Although the Fallschirmjäger defending the monastery and mountain had been further depleted in number during the intervening days, they continued to hold out with almost messianic determination. The fighting was brutal. ‘It was often a case of kill or be killed,’ says Wladek. ‘Bullets were flying everywhere. One simply had to pray the angels made those bullets go around you.’ Despite this, however, the Poles were not going to be denied a second time. A key position had been captured during a preliminary assault on the night of the 16th/17th, and by dusk the following evening, Point 593, a pinnacle overlooking the monastery that had seen so much bloodshed, was finally in Polish hands.
In the Liri Valley, meanwhile, the British and Canadians had been making steady progress too. On the same day, realising the Gustav Line could no longer be held, von Vietinghoff finally gave the order for AOK 10 to fall back to the next line of defence, namely the Senger Line, or the Hitler Line as the Allies named it. The withdrawal was to take place that night under the cover of darkness.
At their small farmhouse redoubt, Leutnant Jupp Klein and his small band of men had been up before dawn that day. Having made some coffee they then chewed what they believed must surely be the last meal of the condemned. Jupp was worried about the NCO in charge of the bazookas. He had looked nervous on his arrival the previous evening, but now appeared even more terrified. ‘My corporals and I,’ noted Jupp, ‘felt forebodings of the worst kind.’
The son of a coal mine manager from the Saar region of west Germany, Jupp had left school and become an apprentice carpenter. During his time with the Hitler Youth, however, he had trained as a pilot and had even got his licence. Aged eighteen when war broke out, he immediately tried to become a paratrooper with the Fallschirmjäger, but because of his flying experience, he was sent off to become a pilot instead. Had he been made a fighter pilot, he might well have remained one, but much to his annoyance, on finishing his training, he was sent to the Channel coast as an air-sea rescue pilot. Once again, he applied to join the Fallschirmjäger, and this time, to his relief, he was accepted.
With his carpentry skills, he was placed with the Pioneers and having completed his training, joined the 1st Division. After proving himself repeatedly in Russia, Sicily and southern Italy, he was made a Fahnenjunker and then later promoted to lieutenant and given a company of his own. Both he and his men were by this time highly experienced soldiers, who had all had their fair share of close calls. Even so, this current situation seemed particularly perilous. Jupp could not see how they could possibly avoid annihilation, or, at the very least, capture.
But the morning passed quietly, his men keeping under cover while the inexperienced reinforcements that had arrived the night before busied themselves in front of and around the farmhouse. Jupp could hear the sounds of fighting around them but directly opposite he watched shirtless British tank men sunning themselves on top of their machines. It frustrated him, watching them. His sharpshooters itched to use their long-range telescopic-sighted Mauser rifles.
Midday came and went, then the afternoon. Not until around seven in the evening did the whistle and explosion of British artillery start to fall around them, followed soon after by the tell-tale grinding and creaking of approaching tanks. Suddenly they emerged, around twenty-five Shermans cresting a slight ridge in front of them. Behind were considerable numbers of infantry. Immediately the heavy machine gun in the shed in front of the farmhouse opened fire. With horrible inevitability, moments later the inexperienced machine gunners were hit by enemy tank fire.
Jupp looked around for the bazooka men, but could no longer see them. By now the forward tanks were rolling right next to their farmhouse. A shot rang out, followed swiftly by one more – two of the Shermans had been hit; Jupp need never have doubted the bazooka team. At the same time, the Pioneers opened fire with their own machine guns. The bazooka men continued to fire – and with good accuracy. So long as the bazooka – or Ofenrohre – was used at short ranges, it could be a deadly weapon, and so it was proving now. More tanks had been knocked out while the remainder began hastily retreating. Jupp watched as the crews of the burning tanks piled out of the wrecks, running wildly, a number of them ablaze. And as the tanks departed so, too, did the British infantry, who disappeared back behind the ridge ahead.
Once again, a tiny force of carefully concealed men had beaten off a concerted Allied assault by men from 78th Division’s 38th Infantry Brigade. Meanwhile, Jupp and his men ran from their positions and gratefully flung their arms around the bazooka men. ‘At this point it struck me,’ noted Jupp, ‘that the commando leader, the senior NCO, at the present moment was the picture of tranquillity itself.’ The fear in his eyes of the previous evening had gone. As they counted the burning Shermans, they realised they had knocked out no less than thirteen, more than half the force. Then they saw the mangled remains of the machine-gun crew. ‘A senseless death,’ wrote Jupp, ‘for these young soldiers.’
Orders for the retreat had not reached the Pioneers’ now isolated redoubt, but the 4th Fallschirmjäger Regiment, who had remained in Cassino town throughout the battle, had received theirs. Getting away safely, however, was no easy task. The town was tucked into the side of the Monte Cassino massif, but the area directly to the south was already in British hands. The only escape route was to climb back up the mountain and then down the other side. Hans-Jürgen Kumberg had been preparing himself for the move all day, with his comrades gathering together every bit of equipment they could – even empty ammunition cases. Then at around 10 p. m., they began climbing up Monastery Hill along a narrow path. Hans found it an extremely tense experience. It was pitch dark, they were heavily laden, but they had to try and walk as quietly as possible. Even so, as they neared the top of the mountain, they began to hear Poles call out in German, ‘Come this way, come here!’ Like all other units in the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division, their numbers had diminished massively, but they now lost a further third of their number as men, confused on that dark mountain, fell for the ruse. Hans, however, stuck closely to the man in front and to the path that eventually began to lead them back down the mountain again. ‘Amazingly, not a single shot was fired,’ he says. ‘Perhaps both sides were worried about hitting their own men.’ Those that remained struggled all night, weighed down by their loads. ‘We were under orders to take everything with us,’ adds Hans, ‘but gradually you could hear men dropping things to the ground. You just couldn’t handle it any more.’
Hans finally reached the town of Pontecorvo, some seven miles behind Cassino, the following morning. He was utterly exhausted after his night trek up and over the mountain but relieved to have made it safely. Meanwhile, dramatic events were about to take place on Monte Cassino itself. At around ten that morning a battered white flag was hoisted above the monastery. A dozen men from Wladek Rubnikowicz’s regiment, the 12th Lancers, cautiously picked their way through the minefield and approached the ruins. They found only a handful of German paratroopers left, who all surrendered without firing a shot. The Poles, unable to find a Polish flag, attached a 12th Lancers pennant to a branch and stuck that into the rubble instead. It was 10.20 a.m. and the Battle of Monte Cassino was finally over.
It was a triumph for the Poles but came at a bitter cost. ‘Of course we were thrilled to have taken Monte Cassino,’ says Wladek. ‘When we captured it we all felt as though we had shown everyone what we were capable of. But a lot of people died.’
So they did. Polish casualties were 3,779 – and most of those were men who had, like Wladek, already endured the loss of their homes and their country, had been imprisoned, beaten and starved, and who had then travelled thousands of miles in order to continue the fight for their freedom.
* ‘Jabo’ was an abbreviation of Jagdbomber – literally, ‘fighter-bomber’.