BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22586, 15 March 1948, Page 4

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!

CHRONICLE OF A FAILURE AT CASSINO AIR ATTACK ON FORTRESS A MISTAKE (Written for The Hernld by R. Jones) This is a chronicle of the Ides of March—the story of a great failure and a high purpose, butchered to make a chattering magpie’s holiday, ana sacrificed to consuming curiosity about the value of concentrated high level bombing as a supporting arm for a ground assault on a fortress. Tt happened four years ago today before the gates of historic Cnssino in Italy, and brought with it a collapse of effort unequalled in the New Zealand Division by either the debacle of Greece or the dark days of Sidi Rczegii The rape of military security and the spectacular ineffieaey of the most gigantic experiment in air support of a ground operation cost an army corps hundreds of lives, and delayed the advance along Highway Six to Rome for 50 weary days.

For four months, at tremendous cost, the American Fifth Army had see-sawed backwards and forwards across the disputed terrain of the Rapido River in their attempts to take the last bastion of file Gustav Line, which had barred the way to Pontecorvo and Aquina, and the Gothic Line. Late in February Lieutenant-General Frevberg with an army corps at his disposal the New Zealand Division, the famous “Battieaxe” British Division and the Bth Indian Division —was entrusted with ttie task of investing 2500-year-old t'assino, the enemy’s impregnable stronghold guarding the Liri Valley. “Harvest of Rumour” “One of tire most difficult operation of all our battles,” said the General a he made his plans. But neither capricious climate nor the obstacle of heartbreaking battlefield compasse the ruin of a project conceived in bold ness and approached with daring. Wit! the operation under free and Iran discussion in four languages, plu American, the essential element j surprise, never very robust, was dissi pated completely, and the harvest c rumour was gathered 15 days late) The town was still in hostile Hand: defeat was admitted and the whol front returned perforce, to the con ventional use of trenches and wire, an the orthodox principle of attrition. Briefly, the intention was that atte an unprecedented air pounding an with a full-scale artillery barrage, th New Zealand Division should launc a frontal attack on the town, clea out its strong points, join up with th Indian Division on Hangman’s Hi! hard by Montecassino, invest the Mon astery on its summit, and then sweej on to a full-scale deployment up th Liri Valley. A bold conception, m; masters! And it found many scoffers T’ne American laid wagers that i would fail. The French said the Nev Zealanders were mad. The Italian down to -the farmhouse urchins, chat tered about it, and old men shook thei grey heads sorrowfully over the im pending doom of the town. Finallv < German officer disguised as an' Italiai peasant talked gibly of the great da; with a regimental picquet, and actuall; used the secret codeword for the opera tion —“Dickens. ’ Air Bombardment Planned The foretellers of disaster were no as well pleased by th e ripening of thei: reiterated prophecies as they migh have been, because not even the mos confirmed pessimist among them coulc have foreseen what was actually to hap pen. It was bad enough that "Dickens’ should be regarded as a stage piece wit! every formation in the area sparring for a box seat in the bu : the final doom of a gallant undertaking was irrevocably sealed when, in spite oj the gravest doubts about the wisdom oi concentrated air support, strongly expressed by the armour to higher command, it was decided that the prelude to attack should be a colossal air bombardment. Twice had the armour urged an abandonment of the air circus and a stepping up of artillery support, but on the morning of March 15 more than 1000 heavy and medium bombers deluged the tiny town with high explosives, and so spread their dire desruction that when the infantry of the 6th New Zealand Brigade moved forward to the attack they went in against a waiting enemy without the armoured support on which success depended. A regiment of Sherman tanks, like half a hundred hounds on the leash, strained hopelessly forward towards the ruins but were completely immobilised in front of impassable bomb craters and insurmountable demolitions. In vain did the sappers, and in some cases the tanks crew themselves, labour frantically under fire, to clear a passage into the town. Niglft fell with the tanks stili virtually helpless and the infantry alone and dangerously hard pressed. The Waiting Weeks For three weeks the New Zealanders had waited on the outskirts of the town for the word to advance, and daily Nature falsified every hope of the clear sides and high ceilings the bombers required. With striking force it was illustrated that there is nothing natural in Nature. Twelve short hours of one spring day produced frost, sunshine, drenching rain, driving snowflakes, a high cold wind and masses of dull grey-white clouds. The daily “last night” postponements of “Dickens” took on an almost gramophonic monotony, which varied only with the nightly interpolation of a new date. Cassino took its ease behind the glorious uncertainty of the Italian spring and waited for what it knew would come. But Nature had not only stolen time and opportunity. Well might Caesar “beware the Ides of March!” Feverishly the enemy constructed his defences and grouped his strong points in the bowels of Monte-cassino, where according to a red-headed Scot, 30 years exiled in the quiet of the valley, the pneumatic drills had been hard at work since August. The days dragged on. In infantry bivouacs, tank leaguers, and on pinpointed communication lines, the casualties mounted. On the grim slopes of skyish Trocchio, overlooking the town, Major-General Kippenberger, to a whole division’s everlasting regret, trod on a mine. And then on Tuesday, March 14, the order came—not “Dickens, Nan Oboe,” but “Dickens” tomorrow morning. At 8.30 a three and a-half hour bombard-

ment from the air would be the harbinger of zero hour at noon. ■ Prelude in Pandemonium The motionless spring air had already a savour of warmth in it when the first of the air armada appeared out of the blue over the ridge behind San Michele—36 great four-engined leviathans whose muted roar vibrated through the clear morning atmosphere long before their uneven American formation could be picked up in the sky. Cassino lay quiet and still though far from unsuspecting, in the shadow of its gaunt background. The valley, as always in the morning, was serene and peaceful in a sort of yawning emptiness. At one moment the venerable old stones of the ancient Casinum were bathed in sunshine; the next they had disappeared beneath an impenetrable eruption of dust and smoke and flames which billowed heavenwards to blot out completely even the Monastery on the mountain peak. It was the last anyone ever saw of Cassino. Through the grim grey pall that swayed and counter-swayed against the impregnable hulk' of IVlontecassino, keeping time with the giddiness the rocketing earth produced, it was impossible to perceive a thing. For three and a-half hours it went on, while the ruins spewed up their debris. Eleven hundred planes dropped 2500 tons of bombs on a village no larger than a small country town in New Zealand. The dress rehearsal for the Second Front was complete. It remainedjjnlxA<Lcount the cost.

In the lowering sky of evening, the whistle of the flighting shells and even the roaring crescendo of the late-flying dive bombers were sadly muted. They had a wilder and more melancholy note, in dismal contrast to the strength and excitement of the day’s beginning. A Battle tost As darkness came down like a mantle, rain was falling. It came on whirling gusts of wind and beat upon the granite shelves of Montecassino and a myriad dark lagoons formed in the pitcli black craters that held half a hundred tanks in thrall. All night the artillery pin-pointed the mountain with bursts of fire The Gurkhas clung tenaciously to Hangman’s Hill The enemy licked his wounds, and not without glee. Morning dawned bright and sunny, but the battle was lost. From now ort Cassino became the scene of the bitterest fighting bv battalions of two New Zealand brigades. Bv day and night the town was shelled and mortared by both sides, but nothing was determined, and as the month gave way to a fragrant April, the unequal struggle was abandoned. Cassino was left in the hands of elements of a few German crack divisions who. thanks to almost impregnable positions, a too thorough bombing, and a lamentable lack of security, were able to hold a whole army corps at bay.

Two months later Cassino fell to the 4tli British Division, supported bv ihe same armour which fate on this occasion had cheated so badly —the liilli New Zealand Armoured llegi hicut, —— *—

Triumpn of Error An interesting and illuminating commentary is contained in the reactions of tlie Infantry in their withdrawn positions outside the town. The first flights won a vociferous welcome, but the tone and tenor of things changed swiftly until the cry was "Take ’em off.’’ "Give us the ft.A.tv” International amity, and the respect King’s regulations demand ns a courtesy to allies, were not proof against ill-aimed combs and the menace of death trcm supporting arms. Not even fhe smoke and dust blindness they had themselves created could excuse the almost incredible inaccuracy of the Trans-Atlantic bomb-aimers. Destruction and disintegration hurtled s everywhere, in the town, on roads and s approaches, and too perilously near the i infantry trenches for anyone’s corntort. I The ultimate in error seemed to have _ been reached when one flight dropped 1 its entire bomb load on the 26th New _ Zealand Battalion’s B echelon three g miles frum the target. But worse was £ to come when Venafro, 12 miles dik- _ tant, received a similar baptism by £ mistake. Later in the afternoon in the _ thick of the fighting, the air was al- . most blue with the armoured corns’ mander’s frantic complaints to Air 1 Control. II the American dive-bombers j could not get more on their targets “we’ll have neither tanks nor infantry c left.’’ :1 Meanwhile, in the echelon area a 2 league away, infantrymen were erectl ing a huge .signpost over a vast crater i in their mule lines: “American Pres cision Bombing. Cassino three Miles.” 1 And a passing ack-ack officer from - Louisiana remarked: “Buddy, you ) should have made it twice as big and J a mile high.” A Superb Barrage t r The tale of disaster was ct>m- ; plete. The bombing had been done not wisely, but too well. Although on the stroke of midday the Allied infantry burst into action — 500 to t 600 guns in the greatest barrage L of the war, heavier even than Alar mein—all hope of success had fled. r The Infantry surged forward and the tanks on the start line revved up. But from whatever direction , they came, from the north, the north-east or the east, their pro- ; gress was brief. In front of them 1 lay craters 60 feet wide and up to ■ 20 feet deep. Demolitions barred \ the way, and some of the Shermans, pushing on to the limit of their thoroughfare, were peppered i fore and aft by American dive bombers, and could move neither forward nor backard. Tlie superb artillery concentration was powerless to right the wrong. Timed faultlessly and perfect in the co-operation it afforded, it was the finished performance of the day. But it could not repair the damage in spite of its sheltering fire and covering smoke the infantry were doomed. to failure from the start, but still they went on alone with the barrage firm and confident ahead of them —a curtain of thunder and smoke and steel. Though the terrific bombing had temporarily silenced the enemy artillery, and sent h.is tank crews scuttling for cover, it had not wholly daunted his machine-guns. Stuttering in mortal rage the Spandaus traversed the forlorn and cratered terrain and claimed a host of casualties. But the infantry pushed on—running, stumbling, barely' conscious of the spitting, the plucking at taut air, the ripning sound so peculiar to Spandau bullets, and even less aware, it seemed, of the lack of support from tanks held laggard on every road and approach by gaping craters and high-piled demolitions. Incomparable Infantry Ferreting everywhere, mopping up from house to house and in gun-pit and strong point, the footsloggers carried on against appalling odds. It was not enough that the gaps left in the ranks after the Sangro River, Castelfrentano, and Orsogna had not yet been filled. They must needs find themselves unsupported in that hell of desolation. Slowly the German garrison recovered from its bomb-happy stupor untH once more it let go with every calibre it had. In a hail of shells the infantry struggled doggedly, and behind them, in places where it seemed impossible that men could exist, the sappers battled with demolitions and tried to force fairways for the tanks. But despite the most Herculean efforts it became increasingly obvious that the infantry could invest and hold only such parts of the town as the tanks could reach, or cover with direct fire. All hope of joining up with the Gurkhas of the Eighth Indian Division on Hangman's Hill was lost. The chance of the tanks ever getting through Cassino to Highway Six was gone, and the objective on the other side of the town which was to have been the starting point of the last lap of the undertaking had to be abandoned. And so night came on the Ides of March. The stretcher-bearers brought out their sad burdens under the cover of darkness. The tanks ruefully refuelled and topped up with ammunition in the wan hope of some unforeseen turn of fortune on the morrow. Where possible the infantry consolidated their slender gains but the dream of.* success had faded in the swirling dust and smoke clouds of a thousand bomber bombardment.