Swordpoint: John Harris

1944: Cassino must be taken. Monte Cassino had become a German bastion against the Allied advance through Italy. Even with the historic abbey reduced to rubble, the mountain itself continued to command the adjoining valleys and block the road to Rome. Frontal assault had been a costly failure; but now Brigadier Heathfield had a plan. The job of leading the attack fell to Colonel Yuell and then men of the North Yorkshires, veterans of Africa and as hard, tired and mixed a group of soldiery as the war had yet produced.