In this episode, we are diving into one of the more controversial and least covered battles of WWII - the fight for Monte Cassino. A sideshow to the main events of Normandy and the Eastern Front, the Italian Campaign was no less violent or brutal, consuming men and material at the same rate as the worst fighting in either World War. The ancient monastery of the Benedictine Order loomed over the entire battlefield like some Tolkein-Esque evil tower. Time and again, the Allied soldiers mentioned the ever-present feeling of being watched by Monte Cassino, and its eventual destruction was likely inevitable. But the bombing of such a culturally relevant sight has become the lasting legacy of the battle - is "military necessity," as Eisenhower phrased it, always the right path? Are there any structures of historical significance that should be outside the realm of warfare? In the case of Monte Cassino, both Allied intelligence at the time of the fighting and inquiries after the war found no German occupation of the monastery. And unfortunately for the Gurkha, Indian, New Zealand, and eventually the Poles that had to try and take the rubble that was Monte Cassino, the bombing had made the Axis position ten-fold more challenging to assault. By battles end, the Axis forces along the Gustav Line had been dislodged and sent reeling north. Rome was taken soon after, and the overwhelming might and logistical superiority of the democracies were brought to bear on the Wehrmacht for the first time in Europe proper.
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