Editing Battle of Monte Cassino (section)

==Third battle (Operation Dickens)==
[[File:Cassino3rdS en.svg|thumb|right|Third Battle: Plan of Attack]]

===Plans===
For the third battle, it was decided that, while the winter weather persisted, fording the Garigliano river downstream of Cassino town was an unattractive option (after the unhappy experiences in the first two battles). The "right hook" in the mountains had also been a costly failure, and it was decided to launch twin attacks from the north along the Rapido valley: one towards the fortified Cassino town and the other towards Monastery Hill. The idea was to clear the path through the bottleneck between these two features to allow access towards the station on the south and so to the Liri Valley. The [[78th Infantry Division (United Kingdom)|British 78th Infantry Division]], which had arrived in late February and been placed under the command of the New Zealand Corps, would then cross the Rapido downstream of Cassino and start the push to Rome. Freyburg had taken on board Tuker's exhortations that an assault on Cassino needed saturation with artillery and bombs beforehand (though not that an attack on Cassino was irrational and that the attacks should be either side: on Monte Castellone and crossing the Rapido). He planned a saturation of the town of Cassino itself, already ruined and devoid of civilians, after which the  New Zealand division would be in effect carrying out a "mopping up operation".{{refn|group="nb"|The artillery assembled for the task far outweighed that available to the Germans. It was described in the official history as  "216 field guns of the three divisions had to be added more than 150 field and medium guns of 2 AGRA, as well as the medium and heavy artillery of 2 United States Corps."<ref>{{Cite book |title= Italy Volume I: The Sangro to Cassino |last=  Phillips |first= N. C |publisher= Historical Publications Branch |date= 1957 |location = Wellington |series = The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945 |page=258}}</ref>}} To guard the New Zealanders flank the Indian division would take the route up to the monastery.<ref>{{Cite web |last=James Holland & Al Murray |title=Cassino '44 - Cassino Town (Part 6) |url=https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cassino-44-cassino-town-part-6/id1457552694?i=1000650349878 |access-date=2024-04-15 |website=WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk: (via Apple Podcasts) |language=en-GB}}</ref>

The bombing plan was for "ten groups of heavy bombers and six groups of mediums, nearly 500 aircraft in all" working in relays to attack an area 1400 yards by 400 though "Late arrivals would be diverted to targets outside the town".<ref>Phillips 1957 p263</ref> Immediately following the bombing, at 12 o'clock, 6 Brigade was to advance, preceded by a creeping barrage while concentrations{{refn|group="nb"|In a "concentration", many batteries would fire on a single target area rather than hi.{{clarify|date=April 2024}} The result was a greater density of fire than the 'barrage' where a line of shelling was generated.}} of artillery fire would hit German defences in the town and to the south and escorted by tanks of  19 Armoured Regiment with the intention of capturing the town north of Route 6 by 2 pm. Then 6 Brigade would continue south through the town to the railway. At the same time 5 Indian Brigade would be working step by step along the eastern slopes of Monte cassino and turning uphill to capture Hangman's Hill (Point 435) The 7 Indian Brigade would be maintaining pressure on the defenders in the monastery ruins.<ref>Phillips 1957 p265</ref>

None of the Allied commanders were very happy with the plan, but it was hoped that an unprecedented preliminary bombing by heavy bombers would prove the trump. To avoid taking vehicles across waterlogged ground, three clear days of good weather were required, and for twenty-one successive days the assault was postponed as the troops waited in the freezing wet positions for a favourable weather forecast. Things were not helped by the loss of Kippenberger who while on Mount Trocchio surveying the battlefield was wounded by an anti-personnel mine and as a result lost both his feet. The news depressed the morale of the New Zealand troops further.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harper |first=Glyn |author-link=Glyn Harper |title=Kippenberger: An Inspired New Zealand Commander |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1997 |isbn=1-86950-255-8 |location=Auckland, New Zealand |pages=262}}</ref> He was replaced by Brigadier Graham Parkinson; a German counter-attack at Anzio had failed and been called off.

===The battle===
[[File:Monte Cassino bombing.jpg|thumb|Bombing of 15 March]]
The third battle began 15 March. After a bombardment of 750 tonnes of 1,000-pound bombs with delayed action fuses,<ref name="Laurie, p. 15">{{harvnb|Laurie|2003|p=15}}</ref> starting at 8:30 and lasting three and a half hours, the New Zealanders advanced behind a creeping artillery barrage of 746 artillery pieces.<ref name="Laurie, p. 15"/> Success depended on taking advantage of the paralysing effect of the bombing. The bombing was not concentrated—only 50 percent landed a mile or less from the target point and 8 percent within 1,000 yards—but between it and the shelling, about half the 300 paratroopers in the town had been killed.<ref>Holmes p. 116</ref> The defences rallied more quickly than expected, and the Allied armour was held up by bomb craters. Nevertheless, success was there for the New Zealanders' taking, but by the time a follow-up assault on the left had been ordered that evening, it was too late: defences had been reorganised, and more critically, the rain, contrary to forecast, had started again. Torrents of rain flooded bomb craters, turned rubble into a morass, and blotted out communications, the radio sets being incapable of surviving the constant immersion. The dark rain clouds also blotted out the moonlight, hindering the task of clearing routes through the ruins. On the right, the New Zealanders had captured Castle Hill and point 165, and as planned, elements of the Indian 4th Infantry Division, now commanded by Major General [[Alexander Galloway]], had passed through to attack point 236 and thence to point 435, Hangman's Hill{{refn|group="nb"|A knoll with the remnants of a cable car pylon leading to appearance of a [[gibbet]]}}. In the confusion of the fight, a company of the 1/9th Gurkha Rifles took a track avoiding point 236 and captured point 435, while the assault on point 236 by the 1/6th Rajputana Rifles was repelled.

By the end of 17 March, the Gurkhas held Hangman's Hill (point 435), {{convert|250|yd}} from the monastery, in battalion strength (although their lines of supply were compromised by the German positions at point 236 and in the northern part of the town), and whilst the town was still fiercely defended, New Zealand units and armour advanced through the bottleneck and captured the station. Despite the setback, the Germans were still able to reinforce their troops in the town and position snipers in parts of the town that had supposedly been cleared.<ref>E.D. Smith, p. 149</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1975-014-31, Monte Cassino, deutsche Kriegsgefangene.jpg|thumb|German prisoners captured by New Zealand troops are held beside a [[Sherman tank]]. After repeated unsuccessful assaults, the Allied offensive was again called off on 22 March.]]

19 March was planned for the decisive blow in the town and on the monastery, including a surprise attack by tanks of the 20th Armoured Regiment working their way along an old logging road (the "Cavendish Road") from Caira to Albaneta Farm (which had been prepared by engineer units under the cover of darkness) and from there towards the abbey. However, a surprise and fiercely pressed counter-attack from the monastery on Castle Hill by the German 1st Parachute Division completely disrupted any possibility of an assault on the monastery from the Castle and Hangman's Hill, while the tanks, lacking infantry support, were all knocked out by mid-afternoon.<ref>E.D. Smith, pp. 148–149</ref> In the town, the attackers made little progress, and overall the initiative was passing to the Germans, whose positions close to Castle Hill, which was the gateway to the position on Monastery Hill, crippled any prospects of early success.

On 20 March Freyberg committed elements of the 78th Infantry Division to the battle, firstly to provide a greater troop presence in the town so that cleared areas would not be reinfiltrated by the Germans, and secondly to reinforce Castle Hill to allow troops to be released to close off the two routes between Castle Hill and Points 175 and 165 being used by the Germans to reinforce the defenders in the town.<ref>E.D. Smith, pp. 152–153</ref> The Allied commanders felt they were on the brink of success as grim fighting continued through 21 March. However, the defenders were resolute, and the attack on Point 445 to block the German reinforcement route had narrowly failed, whilst in the town, Allied gains were measured only house by house.

On 23 March Alexander met with his commanders. A range of opinions was expressed as to the possibility of victory, but it was evident that the New Zealand and Indian Divisions were exhausted. Freyberg was convinced that the attack could not continue, so he called it off.<ref>E.D. Smith, p. 154</ref> The German 1st Parachute Division had taken a mauling but had held.

===Aftermath===
[[File:The Battle of Cassino, January-may 1944 NA13363.jpg|thumb|left|Signallers of the 6th Battalion, [[Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment]], use a radio in a dugout on Monastery Hill.]]

The next three days were spent stabilising the front, extracting the isolated Gurkhas from Hangman's Hill, and the detachment from the New Zealand 24th Battalion, which had held Point 202 in similar isolation. The Allied line was reorganised, with the exhausted 4th Indian Division and 2nd New Zealand Division withdrawn and replaced, respectively, in the mountains by the British 78th Division and in the town by the [[1st Armoured Infantry Brigade (United Kingdom)|British 1st Guards Brigade]]. The New Zealand Corps headquarters was dissolved on 26 March and control was assumed by the British XIII Corps.<ref>Molony, Vol. V, p. 802.</ref> In their time on the Cassino front line, the 4th Indian Division had lost 3,000 men and the 2nd New Zealand Division 1,600 men killed, missing, or wounded.<ref>{{harvnb|Majdalany|1957|p=194}}</ref>

The German defenders too had paid a heavy price. The German XIV Corps War Diary for 23 March noted that the battalions in the front line had strengths varying between 40 and 120 men.<ref>E.D. Smith, p. 158</ref>