Story by Maj. Andrew Chisholm
509th Strategic Signal Battalion, 2d Theater Signal Brigade
The 509th Strategic Signal Battalion hosted a Staff Ride Sept. 12 to 15, 2022 to Monte Cassino, Italy. As the strategic service provider in Southern and Eastern Europe, the 509th SSB works diligently to understand the lessons learned from the past combined with present observations to ensure network dominance.
The Staff Ride to Monte Cassino enabled the unit to study the battle’s tactical, operational, and strategic lessons allowing the juxtaposition with current training and operational frameworks.
Conducting unit staff rides greatly enhances the professional development of Signal leaders and shapes a Signal unit’s preparation to provide a seamless platform to quickly deliver effects in a future multi-domain fight.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PLANNING
Planning is often the first step in any training event, and battle staff rides are no exception. As a blended organization with equal parts military, civilian, and local national teammates, the 509th SSB recognized a unique training opportunity in teaching the planning and execution of a staff ride to its team members.
Additionally, the staff ride encouraged participants to research and prepare unique content to brief collective teams during the event. The staff ride focused on examining the Axis and Allied Forces using the lens of the modern warfighting functions to understand and integrate the disparate elements of the battle.
Furthermore, key leaders within the battalion prepared a terrain crosswalk and a strategic place setter to ensure participants understood the battle's friendly, enemy, terrain, and civilian considerations.
Finally, the 509th SSB had an opportunity to partner with the 2nd NATO Signal Battalion located in Naples, Italy. This partnership further enhanced the staff ride’s potential as several members of the 2nd NATO team had family or friends who either participated or witnessed many of the events covered during the staff ride.
The final step of the planning phase included selecting the location of a battle highlighting lessons learned across the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war. The beautiful Abbey of Monte Cassino, located 400 miles south of the battalion headquarters in Vicenza, Italy, was selected. Today it is a picturesque symbol of Peak Renaissance Architecture and the first monastery of the Benedictine order in 529 A.D.
However, in 1944, the battle of Monte Cassino saw the monastery reduced to rubble. To this day, the Abbey of Monte Cassino has the unfortunate distinction as the most bombed single structure in history. The 509th SSB chose this battle for its staff ride location because it bears witness to great feats of heroism and crushing strategic blunders.
EXECUTING THE STAFF RIDE
The battle of Monte Cassino was a series of four operations fought in and around Cassino, Italy, culminating with the seizure of the Abbey of Monte Cassino on May 17, 1944. The staff ride progressed from the initial site of the battle north of Monte Cassino to the battle’s fourth and final conflict fought on the slopes and peak of Monte Cassino, ensuring maximum coverage of the battle.
The first battle occurred from Jan. 17 to Feb. 11, 1944, eight miles north of Cassino in an area the Allied Forces named ‘Death Valley.’ Billed as a moderately defended hilltop, the series of fortified battle positions dubbed the ‘Senger Line’ took a toll.
The initial clash lasted nearly 26 days and saw the allies repeatedly repulsed as they tried to flank to the north of the ‘assumed’ heavier defended position of Monte Cassino’s Abbey. Members of the staff ride identified the critical failures of allied intelligence, lack of rehearsals, and limited artillery support for the poor allied performance.
Participants briefing from the Axis perspective took note of the extensive fiber radio network established by the Axis defenders that provided a vital linkage between the battle positions, forward observers, and the dense German artillery in the support area. The result of the first battle was a tactical, operational, and strategic loss for the allied forces with significant loss of life on the side of the allies opposed to the minimal Axis Forces loss.
The second battle of Monte Cassino occurred from Feb. 11 to 18, 1944, and saw a different approach on the part of the allies as they sought to utilize a bombing campaign to reduce the fortifications on the Senger Line. During this battle the Allied Headquarters decided to target the Abbey of Monte Cassino, suspecting it a center of gravity for the Axis defense.
The Axis forces left the Abbey alone as the Italians had identified it as a protected place. On the morning of Feb. 15, more than 1150 tons of high explosives were dropped on the Abbey, destroying the once proud monument and religious center.
As a result of the bombing campaign and the ensuing decimation of the abbey, the Axis forces used the ruined abbey for their new defense HQ going forward in the remaining two battles. The ground portion of the battle focused on the initial urban assault on the town of Cassino itself.
The Rapido River, flowing through the western portion of the town, proved to be a deadly obstacle for advancing Allied forces claiming more than 3,000 lives. The Rapido River claimed more than 3,000 lives due to drowning over the course of the eight-day battle.
Some of the lessons learned from this fight included the cost of total war on not only the combatants, but the civilian population as well. Members of the 2nd NATO Signal Battalion who had relatives or knew people who lived during or shortly after the second fight described this as devastating to the Italian psyche, and served to embitter many locals' hearts against the Allied cause. The strategic and operational blunders associated with the bombing campaign, and subsequent tactical challenge of executing a combined arms breach of a linear water obstacle, resonated with the staff ride team throughout the remainder of the staff ride.
The Third and Fourth Battles, which occurred from March 15 to May 17, 1944, began from the Western outskirts of Cassino and ended on the peak of Monte Cassino. During these final clashes, the Allied forces were finally able to use a massive sustainment advantage and forced a fight of attrition with the remaining Axis defenders. Despite a series of tactical victories, the Axis’s vaunted Senger Line could not withstand the Allied advance and Axis forces were finally forced to withdraw and cede the ground to the Allied forces.
A true Pyrrhic victory, the Battle of Monte Cassino may have ended in a tactical victory, but an overall operational and strategic defeat for Allied forces. The much-desired southern entry in Hitler’s ‘Fortress Europe’ remained largely closed and the goal of knocking out a significant member of the Axis powers in Italy were revealed as largely superfluous due to the discontent and eventual ousting of Italian Dictator Bentio Mussolini.
One keen observation made by a member of the staff ride was that had the Allied forces not committed so heavily to the Southern Campaign, the German Wermacht would have been able to remain a threat with potentially greater numbers in France. Less than a month after the Capture of Monte Cassino and the fall of Rome, the Allied forces landed in Normandy and began the successful victory campaign across Europe.
INTERGRATION OF LESSONS LEARNED INTO MODERN CHALLENGES
Members participated in the integration phase, where the team directly applied the many lessons learned from the event’s battlefield portion to the current 509th SSB operational environment in Southern and Eastern Europe. Some vital observations included the necessity to communicate as part of a coalition and joint force - was essential to operational success.
During the Battle of Monte Cassino, the Polish, French, Indian, British, Canadian, New Zealand, and even Gurkha forces represented Allies with the combined efforts of the Army, Navy, and the Air Force. It was noted that the monumental logistics and communications challenge became the Achilles heel for most of the Italian Campaign. Only after significant loss of life and material during the Italian Campaign did the Allies build an effective command and support structure buttressed by effective communications systems and processes.
Today, the same goal remains - maintaining and enhancing network dominance. Network dominance is key to supplying the joint and coalition warfighter with the greatest chance of success. Without communicators integrating all other War-Fighting Functions, we may quickly find ourselves in the same situation the Allies did on the eve of the Battle of Monte Cassino.
The educational value and professional development from the event is without doubt a combat multiplier for the 509th SSB. The unit continues to increase velocity, integrate network diversity, and divest antiquated processes. The present multi-domain fight demands innovation and readiness, and Signalers must be prepared to fight the fight.
Looking to the past for lessons learned, combined with understanding the current and future operation environment will provide commanders the decisive edge for their teams as we strive to entrench and extend network dominance.
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