(Credits go to Mom for putting this together.)
This is my Uncle George, my Grandma Hurst's brother. Handsome, isn't he? (looks a bit like Ewan McGregor to me in this pic)
Private
GEORGE RICHARD GLOVER
who died on May 24, 1944
Military Service:
Service Number: 50681
Age: 38
Force: Army
Unit: Seaforth Highlanders of Canada
Son of Benjamin and Mary Glover, of Strathclair, Manitoba, Canada.
· Cemetery: CASSINO WAR CEMETERY Italy
· Grave Reference: XIII. F. 18.
· Location: CASSINO WAR CEMETERY lies in the Commune of Cassino, Province of Frosinone, 139 kilometres south-east of Rome. It is situated in the valley of the River Liri immediately below the southern spurs of the central Apennines. Above it at a distance of one kilometre is the dominating hill on which stands the Abbey of Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict in the year 529 on the site of an ancient temple of Apollo.
If approaching the CASSINO WAR CEMETERY by road, follow the Highway A2 from Rome to Naples and leave it at the Cassino exit. After passing the pay booths, follow the sign for Cassino. At the traffic lights, after a block of flats, turn right towards the locality of S. Angelo and the CWGC signs will then be seen.
Canadian Armed Forces Associated with the Italian Campaign, 1939-1945
Canadian troops played a vital role in the 20-month Mediterranean campaign which led to the liberation of Italy during the Second World War. In fact, this campaign was the first large-scale land operation in which the Canadian Army stationed in Great Britain took part.
In this campaign, which was fought in Sicily from July 10 to August 6, 1943, and in mainland Italy from September 3, 1943, to February 25, 1945, the fighting was particularly bitter. The Germans, taking full advantage of mountain peaks and swiftly running rivers, made Allied advance very difficult and costly. There were 25,264 Canadian casualties in the fighting, including more than 5,900 who were killed.
The Campaigns in Sicily and Italy
The Allied campaign in Sicily and Italy during the Second World War lasted from early July 1943 to the beginning of May 1945. The name Cassino will long be associated with some of the fiercest fighting engaged in by Allied armies in all those 22 months. During the battles that were waged here in the early part of 1944, Cassino, about half-way between Rome and Naples, at the lower end of the Liri Valley was completely destroyed, as was the Abbey of Monte Cassino, on its dominating hill above the town.
On July 10, 1943, the landing on the Sicilian coast of an Allied force comprising the American Seventh and the British Eighth Armies marked the first breach in Adolf Hitler's European fortress. The conquest of Sicily was completed in 38 days, the 1st Canadian Division having played an important part in the Eighth Army's operations. On September 3, British and Canadian troops landed unopposed in the "toe" of the Italian mainland; and six days later a large American-British invasion force assaulted the Salerno beaches south of Naples. Italy capitulated, and German armies took over the country.
Slowly the Allied forces battled northward. On the Adriatic coast the Eighth Army broke the German Winter Line in November, and during Christmas week in some of the bitterest street fighting of the war, Canadian infantry and armour drove crack German troops out of the battered coastal town of Ortona. In the following spring the Eighth Army crossed the peninsula to join the American Fifth Army in an offensive to capture Rome. American and Commonwealth divisions forced the strong Gustav Line between Cassino and the sea, and on May 23, 1944, Canadian forces breached the formidable Adolf Hitler Line. American troops entered Rome on June 4, and the enemy fell back to the prepared defences of the Rimini-Pisa (or Gothic) Line. In September, the two Allied Armies smashed their way through the Gothic position, the Eighth Army's assault on the Adriatic flank spearheaded by the 1st Canadian Corps. After a winter of making little progress across the muddy flats south of the Lombardy Plain, the 1st Canadian Corps moved to Northwest Europe. In the spring a renewed offensive by the American and British armies cleared the northern Italian plains and brought the surrender of nearly a million Axis forces on May 2.
The Battle in the Liri Valley
In the spring of 1944, the Germans still held the line of defence north of Ortona, as well as the mighty bastion of Monte Cassino which blocked the Liri corridor to the Italian capital. Determined to maintain their hold on Rome, the Germans constructed two formidable lines of fortifications, the Gustav Line, and 14.5 kilometres behind it, the Adolf Hitler Line.
During April and May of 1944, the Eighth British Army, including the 1st Canadian Corps, was secretly moved across Italy to join the Fifth U.S. Army in the struggle for Rome. Here under the dominating peak of Cassino, the Allied armies hurled themselves against the enemy position. Tanks of the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade (formerly 1st Canadian Army Tank Brigade) supported the Allied attack. After four days of hard fighting, the German defences were broken from Cassino to the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Germans moved back their second line of defence
On May 16, the 1st Canadian Corps received orders to advance on the Hitler Line ten kilometres farther up the valley. Early on May 23, the attack on the Hitler Line went in. Under heavy enemy mortar and machine-gun fire, the Canadians breached the defences and the tanks of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division poured through toward the next obstacle, the Melfa River.
On May 31, the Canadians occupied Frosinone and their campaign in this area came to an end as they went into reserve. Rome fell to the Americans on June 4. Less than 48 hours later, the long-awaited D-Day invasion of Northwest Europe began on the Normandy beaches. It remained essential, therefore, for the Allied forces in Italy to continue to pin down German troops
Cassino Memorial
Of the 49,261 members of the Commonwealth forces who died in the fighting in Italy, nearly one-tenth have no known grave. The 4,054 names recorded on the Cassino Memorial include those of 194 Canadians. The Memorial itself, situated within Cassino War Cemetery, consists of pillars of green marble which rise approximately five metres on either side of an ornamental pool and a formal garden. The names are inscribed on these pillars.
On the walls above the stairways that lead up from the main road to the Cemetery, the following words, in English and Italian, are inscribed:
1939-1945
WITHIN THIS CEMETERY STAND MONUMENTS WHICH BEAR THE NAMES OF SOLDIERS OF THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE WHO FELL IN THE ASSAULTS UPON THE SHORES OF SICILY AND ITALY OR IN LATER BATTLES TO FREE ITALIAN SOIL AND TO WHOM THE FORTUNE OF WAR DENIED A KNOWN AND HONOURED GRAVE. AROUND THEM ARE THE GRAVES OF THEIR COMRADES WHO DIED FIGHTING IN THESE PARTS TO OPEN THE WAY TO ROME AND THE NORTH
