Due to bad weather, the resumption of operations was delayed by about a month. The new battle, which began on 15 March 1944, concerned only the Cassino area and involved a limited number of troops. It is defined by historians as the useless battle.
In accordance with Freyberg's plan, the infantry assault was preceded by another frightening bombardment: 455 planes dropped 992 tons of bombs on Cassino and the German paratroopers who were barricaded there.
After the air squadrons, the artillery also opened fire and until the evening of 15 March alone it fired 195,969 rounds.
Cassino was completely devastated.
According to a later estimate, each of the 2-300 defenders of the city received about four tons of explosives; Despite this, the German paratroopers survived in large numbers by taking advantage of the underground shelters and a large cave at the foot of Monte Cassino.
Bomb craters and rubble changed the appearance of the places and mobility on the ground was significantly reduced.
As soon as the aerial bombardment ended the infantry moved forward. The 2nd New Zealand Division had the task of occupying the rubble of the city starting from the north. After the occupation of the castle of Rocca Janula, the battalions of the 4th Indian Division had to climb up to the abbey and conquer it.
The New Zealanders fought hard against unexpected German resistance. The attacking tanks were blocked by rubble and could only provide limited support to the infantry. Despite all the difficulties and heavy losses, after three days of fighting the New Zealanders had reached and occupied the castle of Rocca Janula and the Cassino railway station. But the hard core of the German paratroopers resisted every assault in the area of the Continental Hotel, at the foot of Monte Cassino.
Due to the rubble, the clashes were split to company level. The New Zealanders had to fight to occupy individual rooms of the demolished buildings, while the Germans had ample opportunity to conceal themselves and thus ambush the enemy.
The fighting in the town of Cassino lasted until 24 March 1944, then the New Zealanders were forced to suspend the attacks: against Freyberg's expectations, the Germans had withstood the blow.
Meanwhile, the Indian troops experienced a particular odyssey in their attempt to occupy the Abbey. The plan was to reach a series of objectives scattered along the mountain up to the top of Monte Cassino.
In the following days and nights the Indians occupied the first of the two hairpin bends, the one at Point 165, but despite repeated assaults they were unable to establish a stable foothold on the second curve, the one at Point 236. While these attacks were taking place, in Over the course of two nights an entire battalion of Gurk[Photo 0 – Caption: The city of Cassino and the Monte Cassino massif, Monte Cairo in the background]
has managed to circumvent the obstacle and occupy the Hangman's Hill, Point 435.
A paradoxical situation had been created: the Gurkhas were close to their final objective, but they were isolated. Reinforcements were supposed to arrive from the castle, but they could not move in force because the Germans still controlled the curve at Point 236.
General Heidrich, commander of the 1st Parachute Division, realized the crisis in the Indian division's deployment and ordered a counterattack towards the castle of Rocca Janula.
At dawn on 19 March 1944 a battalion of paratroopers descended from the Abbey and, passing through Point 236, attacked the castle. It was a medieval-style battle: the attackers reached the walls and attempted to scale them or demolish them with explosives. From inside, the garrison made up mostly of soldiers from an English battalion defended itself desperately.
The paratroopers attacked the castle several times, even with forces from the city, but in vain. They were decimated, but they ruined the Allied plans for that day. In fact, the English garrison battalion had just begun to send its troops to reinforce the Gurkhas on the Hangman's Hill and then attack the abbey, but it was decimated and the attack on the abbey was cancelled.
The last act on that difficult day on 19 March took place in the hills north of the abbey. The Allies had planned a tank attack to be carried out at the same time as the Gurkha and English infantry assault from Hangman's Hill towards the abbey. As we have seen, this last assault never occurred, thus it would have been wise to cancel the tank action as well. But due to those fatal mix-ups that often occur in war, no one informed the tank drivers and they set off to their fate.
The armored formation was made up of Indian, New Zealand and American squadrons for a total of 47 tracked vehicles. The Germans were astonished to see those tank appear out of nowhere. They considered their use in the mountains impossible, but they soon realized that the attackers had no infantry support. So the German paratroopers implemented close attack tactics on the armored vehicles and the battle was very tough. For a few hours the tanks attacked Masseria Albaneta, a large farm which was a strong German stronghold. Some other vehicles headed towards the abbey, but were destroyed or damaged.
By the time the attack was called off, 22 Allied tanks had been destroyed or damaged and abandoned.
The Third Battle for Cassino ended and the front stabilized for almost two months. The Allies reorganized their structure and received reinforcements, they were also waiting for the good weather to exploit the numerical superiority of the tanks on compact terrain.
The Germans also regrouped, but received no reinforcements.
This article, others articles by the same author and many more by other authors, are available here dalvolturnoacassino.it
Livio Cavallaro
Author of the following books:
Cassino 1944 – Le battaglie per la Linea Gustav, Mursia Editore, 2004.
Assalto a Massria Albaneta – Cassino 19 marzo 1944, Mattioli 1885 Editore, 2018.
Assalto a Cassino – La stazione, il castello, la collina, Mursia Editore 2024.
