Monte Cassino not bombed

WI Mark Clark ignored the suggestion of his intelligence officer and Freyberg(?)the New Zealand general and had NOT bombed Monte Cassino.What happens next?BTW Clark reportedly said after the bombing that if the Germans had nowhere to hide before they did now after the bombing.
 
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Thanks, forgot Miller was in the Army Air Force.Still, Von Senger, the German commander maintained there were NO weapons of a heavy sort near the abbey.He was ordered to keep the heavy stuff away.I understand there were civilian casualties of those who tried to seek shelter.
 
Thanks, forgot Miller was in the Army Air Force.Still, Von Senger, the German commander maintained there were NO weapons of a heavy sort near the abbey.He was ordered to keep the heavy stuff away.I understand there were civilian casualties of those who tried to seek shelter.

If I remember it correctly, by reading Matthew Parker's "Monte Cassino" it's not as black and white as you describe it.

During recon before the bombardment flashes from binoculars were spotted from inside the abbey or very near to it.
Would you, as the Allied commander, have made the decision to trust the Germans and not bomb Monte Cassino?

Anyways, the Germans were so close to the abbey and wouldn't doubt a second if they needed to enter the abbey for military purposes.

Even before the bombardment it was a fortress and storming it would always have cost enormous amounts of casualties.
Only way to keep Cassino intact (and one of the largest religious libraries in the world IIRC) is if the Allies manage earlier to threaten to encircle Cassino, forcing the Germans thus to vacate the area before any bombardment can take place.
 

Markus

Banned
During recon before the bombardment flashes from binoculars were spotted from inside the abbey or very near to it.
Would you, as the Allied commander, have made the decision to trust the Germans and not bomb Monte Cassino?

And one could tell that from a recon plane moving at 200mph at several hundred yards distance? I´m 99% sure the observers saw what they expected to see, not what was actually there.
 
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