Battling in mountains and tasting volcano ash
In the third and final extract from The Go Boys, by Second World War veteran Harry Killingbeck, from Rising Bridge, he recounts his experience of the famous Battle of Monte Cassino, in 1944:
EARLY in the New Year we moved up towards Cassino, having to cross the River Rapido on the way.
We stayed near a village to the south of Cassino for a week or so, and for once, Lady Luck was with our troop.
We stayed as A.A. whilst some of the other troops in our battery were detailed as ammunition carriers, with the awful task of going out at night with mules, whose panniers were filled with ammunition for the infantry fighting in the town of Cassino.
On their return journey they brought back the dead slung over the mules.
The approach to Cassino from the south was through foothills and across the river, beyond Anzio, and among those which stretched a fertile there was one of the batplain criss-crossed by teries from our regiment drainage ditches with one (167 or 168) who had gone long, straight road. ashore with the first wave.
To most people the Then it was back again name ‘Cassino’ brings to to Cassino where ‘B’ and mind the monastery ‘D’ Troops were detailed perched on top of a mounfor A.A. whilst ‘A’ and ‘C’ tain, but in reality it was it Troops assignment was small town at the foot of a carrying ammunition yet mountain. again.
It was the monastery, Their task on this occahowever, which was the sion was now more diffisource of trouble to the cult as added to the danallied forces. gers and horrors of their
Whether or not there job they also had a mounwere Germans inside the tain to climb, all under monastery has been cover of darkness. argued many times; the It was here that we saw Germans denied that the 1,000 bomber raid by there were. the allied air forces which
But what is certain is achieved nothing except that they were on the to provide some extra mountain top with the cover for the German best observation post they infantry amongst the rubble.hadeverhad,evenbetter than the one they occuDuring the raid they pied at Enfidaville in Tunihad taken cover in the celsia. lars and caves surround
The fighting at Cassino ing the monastery. was at a standstill and so Their casualties were we were moved back to light and soon they the coast to, I think, a emerged to fire down on place called Nessa, as A.A. the poor infantry climbing cover for both British and up the rugged mountainYankee troops who were side, hoarding transporters for Again we moved back we knew not where. out of line, but this time
It was days later when we went as far back as we heard that there had Salerno. been an allied landing at What a change!
We thought we would get some rest and take it easy. Some hope!
The volcano, Vesuvius, decided, after having a long rest, to put on a bit of a show and to give the troops scrounging about in Salerno something to do.
Lava dust blew everywhere.
In fact, it was worse than a sandstorm in the desert as the ash varied from very fine dust to pieces the size of grains of rice.
Our transport was sent out into the mountainous countryside to evacuate villagers who were in danger of being cut off by the lava flow.
Salerno itself was mostly covered by this dust which, after a few days formed a crust strong enough to walk on.
Rumours went around that we might be going home to take part in the second front; the real reason was that we were going to the south coast of France.
This never came to anything because the battery that was at Anzio either was unable to get out or it was too difficult to relieve them, so after about ten days off we moved again up into the line.
This time we went into the mountains to the west of Cassino, where we took over positions from a Polish A.A. battery.
The allied troops in this area was a very mixed bag; French Moroccan mountain fighters, New Zealand, British, Polish and some Americans with their heavy artillery.
In our section nothing much was going on, but during the hours of darkness we could hear and see exchanges of gunfire.
Then one morning there was an eerie silence and soon we heard that the Polish troops had taken the monastery.
The majority of Jerry troops had withdrawn before or during the barrage.
Winter had given way to spring as we left our mountain location and motored up to the main highway, passing all the devastation caused by the battles that had raged in the area for the previous five months.
To pick up a copy of the memoirs, visit Amazon and search for ‘The Go Boys by Harry Killingbeck’.