MOUNTAIN FASTNESS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 18 April 1944, Page 3

MOUNTAIN FASTNESS

PICTURESQUE SETTING FOR WARFARE TURRETED CASTLE AND QUAINT ; VILLAGES ADVANCED ALLIED POST IN ITALY [ (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) Cassino Front, April 15. In the mountains north-east of Cassino deep valleys reverberate to a strange old-world type of warfare, the atmosphere of which is hardly affected by the use of the most modern weapons. It is reminiscent of that which went on on our left flank during those long weeks on the Sangro front, but both terrain and combatants differ from those of Gessopalcn and Rocca. Here in castled spires and rockperched villages is the Ruritania of film and melodrama. During trips through deep passes and under snowclad peaks I have come upon settings which would have been perfect for musical romances of yesterday—and behind them all is the magnificent backdrop of the main Arde range. It is here that Italian troops are performing prodigies of mountaineering in the worst of weather to come to grips with what were once their allies. Arditi, Alpini, Bersaglieri—they form part of a strangely assorted but extremely efficient Allied force whose line of advance is not by seaward plain or arterial road but literally from crag to crag. The road to this strangest of all battlefronts plunges with the upper Volturno valley into great rolling masses of mountains. We passed under the hanging walls of Colli village before both leading into enemy territory. The reaching the junction of two tracks, left-hand fork twisted away to enemyheld Atina and the right-hand one which we took, headed straight to hostile mountains. As our jeep made its way round under a vertical cliff above Volturno, the sight of Cerro al Volturno burst upon us with dramatic suddenness. From a distance it is like an illustration from a fairy tale—one of those which shows a slender turreted castle perched upon an impossibly steep crag. Enchantment is not dispelled at close quarters. Below sheer walls of the castle itself, red-roofed stone houses of a village cascade down in terraces to a stream. The way to battlements climbs by hundreds of stone steps through ancient cobbled streets spanned with stone archways. There is always wind on the castletop whence you can see deep into enemy cqyntry. Arrowslits in the thick walls cover every approach from the narrow pass below and from the rising mass of the maiif hill. From the battlements one can see Castel Sanvincenzo and behind it a bare gunsight pass through which whistle German mortar bombs. Esconced in the high fastnesses of the main Arde itself the enemy can observe the entire sweep of the valley. We returned to the road and headed towards the pinnacled heights of Castel Sanvincenzo from which came sounds of machine-gun fire. Under the rising slope with two kilometres yet to go our way was barred by a blown bridge. Polish, Italian and Indian troops were moving up towards stone terraces, guiding surefooted mules which provided the only other means of carrying supplies. It was a steep and slippery climb but at the top we were met by the commandant of this furthest outpost of the Allied armies. There were many vantage points in the town whence we could look clown on the village of Pizzone clustered at foot of a razorbacked ridge not 3aoo yards away. It was a strange sensation to realise that this was occupied by the enemy and that' machine-gun and observation posts dotted the ridge. All we could see was the deep valley in which the stream and road ran into Pizzone before turning towards the distant mountains. Yet all that valley was dead man’s ground. As we sat in comfortable chairs on a stoneflagged balcony our hosts plied us with refreshments and pointed out suspected German machine-gun nests. We watched through glasses and at last detected movement near where it was thought the enemy had a cookhouse. Below us in the cobbled streets of the Allied town women walked gaily back from church clad in their finery of furs and silk stockings—for it was the Easter festival. Bells began to toll. Two days ago enemy shells brought death to worshippers in that same church and ugly scars of shellholes marred the perfection of the green fields around tne foot of our fortress. Not far away were the steep granite shafts of Monte Marrone, captured a few days ago by Italians whose prowess as mountain troops is growing daily more appreciated by Allied soldiers. Three hundred yards from the foot of the walls was the scene of the most recent fighting, where a German patrol was bloodily repulsed by Italians. Axis dead included a nineteen-year-old Czech. I looked at picturesque figures of Arditi fighting men, and the scene seemed even more out of this world.