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[Local lad Timothy Mostert, and his school friends, recently made a memorable visit to Europe. Highlights were visits to areas with famous ANZAC connections.
In the second of a three part series, they write about their impressions
of the Second World War battlefield of Monte Cassino, an area in which four battles were fought before the famous abbey was captured. In the third battle alone, 1,600 New Zealanders were killed, missing or wounded.]
On Monday we left our beloved Rome and began the trip to Naples via Monte Cassıno. As we wound our way up the mıghty hill behind the town, our fearless driver terrified us with visions of sheer cliff faces, shrouded in dense mist. On our journey up the steep face, we got a feel for what the allied troops had to endure in their quest for the heights, and an understanding of how valuable a position the German troops held at the Abbey situated as it is on the summit of the hill.
The views from the top were mysterious on all sides, with the ghostly
fog that enveloped the white marbled walls of the abbey obscuring our
senses to the point of hallucination.
In one of the ancient cells ın
the abbey, members of the group did in fact spot an old German
skull, cast among the broken marble shards. We managed to capture this
unfortunate victim on a handy-cam, before the fog rolled in, once
agaın obscuring our vision.
We left the eerie place to find no bus waiting for us, where was our heroic driver? It wasn't long though before he turned up. After
a brief stop at a Commenwealth war cemetery, some super sleuthing led us to the discovery of a New Zealand memorial, hidden in the local train
station.
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