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Monte Cassino: April 30-May 23, 1944 Part I(b)
Romuald E Lipinski, 12 Podolski Lancers Regt.
2nd Polish Corps

MONTE CASSINO: APRIL 30 - MAY 23, 1944 - Part I(a)
Romuald E. Lipinski -12 Podolski Lancers Regt.
2nd Polish Corps

The Beginning

Battle of Monte Cassino has been written about extensively so I will not waste time describing it in general terms. I will limit myself to my experiences and my opinions.

Sometime at the beginning of April we were taken out from the Sangro Line to a camp near Campobasso, which is located in the central part of the Italian peninsula. We spent there about three weeks during which again we went through an extensive and exhaustive physical training. Finally, we were told that we are going to be sent to Monte Cassino and we knew what that meant. We saw from Pescopennataro flashing of artillery salvos and we knew that the Allies are getting a bloody nose over there. We heard about the fiasco at Anzio, and when the news broke about us going to Monte Cassino, we knew that not everybody will come back.

We came to the Cassino area on April 30, 1944. Our temporary camp was in an olive orchard, few kilometers from the Cassino town. It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when I went to the edge of the orchard and took a look at the monastery. There was a valley in front of me, maybe four kilometers wide and at the other end of the valley there were rather steep mountains, about 500 feet high. To the left, I could see a powerful mountain, covered with smoke, and the ruins of once beautiful monastery. There was one thing that impressed me: between our orchard and the hills the valley was covered with beautiful, red poppies. Beauty of these flowers was in striking contrast with the grim brutality of war. Later on when we were already in battle, when I wanted to divert myself from the reality of our situation, I often looked at these beautiful flowers and I always could find a relief in thinking that somewhere life is going on, serene, happy, where people go about their daily chores, life so different from ours. These poppies were in a striking contrast with our immediate surrounding: death, death and once more death. Maybe there is some truth in the song composed for us, "Red Poppies of Conte Cassino", that says that they will be more red than before because they soaked a lot of Polish blood...
Looking at this panoramic view it was evident that the enemy, situated on the top of the hills, had an excellent view into the valley and the slopes of the hills, where our troops were located. At that time I did not know the whole history of the battle of Monte Cassino. I did not know that the fighting for these mountains was going for four months, but I knew that it was a tough going, and that we will be going up those hills next. Looking at the chain of hills in front of me I could see explosions of artillery shells here and there. Our artillery was shelling some enemy positions hidden in folds of the mountains.

We were told to deliver to the headquarters all papers that could identify us by name or by the regiment. All personal papers, letters to our families, documents etc., had to be collected and left with the regimental office. The only thing that we were allowed to retain were the dog tags, and the equipment that consisted of one blanket, mess kit, and of course, our side arms, in my case my rifle, and ammo. We were given sneakers, or sometimes rubber boots, and, I think it was 31-st of April, as soon as it became dark, we started our march towards the hills. We were told that any talk while marching is forbidden, because the enemy could hear it and that would bring on us artillery fire. Truck and carrier drivers and regimental administration remained with the headquarters.

We walking in complete silence, it is hard to estimate how long did we walk, but finally we reached the positions of our predecessors. I think they were British. We did not have to change anything as far as our equipment is concerned: they had their mortars in place with various targets marked. One of them was the monastery. It was difficult to orient myself where we were at that time. On the basis of what I read about our movements during that period we must have been somewhere in the area of the Great Bowl ("Wielka Miska"). After two days we were moved, during night of course, to the left end of the Polish forces, to the hills almost overlooking the town of Cassino. Further to the left of us were some troops from the XIII British Corps. I sheared my shelter with Stefan Strasz. He was a carpenter before the war. He was square-built man and strong as a horse. And he was a great companion. Together we found some wooden beams which we brought to our post and we built our shelter. We could not dig it in the ground because there was a rock right at the surface, so it had to be made on the surface. We found a ruined shed that had concrete floor and one concrete wall against the mountain. We leaned our beams against the vertical wall, put some material to protect us from rain and this was our shelter. It was just big enough that two men could sleep there. The shed floor was not bigger than 12 feet square and our shelter about 4 feet wide.

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