Cassino Lesson

At 6 a.m. the Allied troops holding one-fourth of the embattled town of Cassino, main obstacle on the Fifth Army's road to Rome, silently pulled back 1,000 yards; the Germans did not know.

Then at 8:30 a wave of 36 Mitchell B-25 bombers swept in and unloaded on the battered stone buildings. That was the beginning of the Operation Ludlum.* Until noon the attack went on, without pause or mercy. Every ten or 15 minutes another wave of medium or heavy bombers roared over. More than 2,500 tons of bombs fell on Cassino and its environs. (It was finally agreed that this was not the alltime high in bomb tonnage: the R.A.F. had once carried 2,800 tons to Berlin.)

Bombs & Shells. There was no air opposition. When the bombers finished, the artillery took up the pounding, fired some 85,000 shells from guns ranging up to 240-mm. (9.4-in.) bore. The artillery barrage was heavier than the famous pounding that preceded El Alamein. Said Lieut. General Ira C. Eaker, Mediterranean air commander:

"Never in warfare have air forces concentrated so much destruction on a target of comparable size in a single mission. . . . Today we fumigated Cassino, and I am most hopeful that, when the smoke of today's battle clears, we shall find more worthy occupants installed with little loss to our men."

On or Off. Back in the U.S., headlines and dispatches gleefully proclaimed that Cassino was "leveled," "erased," "wiped off the map." That was true enough. What many an American temporarily overlooked was that an obstinate enemy may be perfectly willing to fight savagely for such a prize position, from its buildings or in their rubble.

New Zealand infantrymen found there were still Germans on hand. The defenders were veterans of the excellent 1st Parachute Division. Their order: Hold at all costs.

They opened up with a hail of machine-gun fire, shooting from cellars, from shell holes, from behind any pile of stone or debris. There was no way to discourage them except the classical infantry way: a personal bullet, a private grenade, an individual bayonet thrust.

The fighting was bitter and ruthless. German snipers potted at everyone in sight, not sparing first-aid men. Hill 165, above the town, changed hands six times. A New Zealand lieutenant found his Tommy gun jammed just as he flushed a German sniper: he used it as a club to bash in the man's head.

Last--the Infantry. Yet the fact that there was still fighting to be done did not mean that the massive bombardment had been a failure. Cassino had simply added one more lesson to the established lessons of Verdun, of Stalingrad, of Tarawa. No bombardment can totally eliminate a foe skilled and nervy enough to wait it out. The infantryman must write the final score.

The real score on Cassino was brief. Before bombardment six weeks of heavy fighting had taken one-quarter of the town; after bombardment the Allies took three-quarters of it in 24 hours. Early this week the Germans pushed up reinforcements, still held out in the western end. But the Allies' hard-won bridgehead over the Rapido River was growing. Next objective might be to capture Monastery Hill, site of the bombed-out Benedictine abbey, towering beyond the town.

* So designated in honor of Captain David Ludlum of East Orange, N.J., weather officer who okayed the attack after having postponed it for nearly a week.

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