Monte Cassino
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The six-month battle for Monte Cassino was Britain's bitterest and bloodiest encounter with the German army on any front in World War Two.
At the beginning of 1944 Italy was the western Allies' only active front against Nazi-controlled Europe, and their only route to the capital was through the Liri valley. Towering over the entrance to the valley was the medieval monastery of Monte Cassino, a seemingly impenetrable fortress high up in the 'bleak and sinister' mountains. This was where the German commander, Kesselring, made his stand.
MONTE CASSINO tells the extraordinary story of ordinary soldiers tested to the limits under conditions reminiscent of the bloodbaths of World War One. In a battle that became increasingly political, symbolic and personal as it progressed, more and more men were asked to throw themselves at the virtually impregnable German defences. It is a story of incompetence, hubris and politics redeemed at dreadful cost by the heroism of the soldiers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the months before D-Day, the Italian campaign dragged on with huge casualties on both sides. Parker (The Battle of Britain) details, with the aid of hundreds of survivor interviews and war diaries, the Allied siege of the monastery at Monte Cassino, a mountainous fiefdom massively fortified by the German commander, Albert Kesselring. With command and ground-level detail that buffs will savor, Parker goes over what seems like every inch of the multinational force's campaign, which reduced the site (and its countless artifacts) to a ruin. (On sale June 1)
