The Allied bombing of Monte Cassino Abbey in Italy on Feb. 15, 1944, was a mistake.
Hundreds of civilians reportedly died, and the Allies soon learned that the Germans, believed to be hunkered inside, were not there.
Military historians have written tirelessly about the strategic errors during this critical phase of the “Italian campaign,” which reduced the abbey to a “mass of ruins.”
Situated on the Germans’ defensive “Gustav Line,” which connected the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas, the abbey stood in the way of the Allies’ march towards Rome. But was its destruction really necessary?
