San Pietro There was this horrible
battle when they landed in Salerno to try to get up
to Rome by Christmas time. In order to do that, they
had to take what is known as Route 6.
Route 6 passes by a town named Mignano—the Mignano
Gap—and then it goes to San Pietro and Cassino. From
Cassino, it goes through the Liri Valley and gets to
Rome. It's the Appian Way. The Italians convinced
the Germans that the gap at Cassino was one that was
difficult to penetrate.
Within the ruined church of the old town of San Pietro.
It was
the 36th Division that was given the task
of trying to conquer San Pietro. But before they did
that, they had to take Monte Lungo. The Italians, for
the first time, had an expeditionary force [ed. note: the newly
constituted Italian 1st Motorized Brigade]
and they wanted very much to get into the act. This
was the first time they were working with the Allies,
so they were given the task—if they wanted it—of
conquering Monte Lungo, just south of San Pietro.
What you have now at the
foot of the hill is an Italian cemetery for the
Italians who were killed trying to get up that hill.
Across the street from the cemetery is a war museum.
And, of course, there's a nice road you can take to
get up to the top. I've
taken people up there.
It was a
very big battle—on the outskirts and in the town,
itself. House to house. The town was ultimately
destroyed. Then the Germans just withdrew to the next
position, Cassino, itself. There was a river there. It
was very difficult to forge. You couldn't get across.
 The 19th of
December was when the battle was just about over. San
Pietro was completely destroyed. It was a town of
about 2 km by 2 km. Maybe 8-10,000 people. The people
who lived there had been told to evacuate. The Germans
made them evacuate. A lot of them were put on trains
and sent up to northern Italy. I got to know a guy by
the name of Adriano, who was a young kid in San Pietro
when all this happened. I met him again when we were
taking a tour recently, and he told us all about how
the people protected themselves by living in caves
(photo), and how many were killed. Now there is a
museum about the American soldiers as well as the
Italian civilians who were killed. The new town of San
Pietro is about a kilometer and a half from the old
town.(Photo credits: All photos of San Pietro by Herman Chanowitz. I have been unable to trace credit/copyright information for the record album graphic of the stylized Mt. Vesuvius/US flag. If anyone has accurate information, I would be happy to list the appropriate credit.)
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The
Germans did a wonderful job of defending it. They told
their people that they had to hold the Allied forces
back so they didn't get to Cassino by Christmas. They
needed that much time—this was in October, 1943—to
prepare the defensive sites. San Pietro was 20
kilometers in front of—south of—Cassino. There was a
terrible battle fought there [in San Pietro]; it
started somewhere around the 8th or 9th
of December. The town of San Pietro, itself, is in the
valley between two hills, Monte Lungo and Monte
Sammucro. It's just off of Route 6. Another town there
is Venafro. Going up that particular valley, you come
to Monte Lungo.
What
happened though was that they were told that there
weren't too many weapons up there and that it
shouldn't be difficult to take. When they started up
the hill, they were slaughtered. The Italians said
that there were a lot of weapons up there that the
Americans had said wouldn't be there. It was a German
trap. An American regiment from the 36th
Division—I think it was the 143rd Regiment—finally
took the hill . I think it was next day or the day
after. Then you had to take the hill of Sammucro, and
then you get into the town of San Pietro, which was
sitting in the valley.
All of
this happened in late November and early December.
They made a movie about it: The Battle for San
Pietro. John Huston. There is also a guy from
San Pietro, a school teacher named Maurizo Zambardi. I
think he's in his forties. He is very, very good with
history and has written a lot about it.