Americans, British, Canadians, French, Ghurkas, Indians, New Zealanders, and Poles fought around Monte Cassino to break through the German defensive lines. It was a long, hard, slog with heavy casualties on both sides, incomplete intelligence, controversial decisions, and postwar investigations.

The Rome-Arno 1944 brochure at the U.S. Army Center of Military History reviews the campaign to reach Rome:

The Allied landings in Italy in September 1943, followed quickly by the liberation of Naples and the crossing of the Volturno River in October, had tied down German forces in southern Italy.

By year's end a reinforced German army of 23 divisions, consisting of 215,000 troops engaged in the south and 265,000 in reserve in the north, was conducting a slow withdrawal under pressure from the U.S. Fifth Army under Lt. Gen. Mark Clark and the Commonwealth and Allied forces of the British Eighth Army under General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery. South of Rome the Germans constructed three major defensive lines: the Barbara Line...; the Bernhard, or Reinhard, Line...; and the most formidable of the three belts, the Gustav Line, a system of sophisticated interlocking defenses, anchored on Monte Cassino, that stretched across the rugged, narrowest point of the peninsula along the Garigliano and Rapido Rivers.

In mid-January 1944 the Allied armies were through the first two belts and were facing the Gustav Line. Yet the Allied forces were exhausted from months of heavy fighting in bitter weather. The terrain also favored the defenders, who used the Apennine Mountains, with their deep valleys, foggy hollows, and rain-swollen streams and rivers, to slow the Allied advance to a crawl. Allied soldiers endured icy winds and torrential rains, lived in improvised shelters, ate cold rations, suffered from exposure and trench foot, and hauled their own munitions and supplies up and down steep mountainsides where vehicles and even mule trains were often unable to negotiate the few crude tracks or rocky crags.

The decision to attack the 1400 year old Benedictine monastery was complicated by religious and political issues:

The Allies had realized early in their campaign against the Gustav Line that the historic monastery dominating the summit of Monte Cassino (1,703 feet above sea level) was a crucial strategic point. Nevertheless, they exempted the monastery, founded in 524 A.D. by St. Benedict, from air, artillery, and ground attacks during the American assaults on Cassino. Even though the Allies later learned that the monastery itself was never permanently occupied by the Germans, frequent sightings of enemy personnel within its walls raised suspicions. In addition, the enemy built heavily fortified emplacements and observation posts within feet of the monastery to take full advantage of the terrain and Allied firing prohibitions. But there was no consensus that the Allied exemption regarding Monte Cassino was wise. General Alexander and his superiors had long maintained that the safety of such areas would not be allowed to interfere with military necessity. When General Freyberg began to plan his assault, he concluded that the monastery would have to be reduced and requested air attacks.

General Clark, Freyberg's immediate superior, disagreed with this assessment, and he was supported in his view by French General Alphonse Juin and Generals Keyes, Walker, and Ryder. Clark hoped to avoid destroying a historic religious site, and in the process providing the enemy with valuable propaganda. Nonetheless, Clark also wanted to give the New Zealand Corps every possible advantage in jump-starting the Allied drive. In addition, sensitive to the combined Allied command structure in the Mediterranean, he was hesitant to deny Freyberg's request because of the serious political repercussions that would result if Commonwealth forces later sustained substantial losses. Clark therefore passed on Freyberg's request to attack the monastery to Alexander and his chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Sir John Harding. Both British officers decided that if Freyberg thought the monastery's destruction was a military necessity, the attack should proceed, with Alexander concluding that he had faith in General Freyberg's judgment. Their opinion was confirmed by General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, the Supreme Allied Commander of the Mediterranean theater. After making his own position clear, Clark complied with the wishes of his superiors and granted his subordinate's request. General Freyberg's decision, widely condemned at that time and since, is still mired in controversy.

Ironically enough, the air and artillery bombardment of the Monte Cassino monastery worked in the Germans' favor, helping them to hold their position for three more months:

On 12th February the exhausted US Army at Cassino were replaced by the New Zealand Corps. Alexander now decided to use these fresh troops in another attempt to capture Cassino. General Bernard Freyberg, who was in charge of the infantry attack, asked for the monastery be bombed. Despite claims by troops on the front-line that no fire had come from the monastery, General Harold Alexander agreed and it was destroyed by the United States Air Force on 15th February, 1944.

Once the monastery had been bombed, the German Army moved into the ruins. As Basil Liddell Hart pointed out later in his book The Other Side of the Hill, the bombing "turned out entirely to the tactical benefit of the Germans. For after that they felt free to occupy the ruins, and the rubble provided mud better defensive cover than the Monastery would have been before its destruction. As anyone with experience of street-fighting knows, it is only when buildings are demolished that they are converted from mousetraps into bastions of defence."

After the bombing the Germans were able to halt several attempts to capture Monte Cassino. It was not until troops led by General Wladyslaw Anders (Polish Corps) and General Alphonse Juin (French Corps) that the monastery was taken on 18th May, 1944.

The Allies proceeded on to Rome: this picture of U.S. Army troops of the 85th Division entering the gates of Rome is notable. Change the clothing and weapons, and who else could we imagine in their place?

In the U.S. Army's final analysis:

To critics of the Allied effort in Italy, the repeated ill-fated attempts to open the Liri valley, resulting in the disaster on the Rapido and the three costly assaults on Monte Cassino, as well as the desperate Anzio gamble, all indicated a lack of imagination on the part of both British and American commanders. Allied commanders, however, were limited in their options considering the political, logistical, and geographical aspects of the campaign.

It is difficult to justify the heavy investment of Allied lives and materiel into the Mediterranean theater during 1944. The Italian campaign, which the Americans had always considered a subsidiary effort, had become for both sides a major drain of men and materiel, especially after the liberation of Rome, when Operations OVERLORD and ANVIL reduced the theater to secondary importance within the overall Allied strategy. While the Allies did tie down a significant number of enemy divisions in Italy, it was often not apparent during 1944 whether it was the Allies or the Germans who were actually doing the tying down.

Another lesson from history.

Mr.Shriner. I have written a screenplay on the battle of Cassino. I would very much like to send it to you or to anyone you might recommend to make sure it does justice to the many men who fought and died in Monte Cassino. Thank you

can anyone shed any light on a warrant officer Cyril Purratt who served with the ghurkas during the siege of monte cassino and he won the military cross for bravery?