PLANES AND HEAVY GUNS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 121, 17 February 1944, Page 5

PLANES AND HEAVY GUNS

Monastery Blasted For

Hours

ALMOST DESTROYED (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.— Copyright.)

LONDON. February 16. Following the heavv .bombardment of the monastery on Mount Cassino by Allied bombers and heavy zuns vesterday, iphotogranhic reconnaissance shows that it is almost destroyed. . Today’s communique says there is nothing to report from the main l<uth Army front and the beach-head other than artillery and patrols, while all is quiet on the Eighth Army frontAllied headquarters has announced that more than 50 American planes, without loss dive-bombed Rome’s railway yards yesterday, find left them burning and covered with smoke. According to the Rome radio the raid was made by several waves of British and American four-engmed bombers, which droppe.d many bombs on residential quarters, causing great damage in the centre and outskirts of the city. Entire buildings collapsed, with many casualties. German fighter squadrons' firm the airfields around Rome engaged the raiders in violent combats. The radio added that between one attacking wave and another three Vatican cars, .carrying very high personalities, including the Pope’s nephew. Prince Pacelli, and Marquess Pacetti, first courier ot the Holy See, visited the bombed areas. Their cars on the return journey were attacked by machinegun fire.. The Vatican party was forced to take shelter. A large bomb a few seconds later fell near the shelter, damaging nearby houses. Open City Not Violated.

The Allies yesterday for the first time dive-bombed Rome, but it was not a violation of an open city, says Reuters correspondent at an advanced airfield in Italy. It was a precision attack to smash goods sidings on the outskirts of the city where the Germans marshall supplies for the front. , . Technically it might be considered that the goods yards mark the boundary of the city proper. Certainly we took no chances. I attended the briefing of the young American pilots from one of the squadrons sent on this tricky mission. It was agreed that, though it might be more dangerous, the attackers should make an approach bringing them from their dive on a course away from the city. Then there would be no danger of delayed bombs falling near the tity, while if the bombs dropped too early they would hit the sidings. Flaviobondo was equally a military objective. When the pilots returned they confirmed one another’s reports that 19 bombs hit the railway and the twentieth fell well away from the city across the Tiber, so that historic buildings remained untouched. Pilots reported that at least eight bombs hit a collection of 200 rail-, way Vucks in the siding. There is ample justification for our bejief that the Germans are using the' protection of the open city for military purposes.

TERRIFIC ATTACK

Bombardment Lasts For : Hours

LONDON, February 15. A hundred Flying Fortresses struck, at the Cassino monastery in four waves, says the British United Press correspondent with the Fifth Army. -Heavy bombs demolished a small dome. Alternating in powerful two-way attacks. Allied bombers and big guns blasted the monastery for hours, says Reuter’s correspondent. The troops in Cassino, who for 12 days have 'been held up by the building, had a grandstand view o-f its destruction. They saw fourengined bombers and guns and then bombers again crushing this cradle of the Benedictine Order with direct hits, and also at least 500 Germans run from their smoking fortress to be raked by artillery. The shattering of the -monastery was terrifying, spectacular, and dramatic. Heavy, bombers attacked first, and medium bombers followed up. Both struck in three waves. The first wave of 30 heavies dropped 1000-pound bombs. The first bomb hit the left-hand corner of the monastery, and the explosion rocked our observation post tw r o miles away. It was the prelude to one of the most intense attacks of the war against a pin-point target. iStick after stick of bombs rained down, while flames spurted and clouds of yellow dust shot up. The whole monastery began to shake and quiver and then to®disintegrate. Nine direct hits were counted, and when the dust subsided the steeple had gone. Then more bombs fell and a big gap appeared in the eastern wall. Clouds of smoke billowed from the building. Artillery. after the first wave of heavy bonibers had passed over, took, up the attack and pumped shells into the monastery as the Germans scrambled from the shattered walls. There was no sign of Italian civilians or black-robed friars. For nearly a month the Fifth Army has given immunity to the monastery, though the Nazis had converted it into a fortress and observation post. The sparing of the. famous religious monument has seriously impeded the Allied attack on Cassino. 'The Germans recently used mortars and machineguns from the monastery itself, and also constructed pillboxes under the walls, thereby transforming it into a fortress.