The Battle of Monte Cassino Trivia Quiz

Answer: In the Apennines

Monte Cassino occupies a rocky promontory in the Apennines, the mountain chain that runs North-South through central Italy.

Answer: A Benedictine Abbey

In 529 A.D. St. Bendict of Norcia, who had founded the Benedictine Order, built the abbey, which became the site of pilgrimages and the repository of an archive and priceless works of art.
Over the years it had previously been destroyed three times: in 577-79 by the Lombards, in 883 by the Saracens and in 1349 by an earthquake.

Answer: All of these

The Abbey was the linchpin of the Gustav Line, that went across all of Italy, from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea and was the last defense of the Germans on the way to Rome. Once past Monte Cassino, it would have been easy all the way to the capital.

Answer: They were taken to the Vatican for safekeeping

The Germans offered to help transferring the art to the Vatican. But instead they tried to move them north to Spoleto, so they could keep them.
The Goering Division was in charge, and they were anxious to keep some paintings and sculptures to present them to their boss, Hermann Goering, whose birthday was coming up, since he was an avid art collector.
They succeeded in stealing just 15 cases which were taken to an abandoned salt mine at Alt-Aussee in Austria. They were recovered after the war but the bulk of the artworks was finally taken to the Vatican, where a photo op was staged.

Answer: It was occupied by a few monks and refugees

Only the Abbott Gregorio Diamare resided there with a few monks who did not want to move to safer quarters. But a few hundred civilians were squatting on the grounds, having lost their homes in the bombings and thinking that, being on religious ground, the Abbey would be safe.

Answer: It was bombed by the Americans

On February 15, between 9:28 am and 1:33 pm, four groups of B-17's (Flying Fortresses), for a total of 144, and 87 medium bombers (47 B-25 and 40 B-26), dropped 453 tons of bombs on the Abbey.
This was the largest number of bombers ever sent by the Allies against a tactical target.
The monks had taken shelter in the lowest parts of the Abbey and they all survived, but a couple hundred civilian refugees were killed.
There were no German casualties.

Answer: The New Zealander Bernard Freyberg

For months there have been rumors that the Germans were entrenched in the Abbey and using it as an observation post and fortified enclave. In reality, the Germans were not present in the Abbey, but they camped in the caves below, and kept munitions there. The Americans wanted to save the Abbey, starting with Eisenhower, who gave orders to safeguard cultural landmarks, unless it became a military necessity to save the lives of the troops.

In the end the will of the New Zealander commander Freyberg prevailed.

He considered the bombing a necessity for protecting his troops, and threatened to withdraw them. As it turned out, after the Abbey became a pile of rubble, German paratroopers moved in, using as a perfect defense post.

Answer: Almost a dozen

General Clark had an extremely difficult task coordinating five different corps under his command, with troops from the US, the UK, British India (Nepalese Ghurkas), Free France (from Morocco and Algeria), Poland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others. Moreover, there were British commanders over and under him.

Answer: The Germans retreated

The battle started on January 17, 1944, the bombing occurred on February 15, but not until May 18, after three more bloody, fruitless months, that the fighting came to an end, only because the Germans left, realizing all was lost.
The few who had thought that Monte Cassino could not be taken with a frontal assault were proved right. They maintained that the best bet would have been to go around the mountain and take the Germans from the rear. So there has been a heated controversy ever since, whether the loss of about 54,000 Allied soldiers and 20,000 Germans had been worth it.

Answer: The reconstructed Abbey

The Italian government rebuilt the Abbey, as much as possible as it used to be. The reconstruction started in 1953 and lasted more than a decade. The art works were returned from the Vatican and those destroyed have been replaced with different ones by contemporary artists.

The town of Cassino, down in the valley, has been completely rebuilt. There are five military cemeteries in the vicinity, but only the Poles are buried next to the Abbey on the hill. In the British cemetery outside of town, besides the Brits, there are the New Zealanders, Canadians, Indians, Ghurkas, Australians and S.African soldiers.

The Germans are on the way to the Rapido valley, while the Americans are at Anzio, Unlike the others, the German cemetery has no inscription of any kind, only the statues of two grieving parents.