Cassino 44: Five Months of Hell in Italy
Usually shipped within 24 hours
UK deliveries from £4.95
Delivery & Returns
Delivery & Returns
We use the Royal Mail, DHL Express or UPS for our customers. For UK addresses, deliveries under 10kg are a standard £4.95 via Royal Mail Tracked 48 Service. For orders over 10kg and overseas customers, postage is calculated for you at checkout once you have entered your postal address. This price, does not include any potential custom charges that may apply, depending on the product or destination, as every country has very different import duties / taxes. Online exclusive products (such as trainers) will be delivered to you directly from the printer, separate from other items in your order, but your postage fee covers ALL items in your order.
If you are unhappy with your purchase, please email shop@tankmuseum.org within fourteen (14) working days of receiving your goods, and return it to us at the address below, in its original condition, unopened (with any seals and shrink-wrap intact) and we will issue you a full refund or replace it. Goods must be returned at your own cost. If the item is faulty, you do not need to return it, we will send you a replacement free of charge.
Cassino 44: Five Months of Hell in Italy
Description
Description
By James Holland
Holland writes with eloquence and power about the harsh realities of a brutal battle that grabbed the world’s attention and helped to decide the future of Italy' Professor Michael S. Neiberg, author of When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance
There are no such thing as an easy victory in war but after triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion, and with the Italian surrender, the Allies were confident that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943. And yet it didn't happen.
Hitler ordered his forces to dig in and fight for every yard, thus setting the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional campaigns of the Second World War. By the start of 1944, the Allies found themselves coming up against the Gustav Line: a formidable barrier of wire, minefields, bunkers and booby traps, woven into a giant chain of mountains and river valleys that stretched the width of Italy where at its strongest point perched the Abbey of Monte Cassino. It would take five long bitter winter months and the onset of summer before the Allies could finally bludgeon their way north and capture Rome.
By then, more than 75,000 troops and civilians had been killed and the historic abbey and entire towns and villages had been laid waste. Following a rich cast of characters from both sides - from frontline infantry to aircrew, from clerks to battlefield commanders, and from politicians and civilians caught up in the middle of the maelstrom - James Holland has drawn widely on diaries, letters and contemporary sources to write the definitive account of this brutal battle. The result is a compelling and often heart-breaking narrative, told in the moment, as the events played out, and from the perspective of those who lived, fought and died there.
