Word: rapido
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...Rapido River valley on the wider front near Cassino the Allies forced their way foot by foot across the icy stream. Combat engineers rushed in to build bridges and clear mines out of roads while German shells slammed blindly through their protecting smoke screen. Planes and barrages smote the Monte Cassino Abbey positions, but when infantrymen tried to press forward the Germans were still dug in on the mountain and pouring back murderous patterns of machine-gun fire. As at Anzio, the best the Allies could claim was stalemate...
...afternoon last week the two sides arranged a 105-minute truce to remove the dead and wounded. Seventy-five U.S. medics recrossed the Rapido. As one of the wounded was lifted into a litter, he grinned weakly and said: "Look, I have maid service...
...night, after two days of preparatory shelling, orders came to attack the enemy positions across the Rapido. A thick haze rose from the ground, and through it men stumbled toward the river. Here & there, the earth heaved and roared, and exploding mines killed and maimed men. Many others were killed in boats or on a narrow, ice-coated footbridge. But some got across and dug their foxholes. The haze was still thick...
...that afternoon, the ammunition had run out. German counterattacks were in force, and the U.S. position was untenable. Retreat was ordered. Some swam across the Rapido. Others formed human chains. A sergeant tied wire to a pick, and hurled the pick across the river until it stuck behind a rock. Seven men then pulled themselves across. All the equipment was left behind. A huge German Tommy gunner on the bank shouted: "Hey, Yank, don't you want to surrender?" But he did not fire...
Afterward, cannon again dueled across the dead field. To the north, other U.S. soldiers had crossed the Rapido, filtered to the outskirts of Cassino. But German guns in the mountains above swept the village, and it could not yet be occupied...