Veteran, 100, marks anniversary of horrific battle that turned tide in Italian campaign
EIGHTY years after the Battle of Monte Cassino in central Italy, Jack Hearn, a British war veteran, is still haunted by memories of what he describes as the “most horrific battle” in the Second World War.
Between January and May 1944, amid freezing temperatures and heavy snow, fighting raged around the town’s Nazi-occupied sixth-century Benedictine monastery, on a 1,700ft mountain.
“The Germans were on the top of the hill in the monastery,” the former sergeant told The Telegraph from his home in Northumberland. “They had the advantage because on the left-hand side there was a river and on the right-hand side there was a mountain. There was nowhere for us to go.”
The monastery’s near unassailable location gave the Germans the advantage as they turned it into a devastatingly effective defensive position complete with mines, booby traps and hidden machineguns. Allied troops were forced to fight house to house in the bombed-out ruins of the town of Cassino in the valley below. Among them was Mr Hearn, then just 20 and serving in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.
The highly decorated soldier fought in Africa and Algeria before spending three and a half years in Italy. Employed as a lorry driver, he carried troops, weapons and food during the battle.
“Every piece of grass I could hide behind, I did. Every tree I could hide behind, I did. You hid behind anything you could to avoid the gunfire raining down on you,” he said. “It was the most horrific battle in the war. We were terrified.”
Today, Mr Hearn, now 100, will be in Monte Cassino again to mark the 80th anniversary of the battle.
“I’m going to pay homage to the guys who didn’t make it back,” said an emotional Mr Hearn, who will be accompanied by his sister Val and son John, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. “I came back but they didn’t.”
The Duchess of Edinburgh will also be present at the event, which is being hosted by the British Embassy in Rome and Lord Llewellyn, the ambassador, at the Cassino War Cemetery.
Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the chief of the general staff, will lead representatives from all three British Armed Services, including more than 100 serving members of the Royal Tank Regiment, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the Honourable Artillery Company, who will also provide the guard of honour.
Thousands of troops from Britain and the Commonwealth, including from Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa, fought and died in the campaign. On May 18 1944, British and Polish troops raised their flags over the ruins of Monte Cassino – paving the way for the liberation of Rome. A total of 4,271 British and Commonwealth soldiers are buried at the Cassino War Cemetery, 289 of them unidentified.