THE SHELLED ROAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 82, 4 October 1944, Page 6

THE SHELLED ROAD

A SOLDIER'S STORY

"WE WERE PRETTY LUCKY"

It is the big battle that makes the news, but the soldier experiences the full trials of warfare in-events which are' not even battles on a small scale.. In this extract from a soldier's" letter, handed to "The Post" by a relative, is a graphic story which brings to the civilian a Tealisation of the war as it comes to the individual, and of the duty that the civilians at home have .to give thei utmost help to the Victory ~ Loan , and war savings. • So Bruce says (and he should know . after three years of it), "For God's sake' look after yourself." Well, we do' that au right as far as we can, but the trouble is that old Jerry is not always so solicitous over our welfare. He got stuck into us again the other day when we had to moye up in daylight, under - observation from hills which ran. up to six thousand feet. We had to go up a very narrow road, where there wasnt room to pass, and it meant that 1 had to get my whole six trucks up - , £ e x only- Place where a. vehicle could turn, before I could send any of them back. Jerry having just previously been pushed off this piece- of ground, knew all about the turn point, and waited till all the trucks were bunched there ... and then opened up. We were all standing round when an , 88 came in with the long hiss it makes, like boiler steam from a safety valve. It whanged into a wheat patch about two hundred yards away and was quickly followed by two more. The guns then shifted to the right and beyond and sent three more: whistling over our heads to explode about three hundred yards past us. Then he dropped the range and went to town on us properly. One driver got his truck out, but the other five, all our unloaded gear. and most of the platoon, were caught on the narrow road and all within the compass of fifty yards or so. Everyone went flat behind the trucks, ammunition, and a Honey tank which' was fortunately parked against the bank. There were a couple of layers of chaps against the tank when I got-there, and I felt as though I were sticking out a mile. DIRECT HITS. The shells screamed in as fast as three guns could put them over, and to give the Hun his due ... his shooting was hellish accurate. He actually landed about eight on the road itself. One of the gunners was the first hit, a piece going into his thigh. Then one landed about five feet from another chap, driving splinters into him from heel to head. He just lived long enough to say, "I've had it," and then collapsed. I could see that if we stayed there v long enough, Jerry would get half the chaps, so I began sending them one or two at a time up the spur behind and into a nearby house. Two more-lads were wounded on the way over, airid the chap alongside of me got up >to run when a shell burst right. in front of him and about' ten feet from me. I thought, well, this is it for both of us, but by some miracle he was unscathed and I got away with it , too. A piece of shxap. cut a groove ,in my belt, another cut half through -the strap of the scope over my shoulder, aind.a third splinter whanged into my boot, .stopping under the arch of my foot. .;. ~l_must have been holding my mouth jusit right! The poor old,.truck's.,.were a sorry sight after the show was'over, and'displayed great ferits^ ..in- 'thenHjiodies, tyres, and canopies, while "petrol cascaded from the riddled tanks/butwe were pretty lucky really, and. as'we have got away with these things befpre, we will no doubt do it again. CASSINO REVISITED. A little time-back I took my truck down to have another look at Cassino . . .. you may remember I told you' I was in this show and witnessed its bombing and ultimate destruction. . . . Well, except for the fact that Highway 6 had been cleared through the town, and the perimeters wired off, and notices erected - f warning , the men against mines, and booby ' traps, the town was much the same as it was three months ago. Even so soon, however, it had the look of an old battlefield. The rims of the craters on the outskirts were overgrown with weeds, ■ and poppies and daisies were growing about the place.; The crater pools were green with a slimy scum and the weeds were the only living things left ..there. Not even a bird, a frog, or- a: lfzard was to be seen, and. §yeK'"insects were noticeably absent except for the. burying beetle^'" The silence hanging over the place was now almost eerie by contrast with its former crashing echoes; and to be able to stand" up in its xiiihs was, in itself, a revelation. Evgn: then, when clambering through the, ruins, the eye was instinctively searching for pieces of cover to dive for, just' in case one heard the warning whistle of a shell. A few tottering ' walls remain, .but most of the town-is just a flattened' chaos of stone ahd rubble, scattered beams, and twisted broken girders, . all going to form a grotesque and hideous pattern, carved by the power of our high-explosive shells. * • Even knowing the frightful devastation which is being wrought.on German cities, one finds it hard to feel pity for the people who dwell there. The . Huns are rats, now fighting from a corner, and like rats they will be hunted down and their intolerable arrogant and ruthless spirit destroyed. I: doubt if Cassino or the v Monastery will ever be rebuilt. They are their own graveyard. Perhaps one day ere long, the Italians will probably fence them off and charge the passing tourist for the privilege of seeing this : place, where so many hundreds of New Zealand's and the Empire's sons paid, with their lives, the price of victory. " But it will not be the tourist, but rather we who may survive the battles yet to come, who can ever truly gauge the price the dead or the living have paid for that victory, or measure its cost in terms of tears, endurance, and unbelievable human suffering, or the cold magnificent: courage of New Zealand's priceless youth.