80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, in this landmark and moving debate, I would like to mention the Battle of Monte Cassino, which I do not think has been mentioned, but which deserves to be. It also has personal resonance for me and my family. Let us recall its significance: it was one of the most brutal engagements of the war, resulting in more than 75,000 allied and German casualties. The objective was to break through the German Gustav line, a heavily fortified series of defences, which ran the width of Italy just south of Rome. Hitler had ordered that the line was to be held at all costs. Monte Cassino was a Benedictine abbey, founded in the sixth century and situated at the top of a towering 1,700-foot hill overlooking the main road to Rome. With its heavily fortified mountain defences, Monte Cassino formed the linchpin of the Gustav line.

The overall strategy was to force the Germans to commit the maximum number of divisions in Italy at the time of the cross-channel invasion of Normandy. The thinking was that if as many German forces as possible were tied down in Italy they could not be redeployed to France. Monte Cassino therefore played a crucial part in the success of the D-Day landings. The battle consisted of four huge allied military assaults on Monte Cassino, from January to May 1944, comprising an extraordinary multinational force including French, US, New Zealand, Indian, Gurkha, Canadian, South African, British and Polish regiments—and others. The first three assaults were all repulsed, with heavy casualties, by massive German resistance, facilitated by their entrenched positions on the hill, as well as terrible winter flooding from heavy rains.

The fourth and final engagement was led by the Polish, with support from the British Eighth Army and other allies. It started at 2300 on 11 May 1944, with an artillery bombardment by 1,060 guns of the Eighth Army, and ended with the successful routing of the enemy from the abbey. The road to Rome was thereby opened and the city was taken on 4 June 1944, just two days before the Normandy invasion. My father was a gunner with the Eighth Army who had fought in the north Africa campaign before crossing into Italy. He was in the final assault on Monte Cassino and was manning one of those 1,060 guns. During the battle, he was wounded by shrapnel and hospitalised with sepsis. As your Lordships can see, he survived. He lived to a great age—102, in fact—but he lost many close friends during the assault on Monte Cassino.

Long after the war, in the 1960s, our family returned to Monte Cassino and visited the British and German war graves. There we met the mother of a German soldier who had fallen. For many years afterwards, she and my mother corresponded with each other. Blessed are the peacemakers.