The journey west - the transfer of the Division to the Cassino front

 Il trasferimento della Divisione al fronte di Cassino

Alla fine del 1943, l’attacco alla Linea Gustav sul lato orientale degli Appennini era arrivato ad un punto morto.  In questo momento di stallo, nel gennaio del 1944, tre divisioni, fra cui la 2^ Divisione neozelandese, furono ritirate e trasferite in gran segreto al fronte di Cassino, dall’altra parte degli Appennini.

Il 13 gennaio 1944, la Divisione iniziò a prepararsi per il ritiro dal fronte. Partendo da Casalbordino, il primo giorno le unità ricoprirono circa 160 km fino a Lucera, in Puglia. Solo qui, fu comunicata la loro destinazione: la Divisione stava lasciando il settore britannico per raggiungere quello americano ad ovest degli Appennini.  Per motivi di sicurezza, e segretezza, il percorso della Divisione fu tortuoso, portandola molto a sud delle linee, passando per Troia e Giardinetto e poi, con la SS 90, attraverso Ariano Irpino fino ad Avellino. Dopo la seconda sosta, a nord di Napoli, la Divisione raggiunse la sua destinazione, ai piedi delle montagne Matese. Per i Neozelandesi, fu un viaggio interessante, attraverso le montagne, fra piccoli paesi arroccati e vaste zone agricole, fino all’alta valle del Volturno.  

Gli uomini della Divisione passarono circa tre settimane, fra oliveti e querceti, attorno ad Alife, in attesa di essere chiamati a partecipare all’attacco della 5^ Armata americana a Cassino, chiamata che sarebbe arrivata all’inizio di febbraio. I Neozelandesi entreranno nella linea vicino a Mignano Monte Lungo, 18 km a sud di Cassino.

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The second transfer of the Division took them from above the Sangro to Cassino, a move achieved in three days, with intermediate staging points around Lucera and north of Naples. Their immediate destination was a new rest area in the Matese mountains south of Cassino.

The imposing walls of Lucera Castle

In Journey Towards Christmas, the official history of the First Ammunition Company, S. P. Lewellyn, leaves a detailed account of the transfer. “We went south for about fifteen miles and then headed southwest across the Apennines, passing a string of places with names as pretty as girls' names - Ariano Irpino, Grottaminarda, Avellino. Gone were the barren, treeless stretches we had known round Foggia and near the coast; instead a pattern of little fields went up into the hills and mountains, stopping only where the snow started. Here the country was two months nearer summer.

“The road was dry and good, but we travelled slowly because other New Zealand units were on the move as well. Often, we halted in crazy, charming villages that seemed to be struggling not to slip into the valleys below, and while the noses of vehicles pointed up or down at fantastic angles the villagers crowded round trying to sell oranges and apples and bad wine.

We spent the night sixteen miles east-north-east of Naples, and Vesuvius with its perpetual plume could be seen plainly. The next morning we passed through Cancello, whose great railway yards were in ruins, and Caserta, famous for its royal palace. We turned north soon afterwards, crossed the Volturno twice, and long before lunch were in the new area with the transport dispersed on dry, grassy slopes. We were now twenty-nine miles north of Naples and rather more than a mile from the little walled village of Alife.”

The first night, the Division camped along the roadside at Lucera, below the walls of the ancient castle-fortress built by Frederick II in the thirteenth century. Their journey continued along minor roads south through Troia to Giardinetto, then westward onto the main road connecting the regions of Puglia and Campania, the State highway SS 90 ‘delle Puglie’, in the direction of Naples. The route led through a pleasant, rural landscape, which climbed into wooded mountains, up the narrow valley of the Cervaro River, past Savignano Irpino to Ariano Irpino, before descending southward to join the SS 7 to Avellino.

Frazer D. Norton, 26 Battalion historian records: “The journey was full of interest. After leaving Lucera the trucks crossed a wide, fertile plain, not unlike Taieri Plain. Farms, heavily cultivated, bordered the roads for many miles. After the convoy crossed the Cervaro River, the farmland gave way to scattered olive groves and bush-clad hills. The trucks halted at 4.25 pm near the village of Cicciano. A hundred miles had been covered and the day’s journey was over.”

SS90 delle Puglie near Savignano Irpino

A handsome roadside fountain near Grottaminardo

The Division’s second staging area was around the small towns of Cicciano, some 14 km east of Naples, and Cancello about 18 km further north, with Mt. Vesuvius visible in the distance. In January 1944, the volcano was smoking, but not ‘as usual’, as the men believed (it had last erupted in 1906). It was, in fact, warming up for a major eruption, which occurred on 20 March 1944, with the possible encouragement of Allied bombs falling directly into the crater! The route continued through Caserta, the once royal capital, skirting the walls of the huge, landscaped park of the sumptuous Reggia (Royal Palace), which had been taken over by the Allies as the general Headquarters of Allied Forces in Italy (and where the Germans would sign their unconditional surrender in Italy on 2 May 1945). Caserta also became the location of the 2^nd New Zealand Division’s No. 3 General Hospital, which was set up in Italian barracks nearby. Unless they had something to do with the High Command, or were hospitalized there, or were visiting sick or wounded friends, however, most of the soldiers would not see Caserta until after the end of the hostilities.

The Royal Palace at Caserta

After Caserta, the route of the Division veered west to the town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, developed on the site of the ancient Roman town of Capua. The ‘new’ town of Capua some five kilometres further west, rebuilt by the Longobards in the ninth century in the loop of the Volturno River, occupies the site of the ancient river port of Casilinum (hence the name of the road connecting it to Rome, Via Casilina). Both the town and its bridges were badly damaged in World War II.

The Roman bridge over the Volturno at Capua

Shortly after Capua, the Division Capua, the route of the Division branched off the SS 6, onto a minor road that looped eastward through Caiazzo (or Cajazzo), then north to their new camp in the mountains, some 40 km south-east of Cassino.  Their destination of the Division after the long transfer from the Sangro front was around the quiet little villages of Alife, Piedimonte Matese (then called Piedimonte d’Alife), and Sant’Angelo d’Alife. These ancient towns of the upper Volturno valley, at the foot of the Matese Range, were bleak and dreary places for the soldiers in that January of 1944. The historian of the Medical Units describes their location: “The Volturno was an easy river making its way in gentle, unhurried bends... There was an appreciable sweep of river valley before the hills burst upwards. The dotted houses of scattered villages could be distinguished by their red and buff colours in the sunshine. The whole divisional concentration area consisted of mildly sloping sections of olive plantations, well divided by roads and reaching back to the hills, which were heavily covered with scrub…

Alife was about three miles away and was found to be a dirty, uninteresting village. It was surrounded by an ancient, crumbling wall, little of which was visible beneath a luxuriant growth of ivy.” (Medical Units of 2 NZEF in Middle East and Italy).

The repaired Roman walls of Alife

Everywhere the soldiers found the civilian population poor and hungry, and everywhere the Kiwis responded generously. “A crowd of women and children, each with two tins—one for meat and vegetables and another for tea and sweet things—picketed our refuse pits, but they embarrassed and annoyed us only when the meal was so good or so scanty that there was little left for them. That happened seldom. The cooks gave away a good deal and in return the men dug pits and washed up and the women washed and mended. The toddlers repaid us by lisping our Christian names and hanging around the camp” (S. P. Lewellyn, Journey Towards Christmas).

New Zealand doctor H.T. Knights examines Italian children for malaria at Piedimonte d'Alife (WH2MMe41b)

New Zealand soldiers cleaning a truck and local Italian women washing, near Alife, Italy (DA05423f)

In a letter home dated 4 February 1944, 22 Battalion Commander and diarist (In Peace and War: A Civilian Soldier’s Story), Haddon Donald wrote to his mother about what he called the ‘lighter side of his activities’ in Alife.  “Alife was a country retreat for many of the top families from Naples, and most of them were in residence there. I was living with the local doctor, dining with a duke and duchess, taking coffee with a beautiful countess and was taken shooting into the mountains by the duke's son. We climbed to 4,000 feet before daylight one morning. The birds were scarce, and we only saw two; I managed to shoot one mountain partridge, a plump bird which was delicious to eat. It was a perfect day on the mountain tops with an unbroken bank of clouds below us and lots of friendly aircraft flying overhead.”.

If some, notably the officers, had a very good deal, for all the respite was brief. Just three weeks later, the Division went into the line near Mignano Monte Lungo, 18 km south of Cassino.  

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