[SAMWolf]

MESSAGE
OF THE HOLY FATHER
JOHN PAUL II
FOR THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MONTE CASSINO



1. Monte Cassino... What does this word say to all of you, present here today in this cemetery? It says a great deal: it speaks of the victory won there; it also speaks of the price Poles paid for it, fighting as the allies of other nations. This alliance was the consequence of events that began on September 1939. The Polish Republic was then seeking allies in the West, aware that it would be unable to face the invasion of Hitler's Germany alone. But perhaps this was not the only reason. Poles were aware of the fact that the conflict they were forced to face was not only demanded by patriotism, to defend the independence of the State they had so recently regained, but also had broader implications for the whole of Europe. Europe had to defend itself from the same threat as Poland. The national socialist system was opposed - if this can be said - to the "European spirit". And this problem could not be dealt with by endless attempts at apparent solutions. These attempts resulted in further victims with the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was clear that other similar consequences would have occurred had Europe not decided to take a firm stand in the military sense as well. The decision taken by the Polish Republic in 1939 was therefore right. Indeed, it clearly appeared that Europe could not be defended without deciding on a defensive war, whose first phase was precisely Poland in 1939.

Poles fought for their country's independence



2. The victory of Monte Cassino took place five years later on 18 May 1944. The end of the terrible World War was now not far off. Not only had it raged through almost all of Europe, but it had also drawn non-European States into its vortex, the United States first, into the ranks of the Allies, and then Japan, into those of the so-called Axis. To understand what happened in Monte Cassino, it is necessary again to reflect on another date of the past: 17 September 1939, when Poland, desperately defending herself against invasion from the West, was attacked from the East. And this jeopardized the course of events in that Polish September, leading to a double occupation, with Hitler's concentration camps in the West and those of the Soviets in the East. The tragedy of Katyn, still today a unique testimony of the struggle undertaken at the time, took place in the East.



In order to understand the events that occurred at Monte Cassino, we also need to have this Eastern chapter of our history before our eyes, because the army commanded by General Wladyslaw Anders, which played such an important role in the battle of Monte Cassino, consisted largely of Poles deported to the Soviet Union. In addition, there were soldiers and officers who, from occupied Poland, had secretly reached the West through Hungary, with the intention of continuing the fight there for the independence of their homeland. Monte Cassino was an important milestone in this struggle. The soldiers involved in that battle were convinced that by helping to solve the problems concerning the whole of Europe, they were on the way to an independent Poland.


Wladyslaw Anders,
Lieutenant General, Second Polish Corps

3. Those of you who fought here treasure in your hearts the memory of all your fellow soldiers. You have come here to visit the Polish military cemetery at Monte Cassino, where General Wladyslaw Anders and Archbishop Józef Gawlina, the faithful chaplain to the Polish army on the battlefield, also repose. Many of your companions rest here: soldiers and officers with names that are not only Polish but also Ukrainian, Belarusian and Jewish. They all fought in the battle for the same great cause, as the cemeteries attest: those of Monte Cassino, Loreto, Bologna and Casamassima. Our thoughts and prayers are addressed to those who fell, who, departing life, were thinking of their loved ones in Poland. Their death was a witness to the readiness that marked all society at the time: to give one's life for the holy cause of one's homeland.


View from Polish cemetery towards the Monte Cassino and the Abbey

We cannot forget that a few months later, in that same year of 1944, the Warsaw Uprising took place, an episode which corresponded to the battle of Monte Cassino. The Poles in their homeland felt that they had to fight this battle, in order to stress the fact that Poland had been fighting from the first day to the last, not only to defend her own freedom, but for the future of Europe and the world. They were convinced that the Soviet army, already close to Warsaw, together with the Polish battalions from the territory of the Soviet Union, would contribute decisively to the success of the Warsaw Uprising. But unfortunately this was not the case. We know that Poland paid very dearly for the Warsaw Uprising: not only with the death of so many thousands of Polish men and women of my contemporaries' generation, but even with the almost total destruction of the capital.

New life has risen from the ruins


Polish cemetery . Hill 569 in the background

4. While we have the image of 50 years ago before our eyes, we must once more repeat the word Monte Cassino, a name that has a far older meaning than the one attributed to it in 1944. We must go back 15 centuries to the time of St Benedict. Precisely at Monte Cassino one of those Benedictine abbeys that was to initiate the formation of Europe arose. Historians show that on the basis of the Benedictine principle "ora et labora", after the decline of the Roman Empire of the West and after the migrations of peoples, this Europe began to emerge, whose civil and cultural foundations have been preserved to this day. This is Christian Europe. It was St Benedict in the West, like Saints Cyril and Methodius in the East, who contributed to the Christianization of Europe in the first millennium. Moreover, the European nations are indebted to them for the very beginnings of their own culture and of this Western civilization, which has continued to develop over the centuries and has also spread to other continents.


MONTE CASSINO MONASTERY AFTER THE BATTLE

From this standpoint, what does the battle of Monte Cassino represent? It was the clashing of two "projects": one, both in the East and in the West, aiming at uprooting Europe from its Christian past linked to her Patrons, and in particular to St Benedict, and the other, striving to defend the Christian tradition of Europe and the "European spirit". The fact that the Abbey of Monte Cassino was destroyed has a symbolic value. Christ said: "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit" (Jn 12:24). Evidently, the ancient Abbey of Monte Cassino had to be destroyed so that a new life for all of Europe could rise from its ruins. And in a certain sense, this is what happened. On the ruins of the Second World War, a united Europe began to be built, and those who were its first builders staunchly clung to the Christian roots of European culture.



5. We Poles were unable to participate directly in the rebuilding of Christian Europe undertaken in the West. We were left with the ruins of our capital. Although we had been allies in the victorious coalition, we found ourselves in the situation of the defeated, upon whom the domination of the East, within the Soviet Bloc, was imposed for more than 40 years. Hence for us the struggle did not end in 1945; we were forced to take it up all over again. Furthermore, the same thing happened for our neighbours. Commemorating the Monte Cassino victory, it is therefore essential today to add the truth about all Polish men and women, who in an apparently independent State, became the victims of a totalitarian system. In their homeland, they gave their lives for the very cause for which Poles had died in 1939, then throughout the occupation and finally at Monte Cassino and in the Warsaw Uprising. We must also remember how many were killed at the hand of the Polish institutions and security services that served the system imposed by the East. They must al least be remembered before God and before history, in order not to veil the truth about our past at this decisive moment in history. The Church commemorates her martyrs in martyrologies. We cannot allow that in Poland, especially Poland today, the martyrology of the Polish nation should not be recomposed.

We pray for a good use of freedom



6. This is the price we paid for our current independence. If after the First World War it was necessary to fight to put Poland back on the map of Europe, after the Second World War no one could harbour any doubts on this score. The Polish nation had paid such a high price, had claimed its right to exist as a State with such tremendous efforts and suffering, that even our enemies - let us say, the dubious "friends" of the East and the West - could not question this right. This too must be said today, on the occasion of the great anniversary of the battle of Monte Cassino, because it has fundamental significance for our Polish and European present. If it is impossible to detach the "today" from the past, from all our history and especially from the past 50 years, it is impossible to forget that every human "today" is the introduction to a human future. What will the future of Poland and Europe be like? There are many promising elements for this future. Apparently Europe has detached herself from the dangerous systems that have prevailed in the 20th century, and the desire for peaceful co-existence among nations is rather general. Is this also the desire to build our own future in the spirit of Monte Cassino? Monte Cassino represents a symbol proven by the experience of history. But should we not fear that we might be unable to draw the right conclusions from this experience, letting ourselves be misled by other "spirits" that have little in common with Monte Cassino, or are even opposed to it, perhaps to the point of being responsible for its systematic destruction?


Monte Cassino monastery as it looked in mid May 1944.

Thus we cannot conclude our meditation on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the victory of Monte Cassino without adding a similar warning for the future and together beseeching God to remain with us and we with him. We must pray that we may be able to make good use of the freedom purchased at such a high price: because we are returning to the heritage of St Benedict and of Sts Cyril and Methodius, co-patrons of Europe in the West and in the East.



At the end of the second millennium and on the eve of the third, I recommend all those present and the whole of our country to them, as well as to all the patrons of our nation, especially to the one who is the symbol of our century, the martyr saint of Auschwitz, Maximilian Maria Kolbe, as well as to Our Lady of Jasna Góra, Queen of Poland.

May almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, bless you.

Additional Sources:

www.andersarmy.com
www.members.shaw.ca/carpathiandiv
www.futura-dtp.dk
www.virtuti.com/order
www.polandsholocaust.org
members.tripod.com/polcon
www.multied.com
www.museum-security.org
www.ina.fr/voir_revoir/guerre
www.kki.krakow.pl/piojar/brygad
www.nasm.si.edu
www.qmmuseum.lee.army.mil
college.hmco.com/history
www.lib.utexas.edu
www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches

[SAMWolf]

'In this great campaign against the German Army, the Poles played a part which gained them the admiration of their comrades and the respect of their enemies. They fought many victorious battles alongside their Allies, but their greatest was at Monte Cassino. Only the finest troops could have taken that well prepared and long defended fortrees.

When the Polish standard floated proudly from the ruins of the Monastery it signaled the march to Rome. Soldiers of the Allied armies will long remember the Polish Corps at Monte Cassino and in other fields, where they served as comrades in a great cause.'

Field Marshall Alexander,
Allied Commander in Italy

'Generals long remember in the most admiring terms, the units under their command, which could always be counted on to achieve any objective assigned them - the Polish Corps was such a unit in my 5th Army during the ragged fighting in Italy during World War II. At Cassino that Corps fought so splendidly under Gen. Wladyslaw Anders, that it accomplished the nearly impossible - it took Monte Cassino.'

General Mark Clark,
commanding general of the 5th U.S. Army

Gen. Anders, commander of the 2nd Corps, before he died in London in 1972, expressed his wish to be laid to rest with his fallen soldiers near the monastery. After the war a cemetery was built at the foot of the Abbey by surviving soldiers of the 2nd Corps.

At its entrance, the engraved epitaph depicts their bravery and dedication to Poland.

In four languages it reads:

"We, Polish soldiers
For our freedom and yours
Have given our souls to God
Our bodies to the soil of Italy
And our hearts — to Poland"

Most Americans know nothing about the World War II Battle of Monte Cassino, in which the Polish 2d Corps battled valiantly to open the route to Rome for the Allies. Sitting atop a strategic promontory, the abbey at Monte Cassino was surrounded by Nazi artillery and snipers. After unsuccessful attempts by Allied forces to take the abbey, the Poles dug in, threw wave after wave of men at the Nazi position and on May 18, 1944, raised their red and white flag atop their prize.

In the week's fighting the 2nd Corps had suffered appalling losses; there were 4,199 casualties, 25 percent (over 1,150 ) of these dead. One of the holiest places on Earth may be that Polish Military Cemetery on Monte Cassino. Buried there are the pure of heart -- they fought to victory and then had to wait another 40 years for freedom. And this is something you have probably never heard about from your Polish friends.

[Iris7]

The stories about Monte Cassino I find fairly slim pickings, especially on the German side. I saw a piece in one of the magazines years ago about the Fallschirmyaeger in Monte Cassino town, who fought to nearly the last man before defeat. As I recollect there was one survivor of the four captured in the town; the others died of their wounds.

The Sven Hassel stories (Hassel is very controversial, seems to me to be a front line soldier groupie, took what stories he heard based in the late forties and early fifties (poseurs included) on the German experience and using his imagination freely wrote a series of popular combat stories) consider Monte Cassino the worst fighting of the war. Hassel has no use for Americans as soldiers except for the Marine Corps.

The Germans fought from one prepared defensive line until forced to withdraw, and then moved back to the next prepared defense line successfully (withdrawal in the face of the enemy being the hardest of all combat tasks). While the Americans had an unlimited supply of infantry (and so were treated like ammunition, which is hard on the guys having to do the dieing. This is why American combat infantrymen from that era had so little use for the British) the Germans (and Poles and British) did not have unlimited manpower, and the campaign meant death. There is a German memoir which I haven't read from this era called "Without Fear and Without Hope", which I suspect was the common point of view.

Speaking of the American combat experience Patton was always saying stuff like "if you guys do it my way fewer of our people will be killed." He was telling the truth, but not all the truth, because Patton's way meant that the soldiers under his command would do a lot more dieing doing it Patton's way instead of someone else having the privilege of sacrificing himself for his country, an honor not all that many coveted. That dieing stuff, once fully expected, accepted, is a son of a gun, you never get over it.

[Hurtgen]

The first unit to try to take Cassino was the 133d Infantry Iowa National Guard, and they almost made it! This is what I wrote on the battle from an individual's view point.

"Cassino
They moved forward again early in January 1944, taking hills leading to the Rapido River and crossing it during the night of 24 January in an effort to seize Cassino. John remembered little of three weeks that followed.
One man called it a little Stalingrad. The back and forth, see saw close range house to house fighting. Tanks trundling down blocked and rubbled streets with infantry on both sides, advancing until the tanks ran out of ammunition or were destroyed, and the infantry pushed back. The always being cold and wet, the debilitating tiredness of continual shaking and ever present fear, and never getting anything but cat naps for sleep,of watching friends killed and wounded, and wondering who was next.
Each of the Italian houses was a fortress with walls several feet thick. In some, the Germans had built pillboxes containing antitank and machineguns that covered the critical intersections. John’s unit developed several techniques to reduce the German positions. Since doors and windows were usually covered by fire, the infantrymen used tanks or bazookas to blast entry points through walls. They found the pillboxes took fewer rounds to penetrate than the houses. When available, they used 8” howitzers to fire directly into the houses.

One afternoon in early February, about the tenth day of the battle, John’s company, supported by a platoon of tanks, attacked into the smoke blanketed northern sector of Cassino proper. A squad walked in front of the lead tank, the remaining two squads of that platoon behind. The company headquarters followed the second tank, one platoon the third tank, and John’s platoon split into two groups, John’s squad with the platoon headquarters following the fourth tank, while the remaining two squads brought up the rear. The company stood at fewer than 80 men, the preceding ten days of combat sapping almost half the company’s strength through both battle and non-battle casualties.
Once they reached the outlying buildings, most two stories high, John watched as the lead elements began clearing each house individually, 5 or 6 men working against each. First, a tank fired into the house, creating smoke and dust and suppressing those inside—after which three men rushed forward, tossed in a grenade, waited for the blast and then rushed through the door. The covering group fired rifle grenades through the upper windows, driving any Germans on the second floor down the stairs to be killed or captured by the men inside.
Then the next group would leapfrog the first and repeat the process. Two men remained in each cleared house to ensure the Germans did not reoccupy and the remainder continued down the street with the tanks.
As the band reached the first crossroad, a hidden anti-tank gun knocked out the third tank in the column while machine gun fire drove the remaining infantrymen into the doorways of houses alongside the street. The two leading tanks couldn’t pull back past the burning tank, so they stayed and fired their cannon and machineguns at every doorway and window nearby. John, his company commander and about 5 other infantrymen rushed across a small square and seized two big buildings. They spent the rest of the night holding the building, waiting for reinforcements. Unfortunately, during the night, the two tanks found a way around the disabled vehicle and pulled back. With no radio communications, the commander relied on runners to get through to battalion: but none ever returned. When the sun rose in the morning, and no relief in sight, he pulled the company back out of the town, picking up the riflemen who had remained in each house as they recoiled. John wished that support had come, as he hated seeing good men wasted in a successful attack that had had to be abandoned.
During the third week of February, there wasn’t much movement forward. John’s company had captured the jail sometime during the second week and had held on, too exhausted and too battered by the German fire to do more than await relief. Some of the fights had degenerated to rock throwing after both sides had run out of grenades, playing toss between houses just ten yards apart.
Unable to able to dig in the frozen ground, John and the others resorted to piling rubble around them for protection. The cold wet weather caused more casualties than the Germans, with trench foot and respiratory diseases affecting almost everyone. The only replacements to make it to the front lines were men from headquarters, motor pools, and kitchens. Soldiers remained pinned in these positions during the day because of the closeness of the enemy, and didn’t move at night lest they be caught in the open by German shelling.
A general from outside the division visited once, and received an earful from officers and enlisted alike on how the battle was progressing. When General Lemnitzer returned to 15th Army Group, he said the men around Cassino were dispirited and almost mutinous, and he recommended they be pulled out of the line for rest.
In the three weeks between its first attack to take the Italian barracks area and the final effort in the northeastern corner of Cassino, the 133d Infantry had captured 138 prisoners but had lost 132 killed, 492 wounded, and 115 missing; most from rifle companies. Nonbattle casualties probably reached over 1000, again primarily in the companies on the front lines. John’s rifle company, like most of the others, averaged fewer than 50 men present when they pulled off the line."
Extracted from GI, the US Infantryman in World War II" 131-134