The Bombing of Monte Cassino

The meaning of the Cassino Monastery Incident was 80 miles north in Rome. Must the Allies bomb St. Peter's into rubble and then fight their way, chapel by chapel, through the Vatican?

In the valley below Mt. Cassino an American artillery-battery commander spoke: "I don't give a damn about the monastery. I have Catholic gunners in this battery and they've asked me for permission to fire on it, but I haven't been able to give it to them. They don't like it."

The Germans were using the famed 1,400-year-old Benedictine abbey as an...

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