The 78 Divisional plan for Wednesday 17th was to carry through the momentum of our attack, reaching out to Aquino, which was hard up to and part of the next fortified zone of defence – the Hitler Line. Aquino was over four miles ahead, but in between lay the substantial and heavily defended village of Piumarola with a string of outworks around it.
Elsewhere, on our immediate sector, there was something of a vacuum, as the area was lying between the two fortified lines, though it was now filled with the broken up remnants of yesterday’s fighting.
The Faughs now had the task of getting up to Piumarola, and could reasonably expect some rapid success. The German organisation on our immediate front appeared to be failing and, opposite our forward companies, there were signs of disintegration. However, the failure in spirit, which occurred here and there at the end of our attack, could no longer be counted on.
Colin Gibbs had sent a fighting patrol forward at nightfall and the other companies had standing pickets spread out at varying distances round at our front. Before the night was done, most of them found themselves pulling in lost jagers wandering about, a number of whom were retreating from other parts of the front including Cassino. Also during the quieter periods, when shelling was intermittent, the noise of German transport – and the dull murmur of distant tracked vehicles on the move – was incessant.
Coming back to us on the still night air, the faint reverberation of enemy activity would keep our sentries wakeful. And the periodic arrival of respectful German visitors, brought in by the companies for interview and refreshment, kept Frankie Lyness wakeful too. It was the IO’s job to deal with our prisoners.
The Irish Brigade had, at this stage, surged forward over three miles since the crossing of the Rapido and, for practical purposes the left, the southern, boundary of the advance was determined for us by the River Piopetto. On the other, the northern side, ran Highway Six, the road to Rome, flanked by its mountain buttress of Cairo and the rest – with its infamous citadel, the monastery, standing up like a beacon at the gateway.
South of the Piopetto, the enemy had been ignored save for repelling that counter attack last night and suppressing them with fire, whenever it was necessary afterwards. We were now far beyond them but, as they could prove a menace, Pat was given the Lothian and Border Horse as a flank guard on that side. This cavalry regiment, also equipped with Shermans, had the additional assignment of ranging far beyond Piumarola, up to the next line of defences, when they had seen the Irish Brigade safely in to the place. The Lothians, in fact, were expected to break in to the Hitler Line – if they got half a chance – before the garrison was ready for us.
Our task, the Rifles, was in the first place to provide the Faughs with a satisfactory jumping off point for their attack and then join in thereafter in exploitation of it when they had reached their objectives.
At midnight, James Dunnill came in to my command post. He began by patting me on the back and remarking, ‘I hear you like being a rifleman, John,’ and as I handed him some rum, he went on, ‘Anyway, they wouldn’t have gone for you like that if you didn’t.’ After a few more similar reflections, James got down to the Faughs’ affairs and I told him and his O Group what I knew, including the lessons learned from our own battle.
During the night, James moved his men up to the immediate rear of our forward positions and, here, his company commanders could talk to ours. The night was relatively quiet – reaction and exhaustion forcing a pause on both protagonists.
There was smoke drifting everywhere over the battlefield but the night was a bright one under the vivid lights of the stars. Later the moon came up, bathing the smouldering landscape in its brilliance, until the settling smoke gradually turned in to fog and shrouded the destruction above us.
The Faughs’ attack began at 0700, heralded by the usual crash of the barrage. It had been interesting watching these experienced veterans moving up and I talked to Jimmy Clarke, and some of D Company, while they did so.
D Company was, as usual, leading the attack with C alongside. This time, it was our turn to sit and wait as we could not be called forward until the next phase – not unless the Faughs failed, which was unthinkable.
Experienced or not, the Germans swiftly showed what they could do, given a few hours’ breathing space to recover.
Stiffened up by paratroopers, they were fighting back viciously within minutes of the barrage coming down and their own counter barrage and mortar DFs followed with deadly accuracy on the start line.
Robert Gill, the 16th/5th squadron commander, mounted his tank by command post in those last few minutes. A quarter of an hour later, two of our stretcher bearers brought him in to the RAP apparently asleep – though he had died instantly from some invisible shell splinter or perhaps at the hands of a vigilant paratrooper. Lawrie Franklyn-Vaile, commanding C Company alongside Jimmy, followed him moments later. Nonetheless, the Faughs battled on as usual and their combination with the 16th/5th proved decisive, as ours had done.
After breaking through the initial crust of resistance, the enemy began to give way and, four hours later, the Faughs were in on their objectives on Massa Cerro. Three quarters of a mile beyond them lay the road to Rome and this, Highway Six, the Via Casalina itself, was the last route left to the enemy from Cassino. It was under Faugh mortar fire before the day was done.
By midday, matters had gone so well that Pat ordered the rest of us to come up on the left of the Faughs and, at 2pm, gave the Inniskillings the task of storming Piumarola.
Until then, the Skins and ourselves had a quiet enough morning as the enemy were concentrating all their hate on the Faughs but, at midday, when we were in motion ourselves, all this changed. From then on, the enemy were in a position to watch us closely and both regiments were subjected to continuous harassing fire.
The usefulness of Monte Cassino to the enemy, left far behind in our wake, had now largely lapsed and its occupants, like those on the Piopetto, were beginning to think about pulling out. But with those OPs lost to them, we were now in clear view of the German gun positions around Piedimonte and all the other hill positions which flanked it. They were now looking down on us just like the Russians had done on Cardigan’s men at Balaclava. And the enemy would not be easily shifted from them either – not so long as they held on this fortress, this second Cassino and pivot to their next string of defences. Perched up on its hump like the monastery and seemingly impregnable, it dominated all around it – like Rye’s splendid lookout over the flats of Sussex.
It was more than a bastion – it was the anchor itself of the eastern of Adolf’s Line, which by all accounts was more horrific than the now fragmented Gustav.
When Bala got his men on to the Massa Cerro beside the Faughs and had probed gently forward with his scouts, he linked up with some of our cavalry, who had just run in to heavy opposition. Here, a quarter of a mile from Piumarola, he found the Lothians waiting for him and, beyond them, some resolutely manned SP guns and other German armour – also waiting for him.
For the Skins, this was an encounter battle and, putting down a heavy concentration on the village, they sailed in with the 16th/5th, attacking the village itself and swinging round to the north of it. The attack went in at 545 pm as Bala says, ‘with an almost indecent rush’.
By 6pm, they were in on their objectives and, of all enterprises undertaken by the Irish Brigade, there was never a quicker one than this one. In an hour’s fierce fighting, the Inniskillings had carried the place and sent back a hundred prisoners, all from the 1st Para Division. They left behind thirty five of their own men in achieving this feat. Listed among them was Bala himself, hit in both legs though, as their commander conducted the battle thereafter tied to the bonnet of his jeep, he could hardly have been said to be left behind.
When the Inniskilling attack was going to his satisfaction, Pat got on the air to us, told us what Bala was doing, which I knew anyway through Jerry’s eavesdropping and then requested me to get the Rifles up in the bed beside the Skins.
Our task was to seize the river line on the open left of the village- and here we would again be meeting our ill-natured neighbours on the other bank of the wretched stream. If ignoring people is the height of insult, the German defence system to the west of the Piopetto must have been full of gravely upset Teutons by that time.
Our attack went in without any preliminary preparation and the battalion had simply continued its forward movement without pausing – more like an advance guard action than a staged assault. And we left our guns silent until the opposition declared itself.
As we got under way and came up to the Piumarola road, I met Bala coming back. He was still strapped on to his jeep and was quite exuberant, though his complexion did not bear looking at too closely. We exchanged greetings and talked for a few moments; then, as we went our separate ways, he called back, ‘…and watch out for their tanks.’
John Kerr would look after the Skins well enough betimes, and often enough too – until his chief was mended. And indeed, he had already done so as the Inniskilling attack reached its splendid conclusion. John was the Skins’ senior company commander and he left his niche in the tale of the Irish Brigade as well as in the hearts of those he served with. Eighteen months previously, John was a warrant officer and he owed his unusual rise to equally unusual personal qualities. These included the supreme one of an ability to cope with a crisis, however extreme and however violent. Flung into the saddle that wild afternoon, he saw the Inniskillings through several such. He never counted the cost and he had the art of winning battles.
A few hundred yards further back, John’s battered CO was seized by the Faughs’ stretcher bearers and rushed in to the expert care of their rugged medical sergeant, Bert Baker. Bert was one of the Faughs’ indestructible characters and most of the hierarchy of the Irish Brigade passed through his hands sooner or later, including several of his own doctors. His present master was Eric Rawlings (Captain E Rawlings RAMC) and the Faugh RAP was well worth calling on with those two present.
When the brigade was attacking, it was usual for the rear battalion to supply the medical base for the forward ones, so that the latter’s medical staff could provide mobile service further forward.
Bert said of his RAP that day, ‘Splendid place. Best RAP we ever had. Culvert under the Piumarola road, armour plated one end where a blown carrier had fallen over it.’
On our left, E and H Company went ahead rapidly and, in fact, hit thin air. An hour later, they were in on their objectives on the river bank and well beyond, unchallenged save for the shelling, which never slackened in intensity until dusk. By then, the enemy artillery was pulling back ahead of the Skins. Perched overhead as they were, the German OPs could see down and through the olive trees – and no movement escaped them. Only intensive smoke could have helped us and, to be effective here, our gunners would have had to have smoked out the whole of Monte Cairo.
G Company hit trouble immediately. Colliding with some of the 1st Paras at the southern end of the village, they were greeted by a storm of machine guns fire as one Spandau after another opened up, firing long bursts together. Peter’s men dived for cover as the earth went up in fountains round them and they lay up there for a space until their opponents paused for breath our sought new targets. They then began worming forward and we soon heard their brens in action.
For some minutes, the fire light intensified. Sparks flew in all directions across the evening sky and the nearby trees and buildings splintered under the hail of bullets slamming in to them. Then the din increased as several German tanks joined in; they were well hidden and firing from behind the houses, but after a while some of our own tanks started to close in and stalk them, working cautiously up the draws until they could see their targets.
At the end, Paul put down a series of concentrations from the whole of the 17th Field, adding smoke as the enemy fire began to slacken. There were a number of flat reports echoing back from the buildings as our tanks engaged – mostly hidden in the smoke – and their shots no doubt fleeting. But several times, there was the strident clang and scream of flying lumps of armour. Gradually, the brazen uproar died away, but the glow of burning vehicles remained and thin streaks of jet smoke drifted over the sky above them.
As the dusk descended, Peter’s riflemen got in to the place and the battlefield gradually quietened in to intermittent explosions and rifle shots – and, for a while, total silence followed. Later, we knew that this action, rearguard action really, had been a final effort with the Germans racing to get their guns out. From their point of view, it may have served their purpose, though the Skins’ swift action prevented the full benefit of the delay. Nonetheless, the enemy had fought the action according to the book – and economically too. There were just quite a couple of companies and a few tanks and it had required the whole effect of the Irish Brigade to overthrow them.
Perhaps, we had not done so well after. We had collared fifteen of the paras and killed a few more but we had lost twenty five of our men and most of these were from G Company. Among the prisoners were several jagers of the Hermann Goering Division whom we had last met in Africa. Their presence on the front was ominous.
During the night, the forward companies lay behind their weapons in fitful rest. In the small hours, there was a sharp flurry in E Company’s sector with a wild furore of Very lights, grenade explosions and scattered rifle shots. Mervyn’s men had apprehended a small German patrol milling about in their midst – or more probably a lost gruppe retreating through them accidentally. A few minutes later, they found themselves in possession of a couple of badly battered and disgruntled paratroopers. The rest of their friends had fled.
Significant to the day of the 17th May had been the rapid movements of the division and the manner of the Irish Brigade’s handling. All three regiments and the support units were in motion together for most of the day and they were also involved in violent action for much of it. As a CO of one of them, I was never conscious of the slightest pressure from our commander who, at all times, drawled his instructions to us in the bored and disinterested manner which he sometimes affected. But however Pat gave out his orders, laughter usually found its way into the procedure somewhere.
At one stage, the German commander was screaming over the radio for one of his detachments to retreat. There were some of his guns, I think, and the man couldn’t hear the order. Our people could though, and were happily receiving both of them. Eventually the oberst worked up into a frenzy of rage with his luckless subordinate and Pat observed mildly to the general, ‘…the least we can do is to signal his orders on for him.’
Pat said later. ‘Our wireless communication was excellent throughout…thanks to the signallers who manned the sets at Bttn HQs under pretty hair raising conditions. We all got pretty good on the wireless and learned to express ourselves briefly and to the point…what the German intercept services thought of our methods, I do not know, but the general told me we had badly misled our own monitoring staff whose job it was to listen in to forward nets – and pass back what was happening to Corps or Army. They could never make head or tail of what we were at…and were most indignant’.
A few days later, I learned that the enemy services were referring to the Irish Brigade’s regimental commanders and other chiefs by their Christian names.
The following day, Thursday the 18th, opened quietly. I now know that it was a day of transition when the enemy’s purposes centred solely on getting their men back. Scattered from one end of the front to the other, there were pockets of determined soldiers who had managed to stay put but were now outflanked. This was now the situation on both flanks of the Irish Brigade, though the German hill positions to the north were not exactly outflanked. The enemy were pivoting on them.
Up to this point, although the German defence system on the Rapido had been shattered, their forces were still largely intact. And they had inflicted heavy loss as well as suffering it. Until now too, the withdrawal after their lost battle had been an orderly one and swinging their line on Piedimonte, they could begin the whole process again one stage back.
There was one weak point – the reliance on the Gustav defenders for repeating their performance in the Hitler Line and I think we were too close on to them for that to be possible. They never had time to organise it and the events of the next few days showed up the misconception. There should have been adequate forces already posted to cover the general withdrawal in to these rear defences but maybe there were not enough troops to go round just then. Those two divisions held back at Civitavecchia might have made the whole of the difference.
At first light, I sent a patrol southwards from E Company over the river and, an hour later, we knew that the sector was empty. The enemy had got their guns out under the cover of their men at Piumarola and the Piopetto garrison had also vanished unscathed during the night. The Germans had not done badly. They had done better still on Monte Cassino.
In defence of the monastery, while we were fighting in Piumarola, the German 3rd and 4th Para Regiments had held the place against all comers and the Polish attack had been finally and irrevocably broken. General Anders now had nothing left. But after that final effort, the Paras were now isolated. As the Faughs swung sideways up to the Via Casilina, their lifeline rearguards were finally severed.
Then, and only then, the German 10th Army withdrew its Paras and they too slipped away in the night over the hills with none to gainsay them. We would meet them again.
At dawn on the 18th, the gallant survivors of the Polish Corps launched a further assault on the monastery hill – and not a shot was fired to deter them. The Polish flag was hoisted over the ruins. A few desperately wounded paratroopers remained there, abandoned by their own side in the certain knowledge of succour and the Polish flag flew above them. If this was victory, it was also chastening.
We remained in the vicinity of Piumarola for the rest of that day, the 18th and, during the morning, I sent out a further patrol westwards from our positions. But all that F Company could find was a rather scruffy jager, who had clearly got lost.
Not a shot was fired at us all morning and in this strange lull, hardly a gun opened up in the whole of the sector. Of course, both sides were now in the full surge of movement and both were desperate to reorganise for the next trial by battle. Our army was pulling its tail in for the next stage and bringing its entire artillery strength forward, whereas the Germans were frantically getting theirs dug into new positions behind them. There was something of a race as to who would be ready the first.
Pat Scott and John O’Rourke came to lunch with us, a pleasant relaxation under an olive tree with most of us perking up and becoming interested in food again. The mess corporal dispensed rum and lime to our guests with his usual elegance. The mess was well equipped with silver for such purposes. It never occurred to me to question its origin.
Pat said at the conclusion. ‘By the way, John, I have been considering the question of the command of the Rifles and, in accordance with my favourite policy, I have decided to do nothing. You are, therefore, stuck with the job.’ There were a few other remarks, which ended in a series of chuckles. These, I correctly interpreted as referring to my introspective habits as a Faugh and I told him that my views had changed recently.
On that Thursday afternoon of the 18th, I found time to write home and mentioned,
‘….and in any case, I am torn between two loyalties. These lads have gone well for me that I should be very sorry to leave them – on the other hand, the Faughs are the Faughs – or perhaps the thing is indivisible and it is just the Brigade that counts….and Pat is delighted with everything so far. We are relaxing a bit today and Clanachan has just arrived with my kit. We removed our socks for the first time for days. Mine nearly stuck to my feet….Our various supporters and co-operators are perfectly delightful. My chief gunner is one Paul Lunn Rockliffe, who is quite one of the nicest chaps I have come across. Others, I can’t mention but one gets to know, in a few days, friends for a life time under these circumstances…By the way, we had butter for breakfast today – best Danish…’ (which was usually only available to the Wehrmacht in 1944).
During the afternoon, Ivan brought all our B Echelon vehicles up to Monte Serra, just behind us, and the regiment was now concentrated again for the first time since the start of the battle. This, too, was the case with the rest of the brigade.
That evening, one of our subalterns arrived – John Barker – with fifty riflemen reinforcements, and very welcome, too, as we had lost over double that number in the last few days. John was a gangling young man with less to say than some of our Rifles’ officers but ready to listen. He was by no means abashed by his surroundings. He was all right and so were the men he brought with him.
I posted John to the pioneer platoon and his first assignment was working round the battalion area, with Harry Graydon, burying the German dead. The padre attended to the spiritual aspects while the Guv’nor and his minions did the rest. Harry and Dan Kelleher were full occupied just then with this part of the aftermath.
Bill Hood and John Hunter, two other Rifles’ subalterns, also joined us at this time. These three were powerful reinforcements and they all, in their way, left their mark in our little history. They were all alike in one respect – quiet and assertive, but each of them was made of granite. It is a pity there was only three of them.
This batch had a happier reception than most reinforcement drafts. It was gorgeous spring evening in exquisitely beautiful surroundings and the regiment, itself, was in stupendous heart in consequence of what it had just done. Also, it was quiet and peaceful, with the lovely evening disturbed only by the noise and chatter of our warriors.
I held my battalion orders at 430pm and at 630, Pat Scott called in his own O Group. This, in reality, I soon found to be a cocktail party as well as being an orders group. It was held in what Pat described as a subterranean palace – the late HQ of the opposing general – and it was certainly the finest and most comfortable underground fortification that I have ever seen. Magnificently furnished, it even included ventilation shafts.
In the course of the party, Pat told us what he wanted of us tomorrow. We had got to move forward again and cover the north side of 78 Division’s thrust in to the Hitler Line and this would take us on to the Via Casilina when we reached our positions. In the meantime, we were required to seize another defended village, Aceto, on the way there.
The weather turned during the night and the following morning began unpleasantly. The routes assigned to us were impassable, even with jeeps, and broken up previously by shell fire, they turned to thick mud under the torrential rain, which pelted down on us. The battalion was on the move at 0300 hours and we reached the vicinity of Aceto at 0730, over two hours late. In the meantime, the village had been evacuated by the enemy and the rain had turned in to thick morning mist with the landscape around us smelling like an aquarium and dripping like one too.
That thick mist came to our rescue as the enemy began progressively to register the new targets that we were providing.
Pat came on the air at the same time as they opened up on us, requesting me to push straight on over Highway Six and giving detailed advice as to what to do when we got there. He added a number of map references which included indexed numbers on the air photographs. Unfortunately, the opposition registered a direct hit on my Tac HQ while he was speaking. As a result, hit through neck and head, Paul collapsed across my map board, streaming blood over the air photos pinned to it – and over all else as well. Brick rubble and pulverised plaster showered down on us for a minute or two and the conversation with my brigadier was temporarily confused. Pat became quite vexed at my apparent lack of comprehension and, with untypical petulance, made some remark about what did I think our air photos were for anyway if I couldn’t see the ground. He knew about the fog, of course. I then explained their temporary un-serviceability and requested him to send me another gunner. My brigadier paused for a moment just then and, with his instant reactions, said, ‘I’m sending Rollo up to you. He knows you all and you can work it out together.’ And after a further pause, ‘It will do him good.’
That German battery had earned its keep from the Fuhrer, for a few minutes later, they got John Lockwood too, Paul’s number two and the only other FOO just then. It was an expensive morning for the 17th Field.
An hour later, we were astride the Via Casilina and, as we arrived, the air cleared like magic. I swung my glasses round and looked at Monte Cassino – too far distant to discern, but one flag, at least, was flying over the monastery. I had never seen a German one there.
I wrote out my comments at the time:
‘The mists cleared and the view, to say the least, of it was awe inspiring. Just in front of us was Piedimonte, perched up and being slammed by our heavies and burning fiercely. Hanging miles up over our heads was the monstrous mass of Monte Cairo. Talk about domination. Monte Cairo, of course, we knew from Castellone days when we were south east of it. Here we were due west and at the bottom of it.
The mountain, itself, is most impressive and has the same atmosphere of sinister foreboding as Longstop, only on a larger scale. To the south of us was the black mass of Monte Cassino and, perched on top of it, the monastery, looking white in comparison and very strange and silent. One got an inward satisfaction at seeing it thus and, looking at it from the north, after having sat so close to it on the other side for so many weary weeks. It was odd seeing it quiet, when in the past there was always a pall of smoke over it, dotted by the red black bursts of our shells.’