Cassino Anniversary
Five years ago today one of the most bitterly contested battles of the Second World War ended in Allied victory Cassino Monastery fell on May 18, 1944, following a continual attack by New Zealanders, Britishers, Poles and Americans of the Bth and sth Armies. Under one of the heaviest concentrated bombardments of the air war combined with shelling on a scale comparable with the First World War the beautiful buildings of Cassino were reduced to a rubble of white stone, while 3000 of the town’s 12,00 inhabitants were killed and 4000 wounded. British and Polish cemeteries stand in orderly array among the ruins, while German troops lie where they fell, buried in the rubble. Three hundred civilians were buried under the stones of the monastery which was establishe by St Benedict in 529. Five times destroyed and rebuilt, the monastery was completely shattered, with the exception of the smalll chapel where St Benedict and his twin sister St Scholastica lie buried. The Italian Government intends to leave the wrecked town as a memorial to the destructive power of modern war, but the monastery will be rebuilt. •«.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19490518.2.52
Bibliographic details
Northern Advocate, 18 May 1949, Page 5
Word Count
188Cassino Anniversary Northern Advocate, 18 May 1949, Page 5
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