Evening star., 1944-03-24
Casino Essential to Allies
For Supply Base, General Says
Idea Of By-Possine
Germun Stronghold
Rejected by Wilbur
BY NELSON M. SHEPARD.

AiuCu ulldilIIy dDSOluUely requires
Casino as supply base and cannot
afford to bypass this still resisting
German stronghold which has
blocked the road to Rome since Feb
ruary i, in the opinion of returned
American officer, Brig. Gen. William
H. Wilbur, assistant commander of
the 36th Infantry Division, one of
the attacking elements.
The road and rail line to Casino
are essential to the 5th Army, he
told a Pentagon press conference
late yesterday, because the rugged,
mountainous terrain fianking the
besieged town offers an almost i'm
passable barrier to the movement of
supplies and heavy artillery.
His reasons for disagreeing with a
suggestion that Casino should be
by-passed were based on sound mill
tary premises.
Mile-High Mountain Ahead.
Bear in mind" he continued,
that II We were to occupy Casino
completely, there is still mountain
a mile high ahead of us-Mount
Cairo-about 5000 meters in the rear
of Casino"
Gen. Wilbur wears the Congress
sional Medal of Honor for earlier
services in contracting the French
commanders in Casablanca on No
vember 8, 1912, time of the initial
North African landing. He left the
fighting at Casino on February Is
and has been convalescing at Walter
Reed Hospital from the rigors of the
Italian campaign.
His close knowledge of the diff
culties at Casino conceded with a
warning by Secretary of War Stim-
son yesterday that the nature
of the German defense should be
another sober reminder of the
strength of the enemy"
Casino is a tough enough place
in itself, but don't think that is ALL"
he warned. The Germans might
decide to pull out of it-I doubt it."
he added, in claiming the town must
be captured.
An infantry officer throughout his
long Army career and champion
of the "doughboy," Gen. Wilbur
said that contrary to earlier belize
tanks and aerial bombardment
have not lifted the burden entirely
from the foot soldier.
Many of the Germans now de
Tending Casino, he said. had stayed
in the town during the intense bonn
bardments that pulverized every
building in it. Others filtered back
into it from deep dugouts and near
by caves.
Gen. Wilbur disclosed that for
five days American forces had re-
Trained from firing on the Bene-
dictine Monastery occupied by the
Germans on the slope east of Cas-
sino. Yet during those five days,
he said, the enemy, fortified in the
monastery, kept firing at our troops.
He did not explain why the Amer
leans withheld their fire for this
period, beyond saying that Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower had issued
an order not to shoot at the monas-
terry unless it was a military neces-
sity.
With the realization that long and
bitter fighting lies ahead in Italy,
Gen. Wilbur said the German SOL
dier has gone through a transfor-
nation since year ago.
THE astonishing thing is that
they still think they are going to
win the war" he explained. "A
year ago they boasted that Germany
would win by offensive action and
the destruction of the Allied armies.
Now they think they will win be-
cause they will never give up"
Gen. Wilbur declared the morale
of the German soldier is good, but
added that he detected lines of
worry on the faces of prisoners"
One Nazi officer told him he had
surrendered because of his family
back in Germany.
Germans Well Fed.
German equipment also is new
and in good condition and the Ger
man soldier is well fed and still a
hard flghter-a harder fighter, he
claimed, than the war-weery Ger
mans in the Argonne before the 1918
armistice.
But it is to the American dough-
boy-the infantrynan-that he paid
the highest tribute. He fights in
the rain, the mud, snow and sleet,
Gen. Wilbur reminded, and is still
able to grin and bear it.
THE spirit and morale of the
doughboy is the outstanding thing
In this war" the commander as
serted proudly. He expressed his
unbounded faith in the doughboy,
while praising at the same time the
merits of the "medicos."