Battle of Monte Cassino

But the author is Walter M. Miller Jr.

So the inspiration, he said, for this story was he was a gunner in the Second World War, and he was part of a bombing of a monastery at the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Forgive my pronunciation, dear listener.

So this was thought to be the oldest monastery in the West at the time, founded by Saint Benedict in the 6th century.

A Polish regiment who was stationed in Iran and like Harry Colburn, rescued a bear cub.

The bear, named Wojciech, became very important to the soldiers, not just in raising their morale, but also practically as he used his strength to help move heavy boxes of ammunition crates in the Battle of Monte Cassino.

When the regiment were moved on to Scotland, they were not permitted to take pets or animals with them.

So, to make sure the bear could come too, he was made a private.

So she eventually qualified and became a solicitor full time but at the time she was still a trainee.

My dad is the son of a World War II Polish migrant, so he fought for the Allies through General Alder's army, and he was actually shot and nearly died at the Battle of Monte Cassino.

And he was found and saved.

And he made his way back to the UK.

These are some of the true stories of that fight told by the men of both sides who took part in this extraordinary five-month conflict.

Described as an act of insanity, it became known as the Battle of Monte Cassino.

By 1944, the war has begun to turn in the Allies' favor, and Germany is now on the defensive.

In the town of Cassino, south of Rome, German paratroopers enjoy a drink of schnapps, unaware of what's about to hit them.

Of the 400 men who had hidden for days in foxholes and bomb craters on Hangman's Hill, just over half made it back.

German losses were almost as bad.

The Battle of Monte Cassino was starting to take a place alongside some of the most notorious battles of the First World War.

Once, while

You had...

There are many songs in this book, you know, things like the Battle of Rome and a whole lot of other songs.

So there is a strong tradition of singing, music, dancing in the parish of Lisbon.

Yeah.

And they're like, right, okay, in that case, that's fine.

He would serve at the Battle of Monte Cassino, which we talked about in the 7th Farmer Division series.

There was a bear around in that.

Just hanging out in the background.

This is the last in our six-part battle series, well this series of battles in the news anyway.

We have explored what made it to the newspapers during the fighting in Leningrad, at Casino, during Guadalcanal, on Java, underneath the Battle of Britain and now we can put it off no longer.

We're going to Arnhem.

Jesus, it was going to happen, wasn't it, eventually? Of course, it was randomly generated.