomes of the current fighting. First, the Germans might be driven back to the Pisa–Rimini line; secondly, the Allies might achieve a junction with the 6th Corps but be held south of Rome; thirdly, and this was the most likely, a bridgehead would be obtained at Cassino but the Germans would remain in the Gustav Line. His response to that would be to fight a decisive battle in the spring, starting in April and culminating just before D-day for OVERLORD, then scheduled for May. With that in mind there should be a pause in the fighting until then to gather men and materials, regroup and train. The 6th Corps would play a vital role and both it and the main front would have to be reinforced. Consequently, he asked them to postpone a decision about the removal of landing craft and divisions destined for ANVIL until March 20. Then they should decide whether ANVIL was the operation that would serve OVERLORD best or if it would not be better to have a resounding victory over the Germans in Italy in the month preceding it that would require them to reinforce to prevent a débâcle. This carefully worded proposal was calculated to receive support everywhere, except in Washington.
On the same day as this proposal was despatched, Maitland Wilson had offered his appreciation of the situation and had come to a different conclusion. He envisaged the battle to reach the 6th Corps grinding on and suggested that Allied air power ought to be applied in a double-barrelled discharge to help the armies. The left barrel would give direct support to the armies and the right, by a concerted interdiction programme to prevent the Germans supplying their troops south of Rome, would give indirect support. The Germans would be forced to withdraw without the armies having to attack at all. Churchill pronounced Wilson’s paper “woolly”, for it offered nothing new or promising. The airmen, who would be responsible, were naturally enthusiastic, for it offered them a decisive role. Wilson and Clark and Alexander talked over matters on the 19th, and the two British commanders with Freyberg on the 20th. They heard about the outline plan for DICKENS and blessed the idea of a break-out towards Anzio and the use of strategic bombers. Their concern for Anzio still obsessed them. Three days later, though, everything there had changed. Wilson was behind the times in not realising it perhaps, hence the difference between Alexander’s and Wilson’s proposals on the 22nd.3
On February 26 Churchill, Roosevelt and the Combined Chiefs of Staff responded to Alexander, giving Italy complete priority in Allied resources in the Mediterranean, i.e. over ANVIL, for the time being. Eisenhower, busy with OVERLORD in London, had supported Alexander because he wanted a larger assaulting force on D-day and, consequently more landing craft. The landing craft would serve him better in the English Channel, before D-day and immediately afterwards, than in ferrying two divisions to southern France. Furthermore, a resounding victory in Italy just before OVERLORD, followed by a postponed ANVIL (if he found by then that he could spare the landing craft) was the best solution for him. After this response Alexander expected that he would get what he wanted for the spring battle and that would not be affected by ANVIL. Therefore he was able to make positive statements about his future plans at a conference of army commanders on the 26th. When Clark heard what Alexander had to say he complained in his diary that splitting his front by shifting the army boundary south to the Liri was a low blow. It was another step in the plot to take over the highway to Rome from his Fifth Army. He argued that one more attempt should be made to rescue the 6th Corps while his Fifth Army was still in control of the Liri valley; urging that the original DICKENS plan with its exploitation phase not be changed. He won his point. Freyberg was left with the exploitation role; by March 15 when DICKENS began, Alexander considered the 6th Corps so secure that he was urging Truscott to take Cisterna and Carroceto as springboards for the future offensive. Wilson, who changed his tune when he received Alexander’s proposal, accepted its premises and conclusions but insisted that the air element in his own proposal be retained.4
Freyberg also had made some conditions when he accepted Clark’s modifications to his plan. He would not attack at all unless the bombing took place and he would not allow his division to suffer more than 500 additional casualties.5 He also demanded that there be at least three consecutive fine days preceding the attack to allow the ground to dry for his advance into the Liri valley. Clark and Freyberg remained at odds about the aim of the operation, as did Clark and Harding. Freyberg went to see Harding confidentially on the 21st. Perhaps that visit led to Alexander’s letter to Freyberg on the 23rd, the day before the battle was originally intended to start. Alexander had to be careful not to interfere and this passage was as far as he could go to reassure Freyberg:
I put great store by this operation of yours. It must succeed as it is vital for us to gain control of the whole of the Monte Cassino spur and establish a bridge-head over the Rapido. If we cannot exploit this time, we must at least gain an exit into the plain for future operations when we launch our big offensive later – the all-out offensive to assist OVERLORD. I am quite prepared for you to employ the troops at your disposal which, of course, includes 78 Division.6
In this letter Alexander gave Freyberg the impression that the bridgehead was what mattered and not the break-out in the event that the larger aim adversely affected the lesser – as was clearly the case already. Furthermore he could use the 78th Division for either purpose.
When Freyberg held his conference with the airmen on February 21, Colonel Stephen Mack of the 12th Air Support Command warned him that the bombers could destroy the town in about three hours but that the infantry would only be able to advance with difficulty afterwards and that it would be impossible “to get tanks through the town for two days” because of debris. According to an officer who was present, General Freyberg “brushed aside” Mack’s statement. If it proved that our side could not use tanks, neither could the enemy, he is supposed to have said. Nevertheless he expected his own tanks to be through the town in six to twelve hours. Information filed about the effect of bombing on built-up areas, for instance by the Germans at Stalingrad and the British at Battipaglia, was not shown to Freyberg. However, his reason for using heavy bombers was that he expected it to save lives, that the Germans would be stunned and that his infantry would be on top of them before they recovered. There was no controversy about the use of the bombers, as there had been before AVENGER. (The lessons learnt from Cassino did not prevent the use of heavy bombers at Caen, in July 1944, with much the same results for the same reasons.)
A number of preliminary moves were required before February 24, the earliest date for DICKENS. The 5th Brigade had to be relieved on the heights, where its positions faced the Point 445 ridge, by battalions of the 7th and 11th Brigades. The Americans on Castellone were to be relieved by the French, and the 133rd Infantry by the 6th New Zealand Brigade which was to carry out the assault. However, heavy snow on the 23rd delayed reliefs in the mountains and the 5th Indian Brigade was not back in Caira until the 25th. The attempt to secure Point 445 had failed on the night of the 22nd. On the Caruso road the New Zealanders took over a narrow wedge at the base of the mountains. On the right they took over Point 175, across the ravine from the Germans in the Castle. The front ran away north-eastward on the left of Caruso road along Pasquale road. At the point of the wedge they held houses round the junction of these two roads and a parallel road.
The snow and rain which started to fall on the 23rd continued day after day until March 7. Although fine days followed, and the tracks became fit for the armour again, the Foggia airfields were so saturated that the bombers could not take off. But at last, on March 15, the bombers were ready and the operation could start. The delay had not improved the corps’ chances of success. Morale, raised to concert pitch by the prospect of immediate action, had sagged a little and the sickness rate, a good barometer, had risen. Security was imperilled because it was common knowledge that the town was to be bombed. Everyone had looked forward to the sp
ectacle in February, but by mid-March the show had been running too long. Then on March 2 General Kippenberger, the much-loved and respected divisional commander, was severely wounded. His place was taken by Brigadier G. B. Parkinson, commander of the 6th Brigade.
Only the artillerymen, who never rested even when the units which they supported did, were able to use the interval to good effect. Their observation officers stared out on the desolate scene, day after day, and leaped to phone and radio at the appearance of even a single German minding his own business in a back area. When the rare target of importance appeared, hundreds of shells converged upon it. The landscape was soon indistinguishable from the Somme or Passchendaele. The area from which the 71st Nebelwerfer Regiment fired its hated rockets was like a ploughed field with shell holes almost lip to lip. Most feared by the Germans were the observation planes which fluttered over the river line and pounced on any German gun which dared to fire. The choice of gun positions was so limited that it was difficult to escape their notice. British gunners, who remembered the siege of Tobruk in 1941 and the Fieseier Storch, nicknamed “The Baron”, which used to make their lives a misery, were glad that the tables had been turned. The German soldiers called the Air Observation Post “the orderly officer” because it flew up and down inspecting the front. One of poetic taste might have recalled a parody of Heine:
Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten
Das ich so traurig bin
Ein Aug das stets auf mich auf passt
Folg mir wo auch immer bin.*
The 7th Brigade was losing about sixty men a day from the steady shower of rifle grenades and mortar-bombs and from exposure. Their positions were still not as well-protected as the Germans’ and there were inadequate rear positions for reserves. Both sides fired propaganda pamphlets at each other recording the most depressing items of news, the German messages being printed in English and Urdu.
The isolation of the brigade was reduced a little by improvements to the track from Caira. By the time the battle began it was dignified by the name Cavendish Road and New Zealand engineers and Indian sappers had widened it until it was fit for tanks as far as a distribution point called Madras Circus. It was intended that a force of tanks should muscle up it, roll on between Castellone and the back of Snakeshead, go through the pass and surprise the defenders of Albaneta. From there a track led round behind Point 593 to the door of the Monastery.
The interval between AVENGER and DICKENS had been used to good effect by the 14th Panzer Corps to settle the 1st Parachute Division firmly in the Cassino sector, bringing Baade’s 90th Panzer Grenadiers into reserve behind the front, where they could rest and absorb reinforcement. Baade was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross on the 22nd. Heidrich, the new commander, had been more fortunate than his predecessor in being given time to organise the defence. As the forward positions were under fire much of the time it had not been possible to provide the men with underground shelters. But in a second line, immediately in the rear, good progress was made in shoring up caves and strengthening cellars with concrete. Supplies were stockpiled in the town and on Montecassino. It was assumed that the Via Casilina would no longer be usable during the coming battle and that supplies would have to be run into the town from the mountain and vice versa. As supply parties had suffered many casualties, alternative routes were found avoiding areas which Allied artillery harassed systematically. To prevent the New Zealanders penetrating the southern outskirts of the town Heidrich established a switch line in the area of the Baron’s Palace and the Roman Theatre. Medium machine guns and anti-tank guns were located there to prevent a thrust from the area of the station or the exploitation of a breakthrough in the town.
As usual, the Tenth Army had difficulty in determining what the Fifth Army intended. Wentzell had to make a search of prisoners’ documents in the hospitals, for not one prisoner had been brought in from Cassino, which was “enough to drive one round the bend”. German Intelligence could not discover the whereabouts of US 2nd Corps after its relief and on March 13 it was reported that the New Zealanders had been withdrawn from Cassino. An attack by the 15th Panzer Grenadiers on February 19, part of Kesselring’s orders to keep 15th Army Group in a state of unrest and to take prisoners, cost it over one hundred casualties, including thirty-five prisoners. Prisoners from the new US 88th Infantry Division had been taken near Minturno on March 8 but they were so stubbornly reticent that it was not until the 16th that their captors could confirm it. When the Fifth Army had still made no move on March 11, Kesselring decided to go on leave. Although his field officers were becoming steadily more bemused by the uncertainty which shrouded Allied dispositions on the southern front, he believed that nothing “big” was intended until the spring weather started.
The final plan for DICKENS, which began on March 15, was almost the same as the original one agreed by Clark and issued by Freyberg, on February 21. The troops would withdraw before dawn to a safety line 1,000 yards from Cassino and the bombing would last from 8.30 a.m. until midday. Five hundred aircraft, medium bombers beginning and ending the performance, would drop 1,000 tons of bombs on an area measuring 1,400 yards by 400. In the afternoon fighter-bombers would be on call to attack prearranged targets. H-hour for the New Zealanders was midday. A barrage, lifting one hundred yards every six minutes, would lead A and B Companies of the 25th Battalion of the 6th Brigade through the northern part of the town to the line of Highway No. 6. On the right, D Company would advance from Point 175 to seize Castle Hill as a jumping-off point for the 5th Indian Brigade’s operation on the hillside above the town. The tanks of the 19th Armoured Regiment would give close support to the 25th Battalion; the 5th New Zealand Brigade and CC“B” of the 1st Armored Division would fire into the town from the left flank. The first phase was to be completed by 2 p.m. By that time the 1st/4th Essex Regiment of the 5th Indian Brigade would relieve D Company on Castle Hill.
In the second phase the 6th Brigade would continue southward to the Baron’s Palace where Highway No. 6 turns west round the foot of Monastery Hill. On the left they would take the station and the area of the hillock and then advance astride the Gari and its tributaries. Meanwhile, the 5th Indian Brigade would advance across and up the face of Monastery Hill to capture Point 435, called Hangman’s Hill. The 7th Indian Brigade would demonstrate against the north side of the Monastery and take advantage of any German weakness. During the night of March 15 New Zealand and American engineers would bridge the river on both the railway and the Highway No. 6 entries to the town from the east. The 5th New Zealand Brigade would take over the station area and the tanks of CC“B” and the rest of the New Zealand armour would move into the bridgehead ready to exploit.
By the end of the first night the Indians should have seized the Monastery, but whether or not they had done so the exploitation phase into the Liri valley would begin at first light. In conjunction with the attack against the front of the Monastery a mixed force of American and New Zealand armour under the 7th Indian Brigade Reconnaissance Squadron was to advance from Madras Circus at first light on the 16th and arrive at the west side of the Monastery in time to support the 5th Indian Brigade’s assault from the east.
The artillery fire-plan was on an enormous scale. A variety of unusual participants, including three Italian-manned railway guns and a few others which were supernumerary and were generally referred to as “Bush Arty”, brought the total number of guns employed to about 900. The programme called for 1,200 tons of high explosive to be fired at the objectives and known hostile batteries in four hours. Although four or five tons of explosive had been allowed for every German defender, it was realised that this would not ensure success. While those in the town might succumb, the garrison of strongpoints further back had better shelters and might recover before the attacking infantry were upon them. There was also a danger that when the advanced sub-units withdrew beyond the bombline, the defenders would infiltrate forward into their vacant positions. The narrow front of the advance,
which was overlooked from the hillside, prevented rapid and simultaneous engagement of the defenders who might have time to seal off the penetration. Finally the bombing might destroy all landmarks, and the rubble make the town impassable to tanks while it provided the surviving defenders with a continuous belt of concealed fire positions.
The bombardment was watched from Cervaro by Freyberg, Alexander, Clark and Lieutenant-General Ira C. Eaker. Tight formations of medium bombers were followed by more ragged ones of heavies. Half of the bombs landed on the target; most of the others fell outside because the dust and smoke obliterated the target from the sight of bomb-aimers. Those which fell as far away as Allied gun areas, transport lines and even on a hospital were less excusable. One complete group of heavies bombed Venafro which was over ten miles from Cassino. One hundred and forty civilians were killed or wounded. In terms of casualties the Germans suffered less than the Allies and civilians. As the last mediums droned away, Cassino was apparently laid waste. Not a building remained intact. Here and there a ruin remained unsteadily erect above what was now a shingle heap of rubble. When the guns opened up many of them subsided too.
Tug of War Page 25
