Wojtek the Bear [paperback] by Aileen; Orr Page A

reburied, marking their grave with a makeshift cross.
    ‘The shelling continued day and night, and there was no such thing as silence,’ he recalled many decades later, in an interview with the BBC. ‘At one point I was ordered to
count the shells falling nearby, but after two hours or so it was above 500 and I lost count.’ The months of battle and constant shelling had turned the normally lush countryside into a
wasteland. ‘There was no greenery, only stumps of trees. Everywhere just stumps, as far as you could see,’ said Skrzynski.
    The battle raged on until the Poles prevailed. They finally walked into the ruins of the monastery on 18 May 1944 without a shot being fired, having spotted a tattered
white flag of surrender. Inside they discovered a number of Germans in ragged uniforms, three badly wounded paratroopers and numerous corpses. As the Poles raised a Lancers Regiment pennant to
signify the capture of the monastery, a soldier played an ancient bugle call recognised by all Poles. Known as the Kraków Hejnał, according to legend it was used to alert that city to
an invasion by Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes. As the notes rang out, the Polish troops wept with exhaustion and relief that the fighting had ended. The carnage was over. In the week’s
fighting 2nd Corps suffered appalling losses. There were a total of 4,199 casualties, including 1,150 killed. It was one of the decisive battles of the war.
    Elsewhere along the Gustav Line, other victories were achieved. With his mates from the 6th Black Watch, John Clarke crossed the Rapido on a bridge constructed by the Royal Engineers to take the
weight of tanks. The bridge was built while the sappers came under constant enemy fire – an incredible feat. Clarke recalls: ‘They performed miracles erecting that bridge, but their
losses were terrible. I crossed with the Black Watch. All around were bodies and craters where shells had landed. We formed up, fixed bayonets and moved on. Then a really thick mist came down and
our CO, Colonel Madden, lined up the tanks of the Lothian and Border Horse and placed the lads around the tanks. Then we moved on through the mist. We fought for five days and nights before
reaching our target of Highway Six. This meant the German paras were cut off.’
    In a separate engagement, Algerian, Moroccan andTunisian troops of the French Expeditionary Corps achieved another extremely important breakthrough in the Aurunci
Mountains south of the Liri River. The combined victories forced the enemy to retreat.
    On the morning of 18 May 1944, Private Clarke and his Black Watch comrades were withdrawn from the battle in trucks and taken to Monte Cassino, then in the hands of the Poles. Clarke said:
‘When it was all over and we rested in Cassino town, we had a brew and a preliminary roll-call. We sat among the ruins of the old cathedral when a tubby, red-faced individual came bouncing up
to us. He had a tape recorder in a wooden box hanging from his neck and said: ‘‘Hello, lads, I’m Wynford Vaughan-Thomas from the BBC. Nothing to worry about now –
you’re out of it.’’
    ‘I’ll never forget what happened next. Not a word was said by our lads. Eyes turned towards this horrible creature and locked onto his face. The silence and the stares lasted several
minutes until, completely unnerved by it, the man turned and ran away in embarrassment.’
    What Vaughan-Thomas, one of the BBC’s most celebrated war correspondents, did not know was that in the roll-call just taken the men of the Black Watch had learned that they had suffered 60
per cent casualties.
    John Clarke is now aged 86 and lives in Manchester. Still honorary secretary of the Monte Cassino Veterans Association, he said: ‘It was then that we all made a promise never to forget
those lads we were leaving behind. We have kept that promise. About this time a flag of some kind was raised in the ruins of the monastery. It was raised by the Poles. Just as we