Storm over German author’s account of Cassino battle

Press, 27 September 1982, Page 12

Storm over German author’s account of Cassino battle

NZPA Staff correspondent London

The controversy over the World War- II destruction of Monte Cassino. involving the late Lord Freyberg, has been revived with complaints that visitors to, the abbey are being sold an “overwhelmingly pro-German" account of its 1944 bombardment which disparages Freyberg and his New Zealand troops. “It is a really disgraceful thing," Mr John Canning, a London publisher, told NZPA.

“Thousands of people visiting the abbey are getting an entirely one-sided account.” Mr Canning, who recently visited the abbey at Monte Cassino, said the only book on sale there was “The Bombardment of Monte Cassino.” by a German-born professor,

Herbert Bloch, of Harvard University. Mr Canning accuses Professor Bloch of making a “bitter and unfair” attack on the Allied commander-in-chief, General Sir Harold Alexander, and two of his generals, Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg, commander of the New Zealand Corps, and Major-General Francis Tuker. commander of the 4th Indian Division.

Freyberg called for the bombing of Monte Cassino on Tuker’s advice and Alexander agreed, describing the action as "a military necessity."

The reason given for the bombing was that the Germans were thought to be occupying the abbey, although that turned out to be wrong.

Bloch, in his account of the abbey’s destruction, says the New Zealand corps commanders, “especially General Freyberg,” were “patently maladroit in military strategy.” • "Although they came into an. unfamiliar situation with no adequate preparation, they took control with unwonted arrogance," he say’s.

"No-one will ever dispute General Freyberg’s incredible personal bravery. He deserves every honour he received on those grounds and as an inspiring and beloved leader, of men. . “But he was not cut out to be a brilliant military tactician.”

Professor Bloch says the description of the New Zealand Division as “the great amateur division” was “only too woefully apt."

The intervention of the New Zealand Corps, commanded by Freyberg, proved to be a failure and “burdened the United States with an embarrassment which it never lived down: the bombardment of Monte Cassino." Professor Bloch says Freyberg “enthusiastically” accepted Tuker’s advice to bomb the monastery. He also says United States General Mark Clark (Commander of the United States sth Army) wrote to him in 1972:

"Freyberg insisted on the bombing and Alexander, reluctant to oppose him, asked me to do it. After much discussion and his insistence, I asked him to give me the orders in writing, which he did.”

Professor Bloch, commenting on the New Zealand war history account of the bombardment, written by Professor N. C. Phillips, later ViceChancellor of the University of Canterbury, says: “In what dilemma the New Zealand historian found himself in

trying to bridge the abyss be’tween the duties of the ‘patriot’ and the duties of the historian is shown by the extraordinary sentence: ‘Tactically the bombing was a necessity — and a necessity notwithstanding that it was an almost unmitigated failure’.”

Mr Canning, in a letter to "The Times” complaining about Professor Bloch’s book, said: "The author assumes that the Allies should have known or could easily have found out that the abbey was not occupied by the Germans at the time of the bombing, though not disputing that the latter’s defences were dug into the hill right up to the monastery walls.

"It is an assumption all too easy to make in hindsight and quite unjustifiable. “Even such an eagle-eyed airman as (United States General) Ira C. Eaker, flying a Piper Cub 500 feet above Monte Cassino, attested to seeing German troops entering and leaving the abbey.

“Moreover, in the mind of every Allied soldier at Cassino, enemy occupation of the monastery was a fact. Its monumental and all-pervad-ing presence became a symbol of German dominance of the battlefield.”

Mr Canning said no-one • disputed that the bombing of the abbey was a tragedy. “But to impute blame to one side only is both dishonest and unfair,” he said. "It blights the memory of the Commonwealth and Polish soldiers whose graves at the foot bf the monastery hill so movingly attest to their sacrifice. “The fact that thousands of people from all over the world are gaining their only knowledge of the battle from this publication must surely be a matter of concern to us.”

Mr Canning told NZPA:

“What is needed is for influential Catholic lay people to do something about the book at the monastery."

Support for Mr Canning's view on Professor Bloch’s book has come from an Oxford historian, Raleigh Trevelyan.

He said the book had caused distress to many Allied former servicemen who fought at Cassino and to the families of those who died there.

"Nearly two years ago representations were made to the Abbot through the Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country, but the latest information seems to be that the booklet will not be reprinted when this edition has been exhausted," he said in a letter to "The Times."

Canon David Stevens, a chaplain with the Royal Artillery at Cassino’, has disputed Mr Canning’s contention that Allied soldiers accepted without question the . presence of German troops in the monastery. "I remember vividly the opposite contention being maintained and hotly argued by soldiers of every rank,” he said.

Lord Alexander’s ' biographer, Nigel Nicolson, who was at Cassino, has described the bombing of the abbey as “a great error of judgment." He says it gave the Germans an excuse to occupy the ruins- which were far more defensible after the bombardment than before.

Mr Canning said Mr Nicolspn had written to him saying that any truthful account of: the bombing should mention these things. But Mr Canning commented: "The background is so complex that to apportion blame in the black-and-white manner of Mr Bloch is against the spirit of truth.”