News: The Fall of Monte Cassino

May 18, 1944

2:00

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In 1944, the Allied advance up the Italian peninsula was blocked by the Gustav Line, a system of German fortifications that straddled the peninsula about 75 miles south of Rome. The Allies attempted to bypass the line by landing 50,000 troops at Anzio, just 33 miles south of Rome, but they failed to gain much more than a beachhead and suffered intense German air and artillery attacks for four months. On May 11, the Allies launched a major offensive along the Gustav Line, and on May 18 a Polish corps of the British 8th Army captured Monte Cassino, site of an ancient hilltop monastery that the Germans had transformed into a fortress. With the fall of Monte Cassino, the Gustav Line began to collapse. Several Allied armies pushed toward Rome, and the great city was liberated on June 5. The Germans soon regrouped further north, however, and all of Italy was not liberated until April 1945.