good talk

My father never said much about WW II and the only battle that I heard him mention was the one that he said with a wry smile, "Monte Cassino." Monte Cassino also called the Battle for Rome was actually a series of 4 battles for 4 months in early 1944 near the Abbey of Monte Cassino 80 miles south of Rome. The American General Mark Clark had been assured by Intelligence that after the successful invasion of Italy by the Americans, English and their allies that getting to Rome would be "easy." But the Germans put up ferocious resistance and although eventually forced to relinquish Rome they did so only after inflicting 50% casualties on the Allies, far more than they took themselves. A month into the Battle the Americans bombed the Abbey of Monte Cassino in the erroneous belief that the Germans were in there. This was a really bad thing as the Abbey had been established by St. Benedict in 561 and where the Benedictine Order had originated. And as soon as it was bombed the Germans put SS Grenadiers into the rubble which made matters worse for the Allies. Once Rome was taken my father was often in Rome as a liason officer between the American Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army. My father and some of the other Catholic officers wanted to meet the Pope and my father had an audience with Pope Pius XII with maybe 10 others present. Meeting the Pope, that's as good as it gets, that'd be hard to beat. I'd like to meet Joe Ratzinger who I think is, as his predecessor was, a very good Pope.