Our peaceful interlude came to an abrupt end on 21 March when the brigade was ordered into the line along the Rapido river, opposite the fortified town-let of San Angelo. This was the natural consequence of the failure of the recent onslaught, and the need to relieve the shattered units that had taken part in it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The battle had been disastrous and even more destructive than its predecessors in January and February. The record was lengthening and this persistence with the impossible reflected the highest necessities of state \u2013 with the hand of Winston heavy on his army commanders and Stalin leering from the wings, watching and impelling him onwards. Schultz was not far wrong, and certainly military wisdom played little part in the proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of these battles so far were isolated thrusts involving solitary brigades or regiments, none of whom could be supported properly. No other course was open when the appalling winter weather and inundated ground made the deployment of armour impossible, let alone armies. Usually these thrusts swiftly broke down in to un-coordinated company actions involving handfuls of men, who soon found themselves on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attack had been undertaken by the New Zealand Corps, which had already been badly cut up in the February battle. It consisted of the 2nd<\/sup> New Zealand and 4th<\/sup> Indian Divisions \u2013 both with matchless records in the war in the desert. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the course of the week\u2019s fighting on the hillside opposite, the Indian Division was totally expended with nothing gained at the end of it, though the tales of the Gurkhas on Hangman\u2019s Hill, and others who strove to keep them there, would live afterwards. The situation with the New Zealanders, after their long fight in the town of Cassino, was hardly better. There were small gains to show that would play their part later, but nothing to compensate for such heavy damage to one of the best divisions of the army \u2013 and the utter ruin of the other one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two devoted American divisiona had met the same fate in the initial onslaught in January, and in German eyes, the long drawn out battle of Cassino now wore the trappings of Thermopylae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went forward with Paddy Bowen-Colthurst, the staff captain, to Mignano at daybreak to fix harbouring areas, and in the course of the reconnaissance had my second close up of Monastery Hill. Down near the Rapido, it seemed to hang over the top of us, with the garrison breathing down our necks. Relatively quiet at the time, it was even more sinister in the intervals of silence. However, there was smoke all over the place and the Germans were shelling the river bank here and there below us intermittently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we got back, the CO went off to Frank Lyness, and the rest of the orders group followed later. O groups, at this time, usually included the intelligence officer and most of the company commanders, with the IO having the role of battle adjutant. By this means, the necessary reconnaissance and planning could be completed by the CO and his orders imparted to his subordinate commanders, while the troops were still moving forward. The system was fine, and a great time saver \u2013 so long as all concerned managed to stay alive during the critical period before the battle started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The night began well in the pleasant company of Jimmy Stewart, the brigade major, and Geoffrey Phillips, who joined us for dinner. Jimmy had brought over a whole lot of additional instructions from brigade, and Geoffrey, G Company commander, had been left behind for some reason. The regiments of the Irish Brigade had always prided themselves on their standards of hospitality and we usually contrived to dine in formal state in or out of battle. The Irish Rifles were helped in this respect owing to the sense of decorum of the mess corporal, and that of his sergeant, who was formerly the sauce chef at the Savoy. Corporal Telfer, strangely from Dumfries, could out-butle any butler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The proceedings that followed were less pleasant. We spent a very cold and wet night steering the companies up narrow boggy tracks to their defensive zones in the black dark, wondering when someone would step on a mine or when the Germans would wake up and shell the approaches. Reliefs in the line usually generate their own unique brand of tension with all concerned ill at ease, until the last report comes in and the job is done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I came in myself at 0615, soaked like the rest of our troops that night, and untypical freezing sleet continued all morning. Our B Echelon, the heavy transport area, was a quagmire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rest of the day, I spent at Brigade HQ organising trailers and the battalion supply convoy. Those trailers were magnificent devices with splendid carrying capacity and, towed by a jeep, could go almost anywhere. As soon as the dusk had come down sufficiently to hide movement from our sinister watchers, I took the convoy forward to the battalion distribution points, where we met the company guides. After that, I paid a call on the forward companies, and finally finished up at Bttn HQ, where I was greeted by Ion with rum and cocoa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Visits to Bttn in the line were usually pleasant experiences for both parties \u2013 the warmth of the welcome under such circumstances having an element in it that was not to be found in quite the same way on other occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The night was quiet enough apart from the occasional series of vicious explosions as the enemy harassed the forward posts with their mortars. Periodically, there were scattered rifle shots, probably from nervous pickets and the occasional burst from a spandau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next few days and nights followed a similar course, save for the weather being kinder, and we again had several crisp sparkling nights with the stars too large for life. As always, when campaigning, one\u2019s well-being, thoughts and feelings were entirely governed by the clemency or otherwise of the weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The night of the 25th<\/sup>, I spent at Bttn HQ, while the CO had a much needed spell of rest. In the small hours, I went round all the forward company positions and this, my first experience of our riflemen on the job, I found to be a disturbing one. A number of the posts were so sited as to be incapable of fighting effectively, and there was a good deal else lacking too. It is never pleasant having to berate people, and especially under such conditions, but it had to be done that night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My diary entry, written at the time, tersely remarked, \u2018…the general alertness and standard of defences were very bad, and some of the chaps either knew, or did, very little…\u2019 I had, of course, been used to regulars in my own D Company of the Faughs, where the standard of weapon efficiency, and all else, was the result of long experience. But I knew quite well that, unless certain things were done quickly, any surprise action by the enemy could have put a number of our posts in the bag without a shot fired. Most of our men still had to learn what instant readiness meant \u2013 and evidently, so far, some of them had not experienced the need for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somehow these messages had to put across to our companies, otherwise it would not be long before we hit the headlines with some new disaster. And it was not something one could be pleasant about, or mince words, whatever the need for tact in a regiment not my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The area, in fact, was a difficult one to defend anyway, being overlooked by the enemy in front of us who could see down in to most of our forward positions. San Angelo, itself, sat perched up on a bluff in the centre of the sector immediately opposite us. Smack in the middle of the valley entrance, it held the western bank of the Rapido secure for the enemy so long, but only so long, as they held possession of it. Heavily defended and long prepared, San Angelo was the principal German frontier fortress downstream of Cassino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The approaches to the area were as foul as the position they served, and the San Angelo sector had, as its principal supply route, the line of the smashed up railway track to Cassino. From Mignano onwards, our sappers had converted the rail track in to a rugged but passable road, which could only be traversed in daylight at jeep speeds of 60mph our higher. Lower speeds were apt to induce the opposition gunners to try their luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two nights later, we were pulled out of the line again to Mignano, the weather turning violent with tempestuous squalls as we did so. Writing to father that day, I said, \u2018….the weather has been vicious the last day or two with sudden violent wind and rain squalls. Pitching bivouacs in it is trying for one\u2019s temper \u2013 and the wretched warriors getting one peg and pole in the ground and then having it sail a few hundred feet away. Once pitched, however and surrounded by a good pile of earth, they are ok.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the brigade was facing San Angelo, as Pat remarked in his narrative, plans were afoot for us to have a more pleasant view of them from the mountains, which dominated Monte Cassino from the north. These hills, Castellone and Belvedere, reached right behind the monastery. At 2300 feet, Monte Castellone overlooked and overhung it, but the occupants were in baulk due to an equally deep gorge, which divided them from the German positions \u2013 save for the narrow precipitous track along the western col, which joined Castellone to Monte Cassino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, as Pat said, a pre Hitler staff college instructor would have labelled Castellone as untenable, while the enemy held Monastery Hill, as the defenders looked straight up the back of the feature at quite close range. Nonetheless, the French had been sitting in these two mountains for a month already, after their magnificent achievement of capturing them in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The regiment was happy enough to be back even for a night, and seemed pleased enough by our reception of them in our harbouring area. Whatever weaknesses there might have been with the Rifles in a tactical sense, there was none at all administratively. Their Q team was run mainly by Rodney Cockburn, who commanded HQ Company, Ivan Yates the MTO and Dave Aitkenhead our QM, and they looked after the well-being of our people in a manner which, so far as I could see, was rarely matched outside the Irish Brigade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Rifles had come off lightly after their week\u2019s spell on the river front and, in spite of incessant mortaring and sniping, there had been no serious loss. The regiment was probably the better for the experience for it was that, battle experience, which was so plainly lacking just then. There were just not enough veterans in the ranks, old riflemen as well as NCOs, to keep the wheels oiled \u2013 and most of their officers, other than the admirable company commanders, were new to the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were off to the hills twenty four hours later and, as Pat was still road bound due to his defective foot, James and John O\u2019Rourke had to scale them for him and do the necessary reconnaissance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James said on his return that getting there at all was an experience. The valley separating us from the German hill positions was over a mile wide and Castellone and its mate were on the wrong side of it. The approach road, another \u201cMad Mile\u201d which was actually nearly three, snaked its way across the valley before it was possible to turn off, almost under the monastery in to the relative shelter of the Castellone foothills. The monastery OPs, of course, looked straight down on the thing for its whole run. Apparently, this was another 60 mph trip, which ended with a French LO asking a querulous John O\u2019Rourke what all the fuss was about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On arrival at the village of Caira, at the foot of Castellone, they were received and entertained by the Regimental HQ staff of the 4th<\/sup> Tirailleurs Tunisienne. They were then subjected to a seven course dejeuner, which lasted two hours. James said that there were also adequate liquid refreshments and he would have preferred this hospitality to have taken place at the conclusion of his reconnaissance instead of before it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, Pat also made this interesting trip with the German watchers practising on them with their mediums, whenever they had to slow for the bends. Most of us got pretty used to this exercise in the ensuing weeks. But it was one thing doing it on one\u2019s own, flat out in a jeep, and quite another when taking troops across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On this occasion, Pat paid a state call on General Monsabert, GOC of the 3rd<\/sup> Algerian Division, who was in charge of the sector. Pat said he had taken a haversack ration and felt quite embarrassed at having done so. He remarked in his account, \u2018Outside his HQ was a large inn sign, \u201cLes Trois Crossiants\u201d. The first room I went in to was a bar with every conceivable size and shape of bottle. I was pressed to sample several before being presented to the general. On entering his office, I saw a little man with silver hair, bristling white moustache, flashing eyes and absolutely dapper from head to foot of his full five feet. He was bubbling over with life. But it was now time for dejeuner. I have had dejeuner with French officers in peacetime and this party was up to the standard of anything I have ever met. There were also quite a number of beautiful ladies present \u2013 ambulance drivers imported specially….\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n We took over from the Tiralleurs on the three successive nights following and the Skins went first as they had selected for the honour of being immediately next to Schultz\u2019s paratroopers in the monastery. The Inniskillings were positioned astride the track on the western col of Castellone, which led straight in to Monte Cassino and provided the only feasible access to the place. The area naturally was thick with mines laid by both sides and it not surprising that the Skins lost a number of their men from this wretched cause, while they were establishing themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bala said that the French had not bothered to record their mining activities and, far worse, they did not go in for patrolling. In consequence, on their first night in the line, the Skins found the enemy among them and tossing stick grenades in to their forward posts. \u2018Clearly\u2019, Bala remarked, \u2018This had got to be stopped mighty quickly. They had been in the habit of owning no man\u2019s land and it took us several nights to get rid of them. Unfortunately, they strewed the place with mines before we succeeded\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We, the Rifles, followed during the next two nights and took over the 2300 foot pinnacle of Monte Castellone, which dominated all the nearby features. All that is save Monte Cairo beyond it, whose monstrous bulk dwarfed the whole of the rest of the battlefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we arrived, the Germans were pitching shells of all kinds on to the top of Castellone, while those that missed, as many of them did, carried on over the crest to land on Brigade HQ in the tiny hamlet of Caira at the bottom. In consequence, any activity on our part that drew fire soon became very unpopular with Pat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The move in went, I suppose, as well as could be expected. I spent the morning mostly studying our maps of the sector with the company commanders and planning their parts in the proceedings as well as my own \u2013 which was to get the battalion in that night. Thereafter, I had to ensure that it was supplied with the necessities of life, namely food, water and ammunition \u2013 and mail and rum. Later, I drove out to San Michele, which was as far forward as one could safely get the troops in daylight and this wrecked hamlet would be our forward supply point during the weeks that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coming back on my own at the end of the day, I picked up Bud Maginness, the Faughs QM, who had been carrying out a similar reconnaissance on foot. Bud, Lieutenant E Maginness, was a very old friend and we had colluded much together in the happy far off days in Bordon pre-war when he was the regimental musketry sergeant and I had the highly unmerited title of musketry officer. Between us, we were supposed to be in charge of the regiment\u2019s shooting but Bud, of course, did all the work \u2013 and taught me the facts of life at the same time \u2013 as The O\u2019Donovan, my CO of those days, had intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our move to Castellone took place on 29 and 30 March and the operation began on one of those lovely spring mornings with a cloudless sky and a pearl tinted mistiness in the air. I went on down to San Michele at midday to organise the reception of the battalion which was coming forward in small groups from Mignano. The troops were due to arrive from 530 onwards for their evening meal, prior to moving across the valley in to their positions when darkness had fallen on the night following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 7pm on the 29th<\/sup>, the company recce groups and sub units were on their way and there was sporadic enemy shelling coming down, which showed the wisdom of moving in small parties. With the heavy weapons and ammunition sent across in jeeps, I found it necessary to make a second delivery at 0100 hours and noted in my diary that some of the drivers were bolshie \u2013 which was perhaps not altogether surprising, although I found it intolerable and said so. The second delivery was duly made in spite of their feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following day, I spent exclusively in the company of mules and Paddy Bowen-Colthurst, who seemed at home with the damnable creatures in spite of being a Scots Guardsman. That night, when the battalion had set off across that eerie valley, I took a hundred and fifty mules after them. It was not an enjoyable experience. We left the CO with the reception committee the other end and we also found there, the usual chaos of reliefs with French troops blocking every track and most of them apparently either witless or uninstructed. There was also intensive shelling by both sides, which added to the tension, prevented communication and left most of us deafened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Climbing up the precipitous parts of Castellone, we dropped several mules over the cliffs and a good many others shed their loads. However, the regiment got in to its positions somehow, though I think none of us could take the credit and, in most cases like this, the good sense of our men prevailed in the end. I think it very likely that the experiences of the company commanders that night were worse than mine. I hate reliefs in the line, and always have, but I still think that this horrid operation is one of the acid tests of a regiment\u2019s capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mentioned to father, who had extensive experience of the North West Frontier,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018…. Basil (Kentish) coping with mules is the funniest sight ever, though things are better organised than in those hideous days round Longstop last year; even so, problems arise \u2013 what does A do when leading a large column of mules up a mountain with a cliff on one side and precipice t\u2019other, on a track 2 foot wide, with an equally large column mules descending. Very difficult persuading mules to go backwards…..\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our peaceful interlude came to an abrupt end on 21 March when the brigade was ordered into the line along the Rapido river, opposite the fortified town-let of San Angelo. This was the natural consequence of the failure of the recent onslaught, and the need to relieve the shattered units that had taken part in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":16896,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-25449","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25449"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25453,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25449\/revisions\/25453"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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