The Aftermath

 

Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day.   There will be plenty of articles on that topic.  Almost forgotten is that on June 4, 1944 Allied forces liberated Rome, as part of the Italian campaign that began in September 1943 and ended on May 2, 1945 with the surrender of the remaining German army in northern Italy.

The Allies (American, British, Canadian, Polish, French, Brazilian and those from several other nations) suffered 60,000 to 70,000 killed in the course of the campaign, of whom half were Americans.

The photo above (from Life Magazine), taken in May 1944, shows the ruins of the town of Cassino, and above it, those of the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino.  The town and the hill on which the monastery were located had to be taken by the Allies because it controlled the only viable route north towards Rome.  In early November of 1943, Allies forces reached a point twenty miles south of the town and monastery.  It took over six months of gruesome fighting, crossing rivers and rocky open-faced mountains amid terrible weather and stubborn German resistance to cross those twenty miles; a distance that is now a leisurely half hour drive by car (which we did in 2006).  After failed assaults in January, February, and March the monastery was finally captured by Polish troops on May 18.

The town is now rebuilt as is the monastery.  The first monastery was constructed around 529.  Destroyed by the Lombards in 570 it was not rebuilt until 718.  The second monastery was destroyed by Moslem raiders in 883 and rebuilt in 949.  It was that 10th century structure that was bombed in 1944.