For four months, Germany's elite paratroopers held Monte Cassino against everything the Allies could throw — Americans, New Zealanders, Indians, Poles. Four nations. Four offensives. Nothing moved them. Field Marshal Alexander called them the best division in the entire German army.
Then they were ordered to defend a line that bore Hitler's own name — a fortress of concrete, Panther turrets, and wire that German commanders believed no force on earth could break.
On May 23, 1944, Canadian battalions from Vancouver, Fredericton, and Montreal walked into that line across a thousand yards of open wheat field. What happened in the next fourteen hours forced the German command to use a word they had never used about their paratroopers before. And when they radioed for orders, headquarters went silent.
This is the story of Canada's bloodiest day in Italy — and what the Green Devils admitted when it was over.
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