to cast a terrible shadow over Italy and which would fan the flames of a bloodbath that would last beyond the end of the war.
There were many nationalities and differing races in the two Allied armies waiting to go into battle. The British and Americans formed the largest contingents, but there were also French, Moroccans, Algerians, Canadians, New Zealanders (whites and Maori), Poles, Nepalese, Indians (all faiths), South Africans (white, Asian, black, Zulus), and in the air forces, Australians, Rhodesians and others beside. Whatever their differing creeds and wide-ranging backgrounds, they all were relieved to see that on this day, the eve of battle, the weather was being kind. Thursday, 11 May 1944, was a glorious day: warm, with blue skies, and, by the afternoon, not a rain cloud in sight, just as it had been for most of the month. By evening, the temperature had dropped somewhat, but it was still warm, with just the faintest trace of a breeze – even near the summit of Monte Cassino, some 1,700 feet above the valley below. In their foxholes, the men of the 45,600-strong II Polish Corps waited, repeatedly checking their weapons; eating a final meal; exchanging anxious glances. The minutes ticked by inexorably slowly. It was quiet up there, too; quieter than it had been for many days. Not a single gun fired. The mountain, it seemed, had been stilled.
It was now three weeks since the Poles had taken over the Monte Cassino sector and since then, almost every minute, both day and night, had been spent preparing for and thinking about the battle ahead. By day, the men had trained; they had held exercises in attacking strongly fortified positions, practising rock climbing and assaulting concrete bunkers. New flamethrowers were also introduced, while each squadron and platoon* was given clear and detailed instructions as to what they were supposed to do when the battle began.
By night, the Poles had been even busier. Vast amounts of ammunition and supplies had to be taken up the mountainside, a task that was impossible during daylight when the enemy would easily be able to spot them – secrecy was paramount; so, too, was saving lives for the battle ahead. It was also a task that could only be achieved by the use of pack mules and by the fortitude of the men, for there were just two paths open to them – both old mountain tracks, which for more than six miles could be watched by the enemy. A carefully adhered-to system had been quickly established. Supplies were brought from the rear areas by truck. Under carefully laid smoke screens, they were loaded onto smaller, lighter vehicles, then, as the mountain began to rise, they were transferred onto mules and finally carried by hand and on backs by the men themselves, slogging their way up the two mountain tracks that led to the forward positions. All this was done in the dark, without any lights, and as quietly as possible. Even so, the men were often fired upon. The German gunners around Monte Cassino would lay periodic barrages along various stretches of these mountain paths and despite their best efforts, casualties mounted – casualties II Polish Corps could ill-afford.
Now the waiting was almost over, and as the sun slipped behind the mountains on the far side of the Liri Valley, and darkness descended, the Poles knew that at long last the moment for which they had endured so much in the past four-and-a-half years was almost upon them.
In what had once been a lovely mountain meadow, the men of the 2nd Squadron, 12th Lancers, were now dug in. Part of the Polish Corps’ 3rd Carpathian Division, they were some 600 yards from the crumbled ruins of the monastery, and the ground ahead of them was pockmarked and churned by shell holes, and strewn with twisted bits of metal and remnants of the dead. Not that twenty-seven-year-old Wladek Rubnikowicz had had much chance to examine the area that was to be his part of the battlefield. In an effort to keep their presence a secret, Wladek and his comrades had been forbidden to send out patrols to reconnoitre the area. In fact, since arriving in their positions on the night of 3 May, Wladek had done little but bring up more supplies by night and brace himself for the attack by day.
The Lancers were cavalry, trained to use armoured cars and to operate as a fast-moving reconnaissance unit, but for the battle they had become infantrymen, foot-sloggers like almost every other soldier that had fought across this damnable piece of land for the past four months. The armoured cars now waited for them miles behind the line with the rear echelons. Only once the battle was won, and the men were out of the mountains and into the valleys below, would they get their vehicles back.
For the vast majority of Polish troops now lying in wait on the mountain, their journey there had been long and tortuous – an epic trek that had seen them travel thousands of miles, crossing continents and enduring terrible losses and hardship – and Wladek was no exception. It was a miracle that he was alive at all.
The blitzkrieg that followed the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 had lasted just twenty-eight days and on 29 September, the country was carved in two by the month-old allies, Germany and the Soviet Union. What had been a beacon of democracy was now subjugated under fascism in one half and Stalinist communism in the other. Its cities and towns lay in ruins, while its stunned people wondered how this apocalypse could have happened in such a short space of time.
Wladek, then a cadet with the Polish Army, had been wounded in the shoulder in the final days before the surrender. Left behind in a disused schoolhouse, he was helped by some local girls who tended him and brought him food and water and, once fit enough to walk, he began the long journey back home to Glebokie, a small town in what had been northeast Poland, but which had now been consumed by the Soviet Union.
His older brother had been killed in the fighting, leaving a wife and two small children, while his home town had been devastated by the war. ‘I could see that every thing that made life worthwhile had come to standstill,’ Wladek recalled. Nor could he stay at home. Russian troops were everywhere, arresting Poles in their droves. He eventually managed to get to Warsaw after travelling most of the way by clutching to the buffers of a train in temperatures well below freezing, and despite being arrested at the German–Russian border. Temporarily locked in a barn, he quickly escaped and made his way through the snow into the German-occupied half of Poland.
For a while Wladek worked for the Polish resistance movement, but on a mission back into Russian-occupied Poland, he was arrested at the border once again. This time he did not escape.
For thirteen long months, Wladek was held at Bialystok prison. He was one of fifty-six prisoners crammed into an eight-man cell. Occasionally he would be interrogated and beaten. Eventually he was sentenced to three years in a Siberian labour camp. In June 1941, he and 500 others were loaded onto a goods train, fifty to a wagon, and sent to a labour camp in the Arctic Circle.
Ventilation for the wagon came from a small, barred hole and an opening in the floor used as a toilet. There was not enough air and they all struggled to breathe properly. Each prisoner received 400 grammes of bread and one herring at the start of the journey, but the salty herring made them thirstier. They were eventually given a small cup of water each, which, they were told, had to last until the following day. Dysentery soon gripped many men, and most had fever. A number died, their bodies remaining where they lay amongst the living. ‘Can you imagine?’ says Wladek. ‘We didn’t realise then that of course the Soviets hoped these conditions would kill off many of us on the way.’
The journey lasted two weeks. The further they travelled the more bleak and desolate the surrounding country became. Eventually they halted at a railhead on the Pechora River. Staggering off their
