BBC - Great Battles of War (1971) Part 3 Battle for the Cassino

Former BBC producer Peter Batty's classic documentaries have won awards throughout the world, and the three films in this collection were written and directed by Batty in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Films use current location filming and authentic historic film clips to document the events, and military leaders from both sides give their account of the battles.

Part 3: Battle for the Cassino

It was the most grueling, the most harrowing and in many ways, the most tragic of all battles fought in Europe in the Second World War. It was also the most international soldiers of sixteen countries fought and died there. It has also become a battle to be mulled over, puzzled out and re-fought, not just by professional soldiers and historians but also by armchair strategists, for it is full of controversy, not least the bombing by the Allies of the historic Benedictine Monastery on the summit of Monte Cassino. But to the men who took part, the battle will mainly be remembered for the mud, cold and hypnotic attraction of the monastery itself an all-seeing eye glowering down from that sheer hill and noticing everyone and everything. Unique archive material of the battle from both sides has been utilized together with newly-filmed sequences of the rebuilt town and monastery as well as dramatic eye-witness accounts from many of the surviving major participants.

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