Editing Battle of Monte Cassino (section)

===Battle===
On the night following the bombing, a company of the 1st Battalion, [[Royal Sussex Regiment]] (one of the British elements in the 4th Indian Division) serving in the [[7th Indian Infantry Brigade]] attacked key point 593 from their position {{convert|70|yd}} away on Snakeshead Ridge. The assault failed, with the company sustaining 50 percent casualties.

The following night, the Royal Sussex Regiment was ordered to attack in battalion strength. There was a calamitous start. Artillery could not be used in direct support targeting point 593 because of the proximity and risk of shelling friendly troops. It was therefore planned to shell point 575, which had been providing supporting fire to the defenders of point 593. The topography of the land meant that shells fired at 575 had to pass very low over Snakeshead Ridge, and in the event that some fell among the gathering assault companies. After reorganising, the attack went in at midnight. The fighting was brutal and often hand-to-hand, but the determined defence held and the Royal Sussex battalion was beaten off, once again sustaining over 50 percent casualties. Over the two nights, the Royal Sussex Regiment lost 12 out of 15 officers and 162 out of 313 men who took part in the attack.<ref>Holmes (2001) p. 115</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-577-1917-08, Monte Cassino, Fallschirmjäger mit Granatwerfer.jpg|thumb|German paratroopers at Monte Cassino]]

On the night of 17 February, the main assault took place. The 4/[[6th Rajputana Rifles]] would take on the assault on Point 593 along Snakeshead Ridge with the depleted Royal Sussex Regiment held in reserve. 1/[[9th Gurkha Rifles]] were to attack Point 444.<ref>Holmes p. 115</ref> In the meantime, the [[2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles (The Sirmoor Rifles)|1/2nd Gurkha Rifles]] were to sweep across the slopes and ravines in a direct assault on the monastery. This latter was across appalling terrain, but it was hoped that the Gurkhas, so expert in mountain terrain, would succeed. This proved a faint hope. Once again, the fighting was brutal, but no progress was made and casualties were heavy. The Rajputanas lost 196 officers and men, the 1/9th Gurkhas 149 and the 1/2nd Gurkhas 96. It became clear that the attack had failed and on 18 February Dimoline and Freyberg called off the attacks on Monastery Hill.

In the other half of the main assault, the two companies from the [[Māori Battalion|28th (Māori) Battalion]] from the New Zealand Division forced a crossing of the Rapido and attempted to gain the railway station in Cassino town. The intention was to create a perimeter that would allow engineers to build a causeway for armoured support. With the aid of a nearly constant smoke screen laid down by Allied artillery that obscured their location from the German batteries on Monastery Hill, the Māori were able to hold their positions for much of the day. Their isolation and lack of both armoured support and anti-tank guns made for a hopeless situation, however, when an armoured counterattack by two tanks came in the afternoon on 18 February.<ref>{{harvnb|Cody|1956|p= 362}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|McGibbon|2000|p=251}}.</ref> They were ordered to pull back to the river when it became clear to headquarters that both attempts to break through (in the mountains and along the causeway) would not succeed. It had been very close. The Germans had been very alarmed by the capture of the station, and from a recorded conversation between Kesselring and von Vietinghoff, they had not expected their counterattack to succeed.<ref>{{harvnb|Majdalany|1957|p=161}}</ref>

After the war, regarding the second battle, Senger admitted that when he was contemplating the prospects of a renewed frontal assault on Cassino that "what I feared even more was an attack by Juin's corps with its superb Moroccan and Algerian divisions".<ref>{{harvnb|Ellis|2003|p=209}}</ref><ref>Frido von Senger und Etterlin, ''Neither Fear Nor Hope''. Presidio. 1989. [https://books.google.com/books?id=eyNyAAAAIAAJ&q=%22was+an+attack+by+juin%27s+corps%22 p. 206].</ref>