大象传媒

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

The Battle

In view of the successes of the 5-th Kresowa Division in the region of the Phantom Ridge prompted the division commander to order on May 18, at about 8:45 AM, to send a patrol from our regiment to find out what is the situation in the area of the monastery. They successfully crossed the mine field and reached the outer walls of the monastery. They found out that the Germans left the monastery during the night, leaving only 16 wounded, with two medics under a command of one officer cadet. The Germans were scared because their command told them that Poles murder their prisoners. Our men took care of the wounded, giving them the help that they could, and those who could walk were sent further to our area. It is interesting to note, that sometimes in 1970-s someone announced on German radio that Polish soldiers were killing their prisoners. To that answered one of those German paratroopers that was found by our patrol at the monastery, stating that it was a lie, that he was one of the wounded soldiers found by the Polish patrol on the 18-th of May, and that he was provided with medical care and was treated very well. The 3-rd Carpathian Division Association got involved in the act and arranged a meeting between this ex-German paratrooper and Lt. Gurbiel, the commander of that first patrol that entered the monastery. It must have been some meeting. It must have been similar to that I had on May 18, 1994 with the Germans ex-paratroopers at Monte Cassino. At that time, it was on the occasion of the 50-th anniversary of taking the Monastery, there was a big celebration at the Polish cemetery. Iza (my wife) and I went to Italy, and the trip was scheduled that on the 18-th of May we were at Monte Cassino. I met some of my friends, and we started to go through the surrounding hills trying to find some familiar places. Suddenly, from one of the houses there, came three German veterans who came like us to visit German cemetery which is in a nearby village. They told us that were in the 1-st Parachute Division, the one that we had against us during the battle. They were quite friendly to us, so we started talking to them. It was a funny conversation: we were telling them how we tried to kill them and they were telling us how they did their bes to kill us. But soon we found common language. This was the first time that I was so close to German soldiers alive. They showed us their decorations, we showed them ours. They told us about another meeting with veterans from New Zealand whom they met day before. They showed us a hill where five New Zealand tanks got to. They were all destroyed, by the these German's detachment and the crew killed, with one exception: one of the New Zealanders got away. Day before our arrival he came to visit Monte Cassino and they met that man. That must have been some meeting too...

At 9:50 AM a banner of our regiment was placed at the highest point of the ruins of the monastery as a signal that it was taken by our forces. This banner is now in the General Sikorski Institute in London.

City of Cassino was also taken by the British 10-th Brigade of the XIII Corps. Although by this time Germans were emerging from cellars and dugouts to give themselves up, sporadic fighting continued throughout the day. Mines, some fanatical paratroopers that did not receive orders to withdraw were still shooting at our troops, taking a tall of our soldier's lives.

So, the battle of Monte Cassino came to an end. We left our positions on May 24. I will never forget, when we were leaving the Cassino area, we were passing close to the temporary cemetery. Long columns of bodies wrapped in blankets were laying waiting for burial. It had a chilling effect on me and on my buddies. We all realized that we were all very close to be among these less fortunate, who not long ago were young men, full of vigor and dreams about future, having somewhere somebody dear, who was praying for their safe return that will never come about. Our regiment did not suffer as heavy losses as infantry battalions: killed were one officer and 17 noncommissioned officers and lancers; wounded seven officers and 68 noncommissioned officers and lancers. Total losses were 93 soldiers which was one-quarter of the total manpower engaged in combat.

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