Oh bury me at Cassino
My duty to England is done
And when you get back to Blighty
And you are drinking your whisky and rum
Remember the old Indian soldier
When the war he fought has been won!

— War Song of the Indian 8th Infantry Division

Cassino, in Italy, is not exactly a holiday resort. Yet for family members of soldiers who gave their lives in WWII and its veterans, it is a place of homage. This small picturesque town is overlooked by the imposing monastery that stands stationed as a sentinel, keeping a watchful eye from its lofty position atop a hill. The paradox is the word ‘PAX’ (peace), painted in deep red at the fortress-like entrance, boldly defying history to repeat itself.

Today, on Remembrance Day, a reminder of the thousands of sons of the subcontinent who perished in the Battle for Rome in WWII

The Battle of Monte Cassino was one of the most important military operations of WWII. Also known as the battle for Rome, it was a series of military assaults by the Allies against the Germans, from January to May, 1944. Rome was captured on June 5, 1944, a day before the Normandy invasion on June 6. “It was ‘a famous victory’ that almost immediately was overwhelmed by the bigger news of the D-Day landings in northern France,” reported Herbert Mitgang in The New York Times. Because of the unglamorous, hard-slogging Italian Campaign, the Mediterranean theatre came to be called the “forgotten front.”

In this forgotten front were our own sons of India. Although the Indian contribution is granted little recognition, at least 4,000 Indian soldiers lost their lives in the Italian Campaign. It was the third-largest allied army in Italy after the Americans and the British, contributing at least 50,000 troops from the Indian subcontinent, who served in this campaign, including Cassino.

Peter Caddick-Adams, a professional military historian (with a career in the United Kingdom’s Regular and Reserve Forces for over 35 years), writes in his book Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell, “By 1944 the most experienced division in Eighth Army … was the 4th Indian Division.

“The Indian and Gurkha units, far from home, realised that regimental pride and battalion spirit would have to make up for a lack of warmth, ammunition, medicine and food on the slopes of Cassino.”

The Germans tried to “split the cohesion of the Allied Coalition effort” with “crude propaganda”, that “the voiceless Indians are put in front to be cannon fodder … but there is no evidence that any Indian deserted as encouraged.”

The miserable weather conditions, especially for the Indians, unused to brutal winters, were a nightmare and “the winter of 1943-44 was literally a killer”. The “field hospitals were inundated with three times the number of exposure and frostbite cases to combat casualties.”

Under such conditions, continuous rain and snow, the Indian soldiers carried on relentlessly. Far away from home and “used to the hot climes of India and the Middle East, where the division had served” earlier; the hostile conditions were an added enemy.

In December 2017, I travelled to Cassino. My father, too, had served there as a captain in the Indian Army Medical Corps (IAMC) of the 4th Indian Division. I was most fortunate to connect with Dr Danila Bracaglia, who has been conducting Battlefield Tours since 2009. After meeting many veterans of the Battle of Cassino on its 65th anniversary, she revealed, “I was so impressed and touched by their stories that I wanted to share them with the next generations, to make them aware of the sacrifices and contributions made for the liberation of my country.” Bracaglia is a professional guide, historian and researcher, specialising in the Italian Campaign. She took a group of seven eager family members — three from New Zealand, two from USA, a serving captain in the US Army, and myself — on a most impressive tour. Her van is fitted with a television to show authentic war footage, documenting events as they happened. This was not only educational, it transported us directly into that terrible past.

Winding up the hill, I wondered where my father might have stood to take a cigarette break from administering medical aid to the living and the dying. How numbing it must have been. My only recollection of a reference to Cassino is of him pointing a finger at a scene in a movie showing the very same monastery appearing before me now. He simply stated that his field ambulance had been stationed nearby. On another occasion, he rambled off greetings in Italian towards an anchored ship’s Italian crew.

Barcaglia’s charming and cheerful manner made my trip worthwhile. Standing at the footsteps of the quiescent monastery, it was difficult to imagine it had witnessed one of the toughest and bloodiest campaigns of WWII and paid the price of devastation that war brings.

Founded in 529 by St Benedict, this monastery became an important centre of learning by the eighth century. During the war, it was considered to be a German stronghold and was targeted by Allied bombs, leaving it totally destroyed by the end of the five months it took to capture it. It was later rebuilt as a replica of its predecessor, in the simple early Gothic style of architecture. Over the years, the US government’s official position has changed. It has been acknowledged that the abbey was actually unoccupied by German troops, and the previous assertion of their “irrefutable” presence there has been removed from the records.

Two German officers proposed the removal of Monte Cassino’s treasures to the Vatican, in the middle of a losing battle in another country, amidst fears of Allied bombing. This was quite a feat. Thanks to these officers, the treasures were saved and have been replaced. Caddick-Adams writes, “There are fewer monks there these days, but they are unfailingly courteous to German guests and even German soldiers, who come to study the battles of their forebears.” These are the incongruities of wars. The Allies bombed and levelled the monastery and the Germans saved its priceless artefacts and religious parchments, which helped it retain its past glory.

The monastery is breathtakingly beautiful and as quiet as the hills. Cassino is a quaint little town with an aura of tranquility. The only reminders of the past ravages of war are the tombstones in the many cemeteries in and around Cassino that give evidence to the truth of bloodshed and ruination.

At the Cassino War Cemetery, 4,271 Commonwealth Servicemen of WWII from Britain, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and India lie buried or are commemorated. Two hundred and eighty-nine burials are unidentified. It is a most well-maintained cemetery and true comrades rest in peace there. I felt waves of both joy and sorrow as I read the names of countless young men, some mere boys of 16. Sad because they remain so far from home, yet happy for the company and dignity they now keep. I said a quiet prayer for them all and hope one day, India and Pakistan will erect a joint memorial in their honour where they lie.

Below the monastery lie 1,000 Poles, in a separate cemetery with a marked memorial:

“For our freedom and yours,
We soldiers of Poland
Gave our souls to God,
Our bodies to the soil of Italy,
And our hearts to Poland.”

The 2nd Polish Corps Memorial Museum at the Polish War Cemetery was created by the Poles in Italy in cooperation with the Polish Embassy in Rome in 2014, on the 17th anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino. Caddick-Adams laments that although he is not Polish he feels, “with an abiding sense that Britain let down a gallant nation.” Near Cassino, 8,000 American soldiers lie in Nettuno who mostly died at Anzio, and more than 20,000 Germans lie in Caira.

Caddick also regrets that although “many of those who fought there returned to it in literary form”, however, “particularly sad is the fact that few Indian or French North African soldiers ever went into print with their memories of Cassino. The complete ignorance in those countries today that any of their forbears fought so nobly at Cassino is indeed regrettable.” He has done soldiers from the Indian subcontinent a great service by acknowledging their dogged determination and loyalty.

History teaches us that yesterday’s foes become today’s friends and whereas old facts are questioned, new ones are constantly being unearthed. Yesterday’s history is superimposed by facts that today decry their legitimacy. The only permanent reality of war are the countless tombstones frozen in time, as a constant reminder of the losses borne the world over. Even in death these soldiers stand erect, seemingly ever ready to move in their rank and file.

“But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.”

— A Soldier by Robert Frost

I returned from Monte Cassino with a host of memories, of a surreal experience, of my father’s youth. And though home in Pakistan long since, I wonder still if anyone lying in Cassino’s cemetery received a final comfort from his compassionate heart, if not from the hands that could no longer heal.

The writer is an educationist and grandmother
noreengm53@icloud.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 11th, 2018