CASSINO PICTURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 87, 13 April 1944, Page 6

CASSINO PICTURE

THEIR TURN TO REST

WELCOME WEEK OF QUIET

(N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.)

CASSINO FRONT, April 10.

It is early morning. Weary, unshaven men in dusty battledress, with rifles and machine-guns slung on their shoulders, are plodding in file along the roadside, through the last hours' of another week of intense oppressive battle for Cassino. A short time ago they were hunched in shallow cellars or crouched behind walls and heaps of rubble. Other troops, with their boots padded with sandbags, came quietly through the darkness to relieve them, and now these men, who have lived within grenade range of the German line for a week, are on the road back. They have crossed the worst part of the road—the river flat where the Germans have the bridges ranged with deadly accuracy, and where shells are likely to fall thick and fast at any minute of the day or night. Now every step takes them further from the overbearing shadow of Monte Cassino. For a week they have had the sheer heights of this great Gibraltar-like feature towering above them, and they are relieved to be away from it. Though carrying heavy equipment, they set a lively pace along the road. TIRED AND STRAINED. Sleepless nights and days spent hiding in low cellars have left the men tired and strained, and they say little about their experiences. As usual with men who have been very close to fighting, most of what they say is- praising somebody else—the New Zealand engineers who built and repaired bridges under intense shellfire, the stretcher-bearers who stumbled back through the darkness with the wounded. Even the company commander who has had the responsibility of holding part of this most important sector says little about the fighting. He jokes about a silver cup which he dug out from the rubble to give to the winner of the "Cassino Stakes," a race he organised with his- men on their way from the town across the valley. "I gave. them ten minutes' start, and then had to present the cup to myself," he said. Then he talks about playing cards at odd moments in Cassino and of dug-out supports he cut with 'a small hand-saw out of thick wooden beams from a ruined church. „ Leading one of his platoons is a young New Zealand lieutenant whose machine-gunners are credited with having killed at least twenty German reinforcements on their way into the line. His dug-outs faced the main highway at the enemy's end of Cassino. While he kept constant watch on the road with binoculars, his men sandbagged the machine-guns in and set them- on fixed lines on the route to one of the main German strongpoints, the Hotel dcs Roses. As soon as the platoon commander saw an enemy section coming up the road aIK these guns, including a captured German Spandau, fired on them. UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCES. Every man walking along this road has had a week of experiences he will never forget. Near the end of one file are two men who were guarding a shattered window a few days ago. Their sergeant, believing they were exposed to enemy fire, moved them and took their place. A few minutes later they saw him fall to a German sniper's bullet. There are others who saw stone walls crumbled by German anti-tank rockets, and felt the ground shake beneath, them as heavy shells from long-range guns crashed among the ruins. Then there is the ■ defiant group who determined to have their six-pounder anti-tank gun with them. Piece by piece they dragged it over the rubble, through gaps barely wide enough for themselves, and got it right up in the front line. There are men who have spent hours directing heavy shellfire landing amongst German strongpoints, often two hundred yards or less from them. All these incidents have been part of their every-day life, while they were hunted by snipers on the slopes above them in daylight and mortared and shelled in the darkness. They have just had to stay and take it and strike back as hard and often as they could. Their week is ended. For a short time there will be a rest, the luxury of hours of undisturbed sleep in blankets, with bodies and clothes washed among the trees behind the lmes. For others, a week in the battle of Cassino has begun. ,