In the run up to the 80th anniversary of VE day I took part in a virtual challenge, walking 80km along the Normandy Beaches.

I decided to have my medal presented to me by the Cassino War Memorial in the Commonwealth War Cemetery during our recent visit to Cassino just a few days before VE day.

The medal is a double sided gold chrome star, the front  side, along with the ribbon, is a faithful recreation of the ‘1939-1945 Star’ that was awarded to all operational service during the Second world War. The reverse carries the 80th anniversary VE day logo.

The main reason for travelling to Cassino was to visit the Commonwealth War Cemetery where Mr C’s grandfather is listed on one of the large tablets that commemorates soldiers with no known grave. Mr C’s grandfather took part in the invasion of Sicily in 1943 but the glider he was in was one of many that fell short of land and ditched into the Mediterranean and he was drowned.

We stayed in the Hotel La Pace (which translates as the Peace Hotel) where the hotelier, Pino, hosts talks on the battles of Monte Cassino and the Italian campaign of 1943-1944. Pino wishes to educate young people about what happened in Cassino so that those events are not forgotten by the younger generation.

Pino has undertaken extensive research into the battles of Monte Cassino and has produced videos that tell the story using a mixture of maps and diagrams, archive footage and footage from war films.

For our talk, in English, we were joined by Mauro, an English-speaking Italian. Each of the three men had a connection to the Italian campaign. Mr C told his grandfather’s story. Mauro told the story of his father who was disarmed by the Bersaglieri (Italian military police) and interned by them at the time of Italy’s surrender. Pino told the story of his grandfather who, aged 8, was sheltering inside the abbey of Monte Cassino when it was bombed during the battle.

The bombing of Monte Cassino abbey remains controversial to this day. The campaign was led by an American general, Mark Clark, in his first command of as overall commander of a battlefront. Clark was a cautious commander and had already missed opportunities to shorten the war in Italy. The Allied generals were convinced that the abbey was a German strongpoint and didn’t know that monks and villagers were sheltering there. Debate raged until Clark agreed to the razing of the abbey. Permission was sought and obtained from Pope Pius XII and the bombing was planned for 16 February 1944. The idea was that the bombing would force the German defenders to take cover allowing the Allied infantry to gain ground unopposed and in doing so, break through the German’s Gustav Line and open the road to Rome.

The United States Air Force (USAF) was tasked with bombing the abbey and chose to try out a new technique for bombing targets. In order to evaluate this new technique, several camera crews were brought in to film the bombing and its effectiveness. Because of weather reports, the USAF moved the bombing forward a day but failed to notify the ground troops, negating the reason for bombing the abbey in the first place. After the dust had settled, the Germans occupied the ruins, taking advantage of the extra cover they provided. The Germans had not previously stationed troops inside the abbey.

Pino showed some of the archive footage taken that day. It was shocking to watch, especially knowing that it was a useless act. Both he and Mauro were very critical of Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Badoglio, who took over leadership of the Italian Government after Mussolini was deposed. The conversation between Pino, Mauro and Mr C was interesting because each of them had very different knowledge about, and perspectives on, the events that took place. One slightly odd thing that came out is that in 1946, the Italians made a movie about the bombing of the abbey which featured extras drawn from the townsfolk, a number of whom had been inside the abbey at the time it was bombed.

The battle of Monte Cassino was multi-national and the town has three war cemeteries, one for the Germans, one for the Poles, who were heavily engaged in the battle and lost many casualties, and one for the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth cemetery contains the remains of more than 5,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Nepal and Pakistan.

• Acknowledgement is given to the Armchair General for his contributions to this post

Today the alarm buzzed as scheduled so we were in the breakfast room with plenty of time to spare. We arrived to find that there was only one piece of toasting bread, no other bread and insufficient slices of cheese, salami and ham.

I enquired about the bread and was told it had finished… Not quite what we were hoping for as a breakfast experience.

After our ‘not quite’ breakfast we drove to the nearby British military cemetery and war memorial. This was the main reason for our visit to Cassino; Mr C’s grandfather is listed on one of the tablets that commemorates soldiers missing in action during WWII. Mr C’s grandfather lost his life during the invasion of Sicily in 1943. The glider that he was in fell short of land off the coast of Syracuse and, sadly, he was drowned.

Whilst visiting the memorial site Mr C took the opportunity to locate the Shropshire Yeomanry graves. Whilst Mr C was doing this, I was asked to take a photograph by someone wearing a ‘Help for Heroes tee-shirt. Later we found that he was part way through a charity cycle race from Tunisia to South Yorkshire.

We returned to town for a late lunch. By this time, we were beginning to realize that many cafés do not open until 2pm and most restaurants don’t open until 8pm. We had lunch in Café Reale where I chose a delicious mozzarella and tuna roll.

We returned to the hotel, where Mr C read his book for a while, before then heading back into town for refreshments. We had intended to walk to the nearby Lord Baden Powell Garden but instead we headed back to the hotel where we had an appointment with the proprietor Pino for a to talk about the battle of Cassino. Pino has extensively researched the battle and had his own personal story to tell as did Mauro who joined the talk. Then of course Mr C had come with his own personal story to tell. This led to conversations about the battle from three different perspectives. I will elaborate on the talks and conversations in a separate post.

Afterwards it was time to walk back into town for our evening meal. We dined in Pan ‘Unto steakhouse where the food was delicious but we found the portions to be enormous and over facing.

We finished the evening at the Botanical cocktail bar where the proprietor remembered us from the previous evening even down to the detail of which drinks we had ordered. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect service.