Battle for Monte Natale

 First-Hand Accounts of the Crossing of the River Garigliano on the Gustav Line

 Author: John Ernest Strafford

Highlights

• Battle for Monte Natale brings together contemporary accounts showing war, not only at the strategic level involving Corps, Division, Brigade, and Battalion , but also the individual level, inspiring stories of heroism and sacrifice. No book about World War II shows a battle in such detail.
• Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, by words, pictures and maps, it shows what happened in the three weeks from 17th January to 7th February 1944.
• Ernest Strafford (father of John Strafford) served with 1 York & Lancs. On 20 Jan 44 a witness reported that he saw Pte. Ernest Strafford “wounded in the head when a mortar bomb burst among us during our attack. I believe his wounds were serious”.
• On 4 Feb 44 the body of Ernest Strafford was “recovered, identified & buried by British Troops”. What happened to Ernest Strafford between these two dates is assessed in this book. 

Battle for Monte Natale is part of the first Battle for Monte Cassino – the bloodiest battle of the Italian Campaign. By extensive use of War Diaries, missing person reports, awards for valour, and personal accounts including those of German soldiers, this is the story of those individuals who fought and died in the Battle for Monte Natale. All the action takes place in an area of just nine square kilometres. It is a unique glimpse of an important battle from both sides of the conflict.

 The casualties of 1 York & Lancs. during the attack on Monte Natale were: Killed 49, Wounded 144, Missing 64. The attacking Companies were about 400 men.

‘The Great Épinal Escape: Indian Prisoners of War in German Hands’ by Ghee Bowman

The little-known and extraordinary story of the break-out of a POW camp by 800 Indian prisoners of war on May 11^th, 1944. Many escapees were helped by local French civilians, and 500 made it to Switzerland. Ghee Bowman of the University of Exeter has extensively researched the experience of those 15,000 Indian soldiers who were captured and held in Nazi-occupied Europe, and has published his study as a book.

Available from booksellers and Amazon

Recommended by Sue Hughes

Come Back to Portofino, through Italy with the 6^th South African Armoured Division’  by James Bourhill.

A non-fiction book based largely on the 350 letters that my Granddad wrote home from the front line.

Available from booksellers and Amazon

George: Hero, Deserter, Lover’ by Mike Lemmon 

A novel based on Mike’s father’s war experiences in Cassino. 

Available in paperback and Kindle

‘Naples 1944, and the making of post-war Italy’

by Keith Lowe

The author looks at the effect of the war and liberation on the city of Naples.

Published in September 2024 by William Collins. Available in hardback, paperback and Kindle from booksellers, timesbookshop.co.uk, and Amazon

The Girl with a Peach, Courage and Compassion in Wartime Italy’ by Anne Copley

Anne Copley’s recently published ‘The Girl with a Peach.  Courage and compassion in wartime Italy’ brilliantly captures the experiences of Allied prisoners of war who, from September 1943, were living amongst the Germans and Italian Fascists in that part of Italy between the Allies advancing from the south and the Alps in the north.  They were utterly dependent on the affection, loyalty and generosity of Italians for their survival.
These Allied prisoners of war endured months of dodging German patrols, Italian informants and Fascist sweeps, living on their wits and surviving on whatever they could obtain from generosity of the local Italians.
The vast majority of these Italians were contadini – poor subsistence farmers who were tied to the land and completely reliant on the benevolence of their landowner – the padrone, for their own survival.  Anne provides an invaluable insight into how these contadini willingly took in prisoners of war and cared for them until the Allied advance reached them. 
Anne has extensively researched the actions of these escaped Allied prisoners of war and the contadini in the province of Marche and has produced a book that is both insightful and comprehensive.  Allied prisoners of war owe them a great debt, especially as any Italian identified as having assisted a prisoner of war on the run was liable to summary execution. 

Published by the Monte San Martino Trust, and available from bookshops and Amazon. Recommended by Frank de Planta

Monte Cassino Society member Antony Pittaccio was ten years old and visiting family in Cassino, when war broke out in September 1939 and the frontiers closed. Unable to leave and return home to Britain, Antony, his mother and two sisters had no choice but to stay and make what they could of the situation. At first not much changed and daily life continued as before, but as the war came closer, and Cassino became the focal point for the worst of the fighting, their lives were to change beyond imagination and become a daily struggle for survival. For the young Antony, circumstances were to change even more as he found himself adopted by the 23rd New Zealand Infantry Battalion, and moved with them through Italy as the campaign progressed.
Over the years Antony has given interviews, but it is only now, at the age of 94, that he has gathered all the memories together and written the story of his extraordinary and unique experience of the Italian campaign.
“Memories of a Young Sergeant”. Published in Great Britain by Amazon, ISBN number 979-8872581758, and available in hardback, paperback, and Kindle edition, is a fascinating story and a great read.