17 BBC Godfrey Talbot in Monte Cassino

Now, as for today's taking of the great Abbey of Monte Cassino on Monastery Hill, this was an enormously hard-won triumph for Polish troops against an enemy from whom they had suffered much. In the mountain heights through which the Poles broke to get round the back of the ruined monastery fortress, fighting had been severe in the extreme.

Men fought till they dropped, dropped exhausted or dropped killed or wounded. They had to get through a polling mountain tracks, with the Germans commanding them and pouring streams of fire upon them at every move.

The Poles were counter-attacked time after time when they gained a height, and there was, all the time, no way up to the hill positions, except by mule and finally on foot. Always the supply, ammunition and water parties had to go up through heavy German fire.

In many positions, you could by day remain alive, only in a hole in the ground. To show yourself and move in daylight in these forward positions was death. I was at a Polish headquarters on the morning of the capture when the news came through, wherein the abbey, monastery hill is occupied.

It was a historic moment, and the drama was heightened when an officer put the good news right in front of my eyes. He handed me a small piece of paper. come from the monastery by one of our carrier pigeons, he said, and I looked at the crumpled scrap of paper. All that was on it was one large bee for victory, drawn in pencil, and

it was signed by a lieutenant of signals who had reached the Abbey. The high wall of the Abbey's West Front was standing. Only that, the rest was just a pile of stones. That was all that remained of this famous religious house and seat of learning, in this the last of its 1400 years of history.