The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

There was nevertheless nothing accidental about the most controversial raid of all, against the fourteenth-century Benedictine abbey on the mountaintop overlooking the small town of Cassino on February 15, 1944. The building dominated the Liri valley position where the Allied armies were attempting to unhinge the German defenses along the so-called Gustav Line, which stretched from the coast north of Naples to Ortona on the Adriatic coast. On November 4, 1943, Eisenhower wrote to the Allied Fifteenth Army Group that the Monte Cassino abbey was a protected building; the pope asked both the Germans and the Allies to respect its sacred status. When Eisenhower was replaced by Wilson as supreme commander in January 1944, the principle that historic buildings would only be hit under conditions of “absolute necessity” still prevailed, though it did not prevent the bombing of the papal estate at Castel Gandolfo on February 11, which destroyed the convent and killed twenty-seven nuns.118 At Cassino all attempts to dislodge the German forces from the small town or the hilltop had failed, and it is not difficult to understand why frustration with the slow progress of the campaign and the likelihood of high casualties encouraged the local army units to ask for air assistance. There were strong rumors (but no hard evidence) that the abbey was already occupied by German forces. On February 11, the 4th Indian Division, planning its assault, made a request for “intense bombing” of the hil...