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Cassino - Last Moments
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That attack was the last attempted by the New Zealanders in Cassino. The 23rd remained in Cassino a few days more before being relieved. On the night of its attack, D Company returned to the cellars and the crypt at Tactical Headquarters. The men arrived there at midnight, dog-tired and seeking nothing but somewhere to lie down and sleep. In the dark, they quickly slumped into deep sleep. Only in the morning did they discover that in quite a few instances the living and the dead had been lying together and that some had slept with their heads pillowed on German dead.
Practically every day of the 23rd's term in Cassino was a day of continuous heavy shelling and mortaring. The Germans appeared to lay guns on certain roads and likely occupied posts. Communications were broken for long periods and casualties mounted steadily.
Ians descriptions of Cassino while being very brief, convey the picture of a total mess of buildings providing perfect cover for a defending force and also total confusion for all soldiers. A lot of the fighting seemed to consist of the troops calling up the tanks to blast snipers from buildings - "such-and-such a building, such-and-such a window", Boom, "No, next window to the left", Boom "Yes, that one - thanks". Static & interference of various kinds, shielding by the buildings & rubble used as cover & flat batteries made radio rather uncertain & phone lines could only be laid or repaired at night & were cut too quickly by shelling to be practicable.
Good drinking water was very short because the water in and around the buildings was polluted with the debris and the dead. Part of the building in which the men were cramped together had to be used as a latrine. In Cassino, it had been impossible to bury the dead and their bodies lay heaped together under wet blankets. Nothing could be more demoralising for the troops than living with the sight and smell of the dead, several of whom were their own comrades. The lack of success in the attack, the loss of confidence caused by the enemy's successful shelling, the depressing physical conditions, and the likelihood of another reverse if the company were committed to another attack - all these factors led to a serious falling off in morale.
On 23 March, D Company went back to houses near Main Battalion Headquarters behind Trocchio. A good sleep out of the line and good hot meals and morale immediately began to rise again.
Meanwhile, provision was made for a second defence line east of Cassino and of the Rapido as a precautionary measure. On 26 March, D Company moved to new positions in this line and C Company also took over a sector alongside D. On the same night, back in Cassino, A Company was relieved by a 24th company and B was relieved by a company of the 25th. Both A and B Companies went back to the houses behind Trocchio and had one night's perfect rest before entering the new line in the Rapido sector. The 23rd held this sector for only two days, when the Welsh Guards relieved it.
The D Coy HQ house here had holes dug behind a shed as latrines. Ian was there when the minenwerfer wound up & the bombs were coming close so he dived against the shed wall. On standing up he found the 'rubbish' around him was discarded cordite arty. cartridge refills. The next house contained an eldely gentleman & 2 daughters in late twenties. Ians group gave them some bully beef & they were invited for tea - spaghetti & broad beans. The spagetti was flour and water mixed and rolled thin then spread on a wire frame like a harp and rolled through, cut into strips by the fine wires. Their firewood was sleepers from the destroyed railway line.
From here the forward platoon maintained a listening post by the river bank, every night and they had a phone. When the phone cut out Ian went up with them in the dark to fix the wire but that never happened. He walked the road with the wire running through his hand until it vanished off the road and stuck there. They all took cover while Ian pulled, but nothing gave. In black night with land mines, booby traps and the possibility of ambush about, they left it - "discretion is the better part of valour".
The battalion now went back to Mignano for a few days' complete rest. Some changes in company commands were made at this juncture. Colin Campbell and Cam Wilson were the longest serving Sigs men in the Company, and were replaced by new men from Btn. HQ. - they therefore missed the worst of the action, and subsequently felt badly about things when most of their mates were killed or wounded at Cassino.
On Sunday, 2 April, Padre Holland preached on the text, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends'. Every man present had lost friends in Cassino. Possibly the human losses in Cassino were regretted more bitterly than usual because there was so little to place in the credit scale of the balance.
After the church service on 2 April, arrangements were made to relieve the 26th in the Cassino railway station on the following evening. A Company was to remain LOB (Left Out of Battle) in the rest area. C and D were to be forward in and around the station and B was to be in reserve east of the Rapido. After dark on 3 April, C, D and B Companies, in that order, went forward by lorries to the 26th headquarters, whence they marched to their company positions. C had the farthest to go but, although some machine-gun and mortar fire worried them, the troops managed to reach their posts without casualties.
Either the Germans had heard the C Company troops entering the area or were just firing on suspicion, as a dreadful 'hate' session developed just as D Company was moving into position. As they moved along the railway line, which they could not leave for part of the journey because the flooded swamp on either side had trip wires to anti-personnel mines, the men could hear the moan of the nebelwerfers and the 'crunch, crunch' of the bursting mortar bombs. Bursts of Spandau and heavier fire also crossed their route. D Company headquarters was caught in the middle of a mortar stonk. All members of the headquarters, apart from Cyril McIntosh, the CSM, were wounded, Major Slee and Corporal McCabe fatally. Second-Lieutenant Norm Milsom, 17 Platoon officer, and his sergeant, Noel McLean, were among the eight wounded, as were Ian and Graham French. Refer to Ians "Last Night" poem.
Ian managed to crawl to the railway station where his wounds were dressed by Ian Christie who was killed later that night attending to other wounded outside. The next night Ian and Major Slee were evacuated by stretcher and jeep to the Division lines. Major Slee later died of his wounds.
It was some time before Ians wounds were actually operated on properly. At the forward aid post a doctor checked the bandages, gave him a shot of pain killer and may have hung on a bottle of blood. Casualty Clearing Station seemed like a tent full of beds, a nurse cleaned him up then smartly into theatre where they amputated the two fingers, cleaned the wounds and stitched things up with vaseline gauze between some of them so they could be done over again properly later.
The worst wound was in the left groin, fairly large and deep and close to the major vein from the leg. The offending metal was classed as mortar schrapnel although Ian thought it was a shell as he didn't hear it coming. A couple of other cuts were nearby, the left testicle atrophied, little and ring fingers left hand cut in half and removed, a small fragment through flesh below the chin bone gave him a dimple, a small fragment behind the right eyeball was best left alone and there were a few other minor perforations not worth counting. Some of the metal is still there. It seemed to have come from the left and the biggest lump must have passed very close to the grenade carried in his thigh pocket.
After a few days Ian was off down the line to 2 General Hospital at Caserta. While at 2 G.H. the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser came over to visit the troops and toured the hospital. Ian graduated to sitting on the sun deck before the train ride to Base Hospital across at Bari on the East Coast where the hospital ship could pick them up. By the time 1 NZ Hospital Ship, the “Monowai”, arrived (30 Jun) he was walking moderately well but was carried on board on a stretcher. And so Ian returned to NZ where he was discharged from the Army on 31 Oct '44 as medically unfit for active service after 1 yr 15 days service in NZ & 1 yr 240 days overseas service.
Graham French was also wounded, but not as badly. After he recovered, he was transferred to the Transport section. Cam and Colin had both been transferred to Battalion HQ after the relief so missed this action - consequently felt guilty about not getting wounded. While this sounds ludicrous to us now, remember these mates had been through hell together and formed very strong bonds. It is a common theme that the soldiers who returned all had mates who didn't and felt guilty that they had survived while their mate didn't - this is part of the toll of war.
The Battalion 'I' (Intelligence) section wrote up the unit war diary during the Cassino fighting:
"There seems little doubt that the conditions under which the troops are at present fighting are the worst ever yet experienced. The Town is in ruins and the damage wrought by our bombers was so great that even streets are scarcely recognizable. Bomb craters many feet deep and filled with water hinder the advance of the troops, who have to suspect every heap of rubble as a likely spot for enemy snipers who infiltrate sometimes behind the forward troops. All day long German shells and mortars pound the ruins where the troops try to obtain a little protection and movement by day is made impossible. Fighting is at times so close that only a wall may separate friend from foe and the enemy has been taking advantage of this proximity by calling to our troops in English and sometimes misleading them to enemy positions. Many of the troops while in the Town never had the opportunity to brew up. The situation was not improved by the number of dead (both friend and foe) which lay unburied in the ruins."
Previous Ians "Last Night" poem Photo's of Cassino
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