- Contributed by听
- amandaraby
- People in story:听
- Polish Forces, inc 3rd Carpathian Division
- Location of story:听
- Monte Cassino, Italy
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A2651375
- Contributed on:听
- 20 May 2004
I have just returned to the UK after spending the last few days in Italy to remember the battle of Monte Cassino, 60 years ago.
It was one of the most moving times of my life, as veterans, many of whom could barely walk, returned to this place where so many of their friends and collegues lost their lives.
On Monday 17th May, we attended at service at the war memorial of the 3rd Carpathian Division, which sits overlooking the monestary and the Polish War Cemetary, on the North Ridge. Written on it, in four different languages, are the following words:
We soldiers of Poland
For your freedom and ours
We give
Our souls to God
Our bodies to soil of Italy
Our Hearts to Poland
Reading this, for the first time I got a sense of the sacrifice that all veterans gave for us - the younger generations.
They had people there dressed in the uniform of the time - many of them little more than children - standing guard on either side of the monument, and you could see some veterans do a double-take as they were transported back 60 years in their minds.
We were also joined for a time by the Duke of Kent, who came to pay his respects to the Polish veterans, and their fallen comrades.
The following day we attended a mass at the cemetery itself, which was incredibly moving. We sat among the graves - behind my chair was the grave of a soldier who was killed on the 17th May, and who was the same age as I am now...
Apart from the mass, we sang war songs from the time (and how well those veterans sang...), and listened to speeches from the President of Poland, and veterans who had fought there. One man who spoke was 93 years old - his voice broke as he remembered the faces of those who fell around him.
Finally, at the end of the mass, there was a role call - an officer read out a short list of names, then called out "Soldiers! This is your call to arms!" The group of soldiers stood behind him called out in reply: "They cannot - they have fallen on the field of glory". This was repeated again and again, until all the names were read out...
Perhaps the most striking thing for me looking round the area was that only now did I get a real sense of what had happened there, a real sense of the loss of life, a real sense of the horrors of the battle. The area is covered in trees, yet they are all less than 60 years old - the area having been stripped of vegetation during the battle; the monestary looks immaculate, yet 60 years ago it was a pile of rubble.
This campaign is less well known than D-Day, Market Garden, Pearl Harbour; yet a quarter of a million men died on those hills in a battle that has more parallels with the big battles of WW1. Some of my friends didn't even know what Monte Cassino was. It should be given the same prominence in schools and elsewhere as those other better known battles. The veterans and their fallen comrades deserve that much at least...
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