Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries are powerful places to visit. The sacrifices earlier generations made during the Second World War in their fight against fascism somehow seems more relevant and pressing this year, especially after the events of this week. Last month I was lucky enough to visit the battlefields of Monte Cassino for the first time, expertly guided by James Holland and Mike Peters.
Whilst climbing Monte Sammucro, viewing the abbey from Colle Belvedere, and seeing the Liri valley from Hill 593 were unmissable, the visit to the CWGC cemetery in Cassino was incredibly moving. The ever present reconstructed Abbey of Monte Cassino dominates wherever you stand in the cemetery. You cannot escape its gaze today and 80 years ago it was the main focus for many of the 3,992 servicemen buried here.
The weather in October 2024 was beautiful and the pristine graves, with their uniform rows of headstones and carefully tended gardens, were magnificent. It couldn’t be more different from the hellish landscape of the battles fought close by. As described in Holland’s Savage Storm:
“In no other theatre was more demanded of Allied front-line troops. They were not being supplied with the normal levels of materiel or replacements. The conditions were appalling: the mud, the rain, the freezing temperatures, disease, the inability to deploy armour, mechanization and air power.”[1]
Sitting quietly to one side of the graveyard in the warm morning sun, one almost forgets that each evenly spaced headstone represents an individual with a life, a family, and had a future cut short. A sense of clarity quickly returns, however, when you start to read the names and epitaphs on them. Even more shocking is the realisation that some of the headstones are closer together than the others, indicating that the men died in close proximity where it was not possible to properly distinguish them before burial. Then you see the photos of the men and read the letters written home before they died and you feel the full weight of loss and tragedy.
Before leaving the cemetery deep in thought, James Holland read out a letter written by an Australian, Major Lawrie Franklyn-Vaile to his wife. An everyday kind of letter, thinking of the future, and you could almost imagine the officer of Royal Irish Fusiliers "C" Coy., 1st Bn. standing in front of us. James then pointed that the Major’s grave and how he had been killed shortly after the letter was written. In the last paragraph of his latest book, Cassino ‘44, James fittingly wrote about his reactions on his first visit to Franklyn-Vaile’s grave:
“It was ridiculous, really, to feel so choked up, but I couldn’t help myself. And then suddenly, from a tree at the southern edge of the cemetery, a nightingale began bursting into song: strange, haunting, but immeasurably melodic and beautiful. A reminder that life had returned here to this place that had once been so very desolate.
And with it, I felt a renewed sense of hope.”[2]
As we left the cemetery I felt very moved, physically sick, and strangely angry that the sacrifice was necessary.
Lest we forget.
[1] James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 (Bantam Press, 2023), p. 374.
[2] James Holland, Cassino ’44: Five Months of Hell in Italy (Bantam Press, 2024), p. 527.