Carnage, tragedy of the highest order

The first two of these three books have not been seen at The Budapest Times but each one runs to 700-plus pages, and with the new “Cassino ’44” not far short it can fairly be said that Holland’s efforts may be somewhat more than the casual reader needs, or desires. Such is the intense detail that one can only wonder how he has possibly put it all together.

To assemble a bullet-by-bullet, blast-by-blast account of the magnitude of “Cassino ’44” is indeed astonishing. Having said that, it must be noted that the narrative pace rarely flags. This account surely is definitive, or if it isn’t – and there’s probably more unmined material out there somewhere – it’s difficult to believe that most readers could ever want more.

Some 520 pages of text are supported by 14 maps and a list of the principal American, British, Commonwealth, German, Italian and other personalities. There are photographs of many of these combatants and a good selection of battle campaign photos.

A timeline guides readers through the events, and Holland’s list of his selected sources occupies page upon page of author interviews, personal testimonies, memoirs and biographies, papers, reports, diaries, documents, studies, pamphlets, booklets, official histories and technical books, from archives, libraries and museums.

He has a briefer list of seven unpublished reports, diaries, letters, memoirs, papers and so on, reinforcing the impression that Holland is not only comprehensively summarising the established narrative but also plugging some gaps that other historians failed to mine.

As the Allies bludgeoned their way north, it’s almost as if Holland was with them (he wasn’t, he was born in Salisbury, England, in 1970). Even with the maps it was difficult for this reader to follow the action at times and not get bogged down in all the military minutiae. How to put all this together in such exhaustive detail in the short period since “The Savage Storm”?

The events in Italy followed the struggle for victory in North Africa that had begun in June 1940. The desert fighting lasted until May 1943 when the fascist Axis troops surrendered in Tunisia. The way then became open for the Allies’ Operation Husky, a massive amphibious assault on the southern shores of Sicily.

This was launched before sunrise on July 10, 1943, and for the next three days more than 3000 ships landed 150,000-plus ground troops, covered by more than 4000 aircraft. They were opposed by only two German divisions, as Nazi leadership had been tricked into believing the main assault would come at Sardinia and Corsica. (Read elsewhere about this remarkable subterfuge codenamed Operation Mincemeat – editor.)

In 38 days the Allies liberated Sicily, the first major step along the road to Rome. The effort cost some 24,850 American, British and Canadian casualties.  As the Allies closed in on the Sicilian port of Messina on August 17, 1943, the Germans withdrew across the narrow strait to the mainland, to continue the defence there.

On September 8, 1943, Italy surrendered to  the Allies. After the triple triumph of Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion and the surrender, the Allies believed that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943. Wrong. Hitler, looking at lines and numbers on maps in his Wolf’s Lair in east Prussia, ordered his forces to dig in and fight for every yard.

So the Allies faced not the defeated Italians but dogged Germans. This, Holland recounts, set the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional campaigns of the Second World War. This is where “Cassino ’44”  comes in. The struggle to free Italy and ultimately Europe would prove a gruelling task killing more than 75,000 soldiers and civilians. Towns and villages were laid waste in those “five months of hell” from January-May 1944 before Rome fell on June 4.

As 1944 opened, then, the Allies were up against the formidable Gustav Line of German defence: a mass of wire entanglements, minefields, bunkers and booby traps, woven into a giant chain of mountains and river valleys that stretched the width of Italy. At its strongest point sat the Abbey of Monte Cassino, atop a peak and dominating the land for miles around.

The flat plains gave way to formidable summits and the valleys held innumerable villages and hamlets with impossibly narrow streets, and farming communities. The layout was especially difficult and slow when the Allies had swollen rivers to cross. The Germans had observers on the heights, allowing them to pick off the attackers. The Axis defenders held all the aces.

And Italy was suffering one of its worst winters ever. Attacking was a Herculean task made worse by the rain and increasingly cold and miserable weather. Heavy cloud and sudden fog prevented the Allies using their dominant air power. The foot-slogging infantry had to crawl up mountains and battle over rocky and waterlogged terrain under fire. As must their pack animals carrying arms and food. “And when one mountain was taken,” writes Holland, “there up ahead was another. And another. And yet another. Always another bloody mountain.”

The fighting was utterly, miserably relentless, he writes. Major assaults were expected against challenging defences, and timetables made no allowance for bad weather. Despite this, the Allies had to do everything in a hurry, to mop up the distraction of Italy before Operation Overlord, D-Day, the Normandy landings on the French coast set for June 1944.

Major amphibious assaults were mounted when everyone knew, in their heart of hearts, that the quantity of shipping was inadequate for the task, despite the positive chat. The Combined Chiefs had plenty of tanks, even plenty of troops, guns, ammunition, rations, bombers, fighter planes, medical supplies and bridging equipment, but not enough assault vessels and, most importantly, landing ships. But nothing should disrupt the Overlord timing.

Here we have it then. Sheer hell. Italy was a terrible meat-grinder of infantry on both sides. Here are heroes and here are men who could stand it no longer and broke down, sobbing and shaking, nerves gone. Mangled bodies lay about. Offensive opportunities were missed.

Lieutenant Bouak-kaz, a Tunisian, vowed to his men that he would be the first to reach a peak. But when he was killed just short, three men carried his dead body and placed it there.

Lieutenant Jordy, a Frenchman, was in tears after his men suffered terrible losses taking a peak only to lose it to a German counter-attack. That afternoon the men had to listen to one of their younger soldiers, the badly wounded Lorraine Bianco, calling plaintively for his mother from his shallow foxhole – “Maman, maman” – but nobody could reach him as shells and mortars exploded around. Wounded, frozen, hungry, thirsty and alone, Bianco’s life slowly ebbed away on the bleak mountain, and by nightfall he was dead.

Private George Mitchell of the 1st Scottish Borderers, single-handedly stormed a German machine-gun nest, shooting one gunner and wounding another, then charged the rest of the position. As his section caught up, another nest opened fire so he charged that too, killing both gunners and forcing the other astonished Germans to surrender. But when Mitchell let down his guard, a German picked up a rifle and shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

The insanely high human cost was often avoidable. Blood oozes from the many, many pages.