Shropshire Star

Veteran Lawrence, 97, remembers carnage of 'forgotten' battle

As the swirling gunsmoke lifted to give Shropshire soldier Lawrence Jones a clear view of deadly Monte Cassino looming ahead, it was like an eerie reminder of home.

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Fusilier Jones served at the Battle of Monte Cassino 75 years ago

It brought to mind The Wrekin, he says. But it was also very, very, different.

"With the racket you were going mad. The ground was vibrating. You couldn't walk, because it was shaking. And the smoke was so bad."

Lawrence, who turned 97 on May 18, was one of the troops 75 years ago involved in the epic and bloody Battle of Monte Cassino and earlier this month was one of the honoured veterans who attended a special Royal British Legion commemorative event at the National Memorial Arboretum.

Monte Cassino, topped by a monastery – which was reduced to rubble by bombing – was the key to a formidable German defensive position south of Rome and was finally captured on May 18, 1944, his 22nd birthday, after a fearsome battle lasting 123 days and claiming the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers.

War veteran Lawrence Jones, 97

It has become known as a "forgotten" battle as the victory was soon overshadowed by the D-Day landings of June 6, and the troops in the tough Italian campaign were to call themselves, with grim irony, the "D-Day Dodgers."

Mr Jones, who was known by his first name Leslie in the Army, hailed from Court Street, Madeley, although he now lives in Dawley.

He arrived in the line just as the final push to take the position was under way and was given a gruesome foretaste.

"We got to this place and there were dead lads piled up, with legs and feet coming out of the sides of this barn. They had had no time to bury them. It was so damn hot. It was shocking."

Seemingly it was all too much for their sergeant, who disappeared and they never saw him again.

Mr Jones was a guest at an event at the National Memorial Arboretum to mark the anniversary

Initially not allocated to a particular unit, he joined the Royal Fusiliers, and was to fight with them all the way through the Italian campaign, serving as a Bren Gunner.

"All these poor lads had been there a while before me. I was not there until the tail end, when the worst of the fighting was over."

The scene in and around the village of Cassino was one of devastation.

"There were dead bodies all over the place. It isn't fair to talk about it in a way. It was horrible, like the Great War was.

"You were aware that you might not have another day to live. Every time you went on patrol you think it might be the last. I lost quite a few mates. There was never anything like Monte Cassino again. Thank God for that."

A feature of the Allied forces in the Italian campaign was that they were very multi-national, with many different languages from forces from around the world.

Fusilier Jones came through physically unscathed, but time has taken its toll and today he is nearly blind and is hard of hearing.

He had various narrow escapes, one in particular coming when he and his colleagues, being led by a Major who used to walk with a walking stick, were ambushed.

"All of a sudden they opened up with a Spandau machinegun. He got one of my mates. We had no cover at all. I went over the top and my foot went straight through a beehive. Poor Jock Kerr. He had it. They missed me. There were bullets flying everywhere."

With the end of the war in Europe, Mr Jones and his colleagues were earmarked to serve in the Far East, before the atomic bomb brought the conflict against Japan to a close.

After the war Mr Jones worked for Sankey's for 30 years. He has been a Shrewsbury Town fan since 1928, although he can no longer go to matches now.

He married the then Miss Eileen Powell of Little Dawley, whom he had met before the war, in 1952.

Years ago he took the opportunity to return to Monte Cassino, while on a holiday to Sorrento.

"They have the most marvellous monument there," he said.

Reflecting on his days of war service, he says: "I was proud, but you lose so many mates."