Italian Campaign
Cassino
From February 1944 when the 28 (Maori) Battalion initiated an attack at Cassino railway station until April when the Div finally withdrew, almost 350 New Zealand troops were killed in the battle for Cassino. (click on image for full campaign map)
Campaign memories: Cassino, Reg Minter
Private Reg Minter, 620068, went to the Middle East with the Tenth Reinforcements in July 1943. He joined 24 Battalion as a signalman and went to Italy in late December 1943. His first real time in action was at Cassino in March 1944. Here he remembers that time.
Hear Reg
Minter discussing
his experiences at Cassino (mp3,
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Transcript
'The sixteenth we were there all day … in that, in that rubble.
And was there fighting going on outside in the town?
Yes, yeah, yeah. But during the day there wasn't much because we were sending a lot of smoke shells to try and hide us from the, from the monastery, because you could see the Germans walking around on the top of that … around the perimeter of the monastery. You couldn't move during the day. He had the snipers all over the place.
The seventeenth, what happened the seventeenth. We, we, we moved up towards the crypt, that's right. We advanced a bit more. Actually we were, we were told just to keep this little part open while 25 and 26 Battalions moved in a, in a pincer movement around to the left. A sort of circling movement, so we just had to stay put.
On the eighteenth, in the morning, we went a few yards, a few, oh about thirty or fifty yards. … By this time they'd got the tanks across into the, into the town. We had two tanks coming up to us, well, to join us and we stayed and … the sergeant major, he said, “You'd better, we better dig in or get into these holes.” He'd no sooner said that when a machine gun opened up on us. One of my sigs got a nasty burst right down the side of his leg. Poor bugger, he did scream too. And I, I, I had the telephone and that, that received about three bullets in the telephone, instead of me, so that was all right. So actually I had a pretty good charmed life. However—
A New Zealander in the ruins of Cassino signals to a tank in another part of the town.
Alexander Turnbull Library, War History Collection, DA-05711
We went further on. Our Red Cross was looking after Jack. His name was Jack Yates. He wasn't a sig, he was a runner for our company commander. Went a bit further then we met the tanks. And the tanks came up and we, what happened then? Oh yes, the, in the back of the tank there's a socket and a little phone you can pick up. And the company commander picked up the phone and spoke to the commander of the tank inside.'
Empty charge cases at Cassino show the intensity of shellfire, March 1944.
Alexander Turnbull Library, War History Collection, DA-05456
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