80 V i s i t www.theculturalexperience.com C a l l 0345 475 1815 NEPAL! XXX Second World War AN IO & CASSINO bREACHING THE GUSTAV LINE 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 22 – 28 May 2019 7 days with Col Patrick Mercer with Col Patrick Mercer with Col Patrick Mercer Activity Level 2 Activity Level 2 ESSENTIALS Return flights from London, 4 star hotels, buffet breakfast, 3-course dinner with drinks each evening, all entrance fees and expert guide throughout. Tour price: £2195 Single supplement: £175 Deposit: £200 Price without flights: £2045 This tour is simply compelling. Your tour leader, Patrick Mercer, is the son of one of those who fought here and he spent much of his youth interviewing his father’s comrades. As such,hisnarrative is studded with personal stories and you will stand on the ground where men struggled, bled and died. Indeed, the evidence in this part of Italy is all around you. Dugouts, trenches, stone sangars, bunkers and tank turrets are all there to be seen - and in your guide you will have someone who knows exactly where to find them, having walked and scrambled over this ground dozens of times. Accordingly, the tour will traverse the mountains, rivers and streams of Cassino and central Italy right down to the coastal plain and dried up tributaries of the Molleta River north of Anzio - the infamous ‘Wadis’. Breathtakingly, we will finish in the Alban Hills at Nemi, close to the Pope’s summer palace - an idyllic spot from which German observers could see right down to the coast and Allied shipping. After the bloodbath of Salerno and then the torture of the Volturno crossings, the US and British troops of Mark Clark’s 5th Army have to deal with the Axis Forces on the so-called Winter Line. At Camino and San Pietro the Tommies and Yanks battered their way through their enemies only to find Kesselring’s men firmly ensconced on the Gustav Line, anchored on the louring monastery of Cassino. The epic battles to crack through the defences that lined the Garigliano River dwarfed anything that the Allies had experienced in Italy up until then. Then, spearheaded by Free French, Canadians and Poles, the offensive still had to sunder the Hitler Line before the road to Rome was clear. Few people understand that the landings at Anzio were a daring, amphibious hook around the Gustav Line. Had they worked, had they been properly directed, the gallant German defence must have crumbled. In the event, the landings almost failed bloodily and it was only by 8th Army’s being brought to 5th Army’s help that victory was achieved. Day 1 – San Pietro. Fly London to Rome and head to San Pietro. Having talked through the origins of the campaign and the combat leading up to the winter of 1943, you will be shown around the picturesque ruins of the village itself. Check in to our Cassino hotel for four nights. Day 2 - Approach to Cassino. The battles of the Winter Line are hardly understood, yet they were bloody and bitter. There should have been no pause at Christmas time, but General Clark allowed his exhausted troops to lick their wounds before closing in on the Garigliano and Cassino. First, we will see how the Guards and 56th Division took Camino. Then how the US 36th Division fought three battles for San Pietro before they failed to cross the Rapido - and the controversy that surrounded it. Day 3 - T he Lower Garigliano. Continuing “Whatever the positions were that we had to attack, we seemed to be attacking like a staircase. The Jerrys’ defences were built up and up and up behind the forward lines.” Rangi Logan, New Zealand soldier.