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THE WORCESTERSHIRE AND SHERWOOD FORESTERS REGIMENTAL ASSOCIATION
Patron: HRH The Princess Royal
President: Brig P Dennis
You can also view the Newsletter in pdf format here (http://www.stand-firm-strike-hard.org.uk/index.php/newsletter)
Patron: HRH The Princess Royal
President: Brig P Dennis CBE
15 March 2024 WFRA NEWSLETTER Volume 15 Issue 11
OBITUARY
426234 Lt Col JOHN DAVID HETHERINGTON OStJ psc
We regret to announce that Lt Col John Hetherington died on 8 March 2024 aged 90.
John was born on 28 February 1934 and was educated at Haileybury and ISC in Hertfordshire. He was conscripted into the Army in May 1952, serving initially at Normanton Barracks and then at Budbrook Barracks in Warwick.
He attended Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School in October 1952 and was commissioned as a National Service 2nd Lieutenant, joining 2nd Bn The Sherwood Foresters in Wuppertal on 10 January 1953. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 5 September 1954 and granted a Regular Commission in February 1955.
After roles as A-Tk Pl Comd, Scout Pl Comd and MTO he became Regimental Signals Officer with the move of the 2nd Bn to Celle and then he was posted to the Regimental Depot in Derby in 1956 as a Training Officer.
Post the amalgamation of the 1st and 2nd Bns John joined the 1st Bn in 1957 becoming the Regimental Signals Officer again as the battalion moved first to Malaya and then Singapore towards the end of the Malayan Confrontation. He was promoted to Captain in February 1961, taking over as Adjutant of the battalion a few months later on the Bn's move to Hollywood, Northern Ireland and then during their early days in Colchester, a time which included the emergency tour in Cyprus.
From 1964-66 he underwent staff training, initially at the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham and then at the Indian Defence Services Staff College Wellington in Nilgri Hills, India. This was followed by promotion to Acting Major in January 1967 and appointment as Brigade Major of 151 Infantry Brigade (TA) in Middlesborough. In April 1967 he was given an emergency appointment as GSO 2(SD) at HQ BRITCON, HQ UNFICYP, Nicosia with promotion to substantive Major in December 1967.
In August 1968 he rejoined 1st Bn The Sherwood Foresters, then serving as a Mechanised Battalion in 7 Armoured Brigade in Minden, West Germany, as OC C Company. Post amalgamation in January 1970 he became OC A Company in Warminster as 1WFR took on the role of Demonstration Battalion at the School of Infantry.
A move to HQ Army Strategic Command at Wilton followed from September 1970 to January 1972 when, on his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, he assumed command of the 1st Bn The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment in January 1972. Though the battalion were still in the Demonstration Battalion role in Warminster they were about to deploy to 8 Infantry Brigade in Londonderry in March 1972 for the first of many Op BANNER tours.
Those who were with the Regiment at that time will remember a period of escalating violence in the Province and the Battalion's first casualties (2 killed and 10 seriously wounded).
John then moved with the battalion to Berlin in July 1972 remaining in command until July 1974. During this time the battalion excelled in all sports at Brigade, Division, BAOR and Army levels.
Post command from September 1974 until September 1976 he was GSO1 Plans SD and Trg in HQ Northern Ireland in Lisburn before moving to become GSO1 EPS and Trg in 1 (BR) Corps in Bielefeld.
He left the Army under one of the Army's early redundancy packages in February 1979.
In civilian life he retained his role as a Regimental Trustee until 1999, also taking on the additional posts of a Museum Trustee, a Crich Memorial Trustee, Deputy President of the Sherwood Foresters Association and Vice President of the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regimental Association.
He took great pride in attending the Crich Memorial Service as a Trustee for 13 years wearing the same No1 Dress Jacket he was commissioned in.
John was awarded the Order of St John of Jerusalem by HM The Queen in October 1987 for his work as Commander of St John's Ambulance for Derbyshire.
In addition he was a Governor of Repton School from 1994 to 2003 and an Honorary Governor from 2003 to 2007.
In retirement he indulged in his hobby of Carriage Driving and was involved with the Windsor Horse Show.
A Memorial Service will take place on Tuesday 2nd April 2024 at 2pm at St Wynstans Church, Repton DE65 6FH and afterwards in the Undercroft at Repton School.
Details of a contact address for letters of condolence will follow.
FUNERAL DETAILS
The funeral of Stephen Mapletoft will be held at St Mark's Church, St Mark's Road, Brampton, Chesterfield. S40 1DH on Thursday 21 March 2024 at 14.15hrs.
001 BADAJOZ DAY – 6 APRIL 2024
This year’s Badajoz commemorations will be held at Nottingham Castle on Saturday 6 April 2024 commencing 1040 hours. Following the ceremony, there will be a tour of the Mercian Gallery.
More details will follow in due course.
002 1ST BN THE SHERWOOD FORESTERS - EMERGENCY TOUR IN CYPRUS
As readers will have seen in recent issues of the Newsletter the Cyprus High Commission in London has extended an invitation to those who served with the UNFICYP Force in 1964 to attend a reception at the High Commission this month.
"The Cyprus High Commission to the UK intends to host an event to mark the 60 years of UNFICYP’s presence in Cyprus and to honour the British veterans who were the first to serve in Cyprus. The High Commissioner is seeking to find members of Sherwood Foresters who were in Cyprus in 1964 but who only for those participated in UNFICYP Mission, not in any other tour or mission in Cyprus. The High Commissioner is keen to make contact with any of our veterans who fit this bill, or their descendants. It is proposed that the event will be held on the afternoon of Thursday 21 March 2024 at the Cyprus High Commission in London. Due to limited capacity, please note that invitations will be shared at a later stage.
While many may be unable to attend this gives an opportunity to highlight the Regiment's role with some of the actions of that time.
Lt Col Roger Stockton has kindly agreed to put forward a few of the incidents of that time (26 Dec 1963 to June 1964) to jog memories of days gone by.
At this time there are only 6 officers still alive and contactable from those days, Cook, Ford, Hood, Prince, Stockton and Tulloch. Should any who served in Cyprus at that time have photos or reminisces we would be grateful if they could be sent to Mark Dack at WFRA Executive for inclusion in future articles.
newsletter@stand-firm-strike-hard.org.uk
003 FRIENDS OF THE MERCIAN REGIMENT MUSEUM
The next talk which will take place on Saturday, 16th March.
Venue: Lyppard Grange Community Centre, Ankerage Green, Worcester WR4 0DZ.
Time 13.30 for 14.00 start
The Great Train Robbery 1963 by Ian Boskett
An illustrated talk on the Great Train Robbery with a practical demonstration showing how the railway signal was altered to stop the train which was doing 90 mph at the time. Years of research has resulted in local links to the crime being discovered and a complete story has now been established. The talk is not a celebration of the crime or its robbers but focuses on the corruption that took place in the sixties.
Friends £3 Non-Friends - £5 Light refreshments included.
Feel free to invite family and friends along, all are welcome.
004 VETERANS MEETING
There is a veterans meeting taking place at County Hall, Loughborough Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 7QP on Friday 22nd March 10 30hrs.
005 THE BATTLE OF MONTE CASSINO - PART 4
Fourth and final battle
Operation Diadem's plan of attack
Alexander's strategy
Alexander's strategy in Italy was to "force the enemy to commit the maximum number of divisions in Italy at the time the cross channel invasion of Normandy is launched". Circumstances allowed him the time to prepare a major offensive to achieve this. His plan, originally inspired by Juin's idea to circle around Cassino and take the Aurunci with his mountain troops to break the Gustav Line, was to shift the bulk of the British Eighth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese, from the Adriatic front across the spine of Italy to join Clark's Fifth Army and attack along a 20 mile front between Cassino and the sea. Fifth Army would be on the left, and Eighth Army on the right. With the arrival of the spring weather, ground conditions improved, and it would be possible to deploy large formations and armour effectively.
Planning and preparation
The plan for Operation Diadem was that U.S. II Corps, on the left, would attack up the coast along the line of Route 7 towards Rome. The French Corps to their right would attack from the bridgehead across the Garigliano, originally created by British X Corps in the first battle in January, into the Aurunci Mountains, which formed a barrier between the coastal plain and the Liri Valley. British XIII Corps in the centre right of the front would attack along the Liri valley. On the right, Polish II Corps (3rd and 5th Divisions), commanded by Lieutenant General Władysław Anders, had relieved the British 78th Division in the mountains behind Cassino on 24 April and would attempt the task that had defeated the 4th Indian Division in February: isolate the monastery and push round behind it into the Liri valley to link with XIII Corps' thrust and pinch out the Cassino position. It was hoped that, being a much larger force than their 4th Indian Division predecessors, they would be able to saturate the German defences, which would, as a result, be unable to give supporting fire to each other's positions. Improved weather, ground conditions, and supply would also be important factors. Once again, the pinching manoeuvres by the Polish and British Corps were key to the overall success. The Canadian I Corps would be held in reserve, ready to exploit the expected breakthrough. Once the German 10th Army had been defeated, the U.S. VI Corps would break out of the Anzio beachhead to cut off the retreating Germans in the Alban Hills.
The large troop movements required for this took two months to execute. They had to be carried out in small units to maintain secrecy and surprise. The U.S. 36th Division was sent on amphibious assault training, and road signposts and dummy radio traffic were created to give the impression that a seaborne landing was being planned for north of Rome. This was planned to keep the German reserves held back from the Gustav Line. Movements of troops in forward areas were confined to the hours of darkness, and armoured units moving from the Adriatic front left behind dummy tanks and vehicles, so the vacated areas appeared unchanged to enemy aerial reconnaissance. The deception was successful. As late as the second day of the final Cassino battle, Kesselring estimated the Allies had six divisions facing his four on the Cassino front. In fact, there were thirteen.
Battle
The first assault (11–12 May) on Cassino opened at 23:00hrs with a massive artillery bombardment with 1,060 guns on the Eighth Army front and 600 guns on the Fifth Army front, manned by British, Americans, Poles, New Zealanders, South Africans, and French. Within an hour and a half, the attack was in motion in all four sectors. By daylight, the U.S. II Corps had made little progress, but their Fifth Army colleagues, the French Expeditionary Corps, had achieved their objectives and were fanning out in the Aurunci Mountains towards the Eighth Army to their right, rolling up the German positions between the two armies. On the Eighth Army front, the British XIII Corps had made two strongly opposed crossings of the Garigliano. Crucially, the engineers of Dudley Russell's 8th Indian Division had by the morning succeeded in bridging the river, enabling the armour of the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade to cross and provide the vital element so missed by the Americans in the first battle and the New Zealanders in the second battle to beat off the inevitable counterattacks from German tanks that would come.
In the mountains above Cassino, the aptly named Mount Calvary, Monte Calvario, or Point 593 on Snakeshead Ridge was taken by the Polish 2nd Corps, under the command of General Władysław Anders, only to be recaptured by German paratroopers. For three days, Polish attacks and German counterattacks brought heavy losses to both sides. The Polish II Corps lost 281 officers and 3,503 other ranks in assaults on Oberst Ludwig Heilmann's 4th Parachute Regiment until the attacks were called off. In the early morning hours of 12 May, the Polish infantry divisions were met with such devastating mortar, artillery and small arms fire that the leading battalions were all but wiped out.
By the afternoon of 12 May, the Gari bridgeheads were increasing despite furious counterattacks, while attrition on the coast and in the mountains continued. By 13 May the pressure was starting to tell. The German right wing began to give way to the Fifth Army. The French Corps had captured Monte Maio and were now in a position to give material flank assistance to the Eighth Army in the Liri Valley, against whom Kesselring had thrown every available reserve in order to buy time to switch to his second prepared defensive position, the Hitler Line, some 8 miles to the rear. On 14 May Moroccan Goumiers, travelling through the mountains parallel to the Liri valley on ground that was undefended because it was not thought possible to traverse such terrain, outflanked the German defence while materially assisting the XIII Corps in the valley. In 1943, the Goumiers were colonial troops formed into four Groupements des Tabors Marocains ("Groups of Moroccan Tabors"; GTM), each consisting of three loosely organised Tabors roughly equivalent to a battalion) that specialised in mountain warfare. Juin's French Expeditionary Corps consisted of General Augustin Guillaume's Commandement des Goumiers Marocains, totaling around 7,800 fighting men, roughly the same infantry strength as a division, and four more conventional divisions: the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division, the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division and the 1st Free French Division. Clark also paid tribute to the Goumiers and the Moroccan regulars of the Tirailleur units:
In spite of the stiffening enemy resistance, the 2nd Moroccan Division penetrated the Gustave Line in less than two day's fighting. The next 48 hours on the French front were decisive. The knife wielding Goumiers swarmed over the hills, particularly at night and General Juin's entire force showed an aggressiveness hour after hour that the Germans could not withstand. Cerasola, San Giorgio, Mt. D'Oro, Ausonia and Esperia were seized in one of the most brilliant and daring advances of the war in Italy.
On 15 May, the British 78th Division, with an attached armoured brigade under command, came into the British XIII Corps line from reserve, passing through the British 4th Infantry Division's bridgehead to execute the turning move to isolate Cassino from the Liri valley.
On 17 May, General Anders led the Polish II Corps in launching their second attack on Monte Cassino. Under constant artillery and mortar fire from the strongly fortified German positions and with little natural cover for protection, the fighting was fierce and at times hand to hand. With their line of supply threatened by the Allied advance in the Liri valley, the Germans decided to withdraw from the Cassino Heights to the new defensive positions on the Hitler Line. In the early hours of 18 May, the British 78th Division and Polish II Corps linked up in the Liri valley, 2 miles west of Cassino town. On the Cassino high ground, the survivors of the second Polish offensive were so battered that "it took some time to find men with enough strength to climb the few hundred yards to the summit." A patrol of the Polish 12th Podolian Cavalry Regiment finally made it to the heights and raised a Polish flag over the ruins. The only remnants of the defenders were a group of thirty wounded Germans who had been unable to move.
Aftermath
Hitler Line
Units of the Eighth Army advanced up the Liri valley and the Fifth Army up the coast to the Hitler defensive line which was renamed the Senger Line at Hitler's insistence to minimise the significance if it was penetrated. An immediate follow up assault failed, and the Eighth Army then decided to take some time to reorganise. Getting 20,000 vehicles and 2,000 tanks through the broken Gustav Line was a major job that took several days. The next assault on the line commenced on 23 May with the Polish II Corps attacking Piedimonte San Germano defended by the redoubtable German 1st Parachute Division on the right and the 1st Canadian Infantry Division in the centre. On 24 May, the Canadians had breached the line and 5th Canadian Division poured through the gap. On 25 May, the Poles took Piedimonte, and the line collapsed. The way was clear for the advance northward on Rome and beyond.
Anzio breakout
As the Canadians and Poles launched their attack on Anzio on 23 May, Major General Lucian Truscott, who had replaced General Lucas as commander of the U.S. VI Corps in February, launched a two-pronged attack using five three U.S. and two British of the seven divisions in the beachhead at Anzio. The German 14th Army, facing this thrust, was without any armoured divisions because Kesselring had sent his armour south to assist the German 10th Army in the Cassino action. A single armoured division, the 26th Panzer, was in transit from north of the Italian capital of Rome, where it had been held anticipating the nonexistent seaborne landing the Allies had faked and so was unavailable to fight.
Clark captures Rome but fails to trap the German Tenth Army
By 25 May, with the German 10th Army in full retreat, Truscott's VI Corps was, as planned, driving eastwards to cut them off. By the next day, they would have been astride the line of retreat, and the 10th Army, with all of Kesselring's reserves committed to them, would have been trapped. At this point, astonishingly, Clark ordered Truscott to change his line of attack from a northeasterly one to Valmontone on Route 6 to a northwesterly one directly towards Rome. The reasons for Clark's decision are unclear, and controversy surrounds the issue. Most historians point to Clark's ambition to be the first to arrive in Rome, although some suggest he was concerned to give a necessary respite to his tired troops notwithstanding the new direction of attack that required his troops to make a frontal attack on the Germans' prepared defences on the Caesar C line. Truscott later wrote in his memoirs that Clark "was fearful that the British were laying devious plans to be first into Rome", a sentiment somewhat reinforced in Clark's own writings. However, General Alexander, the Commander in Chief of the AAI, had clearly laid down the army boundaries before the battle, and Rome was allocated to the Fifth Army. Leese's British Eighth Army was constantly reminded that their job was to engage the 10th Army, destroy as much of it as possible, and then bypass Rome to continue the pursuit northwards which in fact they did, harassing the retreating 10th Army for some 225 miles towards Perugia in 6 weeks.
At the time, Truscott was shocked, writing later:
I was dumbfounded. This was no time to drive to the northwest where the enemy was still strong, we should pour our maximum power into the Valmontone Gap to insure the destruction of the retreating German Army. I would not comply with the order without first talking to General Clark in person. However, he was not on the beachhead and could not be reached even by radio. Such was the order that turned the main effort of the beachhead forces from the Valmontone Gap and prevented destruction of Tenth Army. On the 26th the order was put into effect.
He went on to write:
There has never been any doubt in my mind that had General Clark held loyally to General Alexander's instructions, had he not changed the direction of my attack to the northwest on 26 May, the strategic objectives of Anzio would have been accomplished in full. To be first in Rome was a poor compensation for this lost opportunity.
An opportunity was indeed missed, and seven divisions of the 10th Army were able to make their way to the next line of defence, the Trasimene Line, where they were able to link up with the 14th Army and then make a fighting withdrawal to the formidable Gothic Line north of Florence.
Rome was captured on 4 June 1944, just two days before the Normandy invasion.
Battle Honours
Some units were awarded battle honours by the British and Commonwealth Armies for their roles at Cassino. Specifically, units that participated in the first part of the campaign were awarded the battle honour 'Cassino I'. Subsidiary battle honours were also given to units that participated in specific engagements during this part, including Monastery Hill, Castle Hill, and Hangman's Hill.
Units that participated in the later part of the battle were awarded the honour 'Cassino II'.
All members of the Polish units were awarded the Monte Cassino Commemorative Cross.
Casualties
The capture of Monte Cassino came at a high price. The Allies suffered around 55,000 casualties in the Monte Cassino campaign. German casualty figures are estimated at around 20,000 killed and wounded. Total Allied casualties spanning the period of the four Cassino battles and the Anzio campaign, with the subsequent capture of Rome on 5 June 1944, were over 105,000.
The town of Cassino was completely razed by the air and artillery bombardments especially by the air raid of 15 March 1944, when 1,250 tonnes of bombs were dropped on the town, and 2,026 of its prewar population of 20,000 were killed during the raids and the battle.
Legacy
Evacuation and treasures
In the course of the battles, the ancient abbey of Monte Cassino, where St. Benedict in AD 516 first established the Rule that ordered monasticism in the west, was entirely destroyed by Allied bombing and artillery barrages in February 1944.
Some months earlier, in the Italian autumn of 1943, two officers in the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, Captain Maximilian Becker and Lieutenant Colonel Julius Schlegel, proposed the removal of Monte Cassino's treasures to the Vatican and Vatican owned Castel Sant'Angelo ahead of the approaching front. The officers convinced church authorities and their own senior commanders to use the division's trucks and fuel for the undertaking. They had to find the materials necessary for crates and boxes, find carpenters among their troops, recruit local labourers to be paid with rations of food plus twenty cigarettes a day, and then manage the "massive job of evacuation centered on the library and archive, a treasure "literally without price". The richness of the abbey's archives, library, and gallery included 800 papal documents, 20,500 volumes in the Old Library, 60,000 in the New Library, 500 incunabula, 200 manuscripts on parchment, 100,000 prints and separate collections. The first trucks, carrying paintings by Italian old masters, were ready to go less than a week from the day Becker and Schlegel independently first came to Monte Cassino. Each vehicle carried monks to Rome as escorts, in more than 100 truckloads, the convoys saved the abbey's monastic community. The task was completed in the first days of November 1943. In three weeks, in the middle of a losing war, in another country, it was quite a feat. After a mass in the basilica, Abbot Gregorio Diamare formally presented signed parchment scrolls in Latin to General Paul Conrath, to tribuno militum Julio Schlegel and to Maximiliano Becker medecinae doctori for rescuing the monks and treasures of the Abbey of Monte Cassino.
Among the treasures removed were Titians, an El Greco, and two Goyas.
United States military history reviews
The U.S. government's official position on the German occupation of Monte Cassino changed over a quarter-century. The assertion that the German use of the abbey was irrefutable was removed from the record in 1961 by the Office of the Chief of Military History. A congressional inquiry to the same office in the 20th anniversary year of the bombing stated: "It appears that no German troops, except a small military police detachment, were actually inside the abbey" before the bombing. The final change to the U.S. Army's official record was made in 1969 and concluded that "the abbey was actually unoccupied by German troops."
War graves and memorials
The Polish War Cemetery
The Commonwealth War Cemetery
The German War Cemetery
Immediately after the cessation of fighting at Monte Cassino, the Polish government in exile in London created the Monte Cassino campaign cross to commemorate the Polish part in the capture of the strategic point. Also during this time, the Polish song writer Feliks Konarski, who had taken part in the fighting there, wrote his anthem "Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino". Later, an imposing Polish cemetery was laid out, this is prominently visible to anybody surveying the area from the restored monastery. The Polish cemetery is the closest of all allied cemeteries in the area, an honour given to the Poles as their units are the ones credited with the liberation of the abbey.
The Commonwealth War Graves cemetery on the western outskirts of Cassino is a burial place for British, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian, Gurkha, Australian, and South African casualties. The French and Italians are on Route 6 in the Liri Valley; the Americans are at the Sicily, Rome American Cemetery and Memorial in Nettuno.
The German cemetery Deutsche Kriegsgräberstätte Cassino is approximately 2 miles north of Cassino in the Rapido Valley.
In the 1950s, a subsidiary of the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza distributed Lamps of Brotherhood, cast from the bronze doors of the destroyed Abbey, to representatives of nations that had served on both sides of the war to promote reconciliation.
In 1999, a monument commemorating the Battle of Monte Cassino was unveiled in Warsaw and is located next to the street that is named after Władysław Anders.
In 2006, a memorial was unveiled in Rome honouring the Allied forces that fought and died to capture the city.
On 8 July 2021, the Chief of Army Staff, General M.M. Naravane, inaugurated the Indian Army Memorial at Cassino to commemorate the Indian soldiers killed in action during the Battle of Cassino.
007 VETERANS SUPPORT
The following are available to support veterans and their families who may be experiencing mental health difficulties;
Forcesline Tel: 0800 731 4880 (between 9am and 5pm Monday-Friday)
Combat Stress (24 hours)
Veterans and their families; Tel: 0800 138 1619
Serving personnel and their families; Tel: 0800 323 4444
Samaritans (24 hours); Tel: 116 12
M A DACK
for Executive Committee
Social media :-
Mercian Museum (WFR Collection)
Mercian Museum (WFR Collection)
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