Battle for Monte Natale - Press Release

 

PRESS RELEASE – Battle for Monte Natale

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Olivia Camozzi-Jones, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS

 Tel: +44 Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

 Email: marketingps@pen-and-sword.co.uk

 Battle for Monte Natale

 First-Hand Accounts of the Crossing of the River Garigliano on the Gustav Line

 Author: John Ernest Strafford

Highlights

·        Battle for Monte Natale brings together contemporary accounts showing war, not only at the strategic level involving Corps, Division, Brigade, and Battalion , but also the individual level, inspiring stories of heroism and sacrifice. No book about World War II shows a battle in such detail.

·     Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, by words, pictures and maps, it shows what happened in the three weeks from 17th January to 7th February 1944.

·      Ernest Strafford (father of John Strafford) served with 1 York & Lancs.  On 20 Jan 44 a witness reported that he saw Pte. Ernest Strafford “wounded in the head when a mortar bomb burst among us during our attack. I believe his wounds were serious”.

·        On 4 Feb 44 the body of Ernest Strafford was “recovered, identified & buried by British Troops”. What happened to Ernest Strafford between these two dates is assessed in this book.

 Battle for Monte Natale is part of the first Battle for Monte Cassino – the bloodiest battle of the Italian Campaign. By extensive use of War Diaries, missing person reports, awards for valour, and personal accounts including those of German soldiers, this is the story of those individuals who fought and died in the Battle for Monte Natale. All the action takes place in an area of just nine square kilometres. It is a unique glimpse of an important battle from both sides of the conflict.

 

The casualties of 1 York & Lancs. during the attack on Monte Natale were: Killed 49, Wounded 144, Missing 64. The attacking Companies were about 400 men.

About the Author

John Strafford was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire and now lives in Buckinghamshire. He went to the Duke of York’s Royal Military School from 1954 to 1960. The school was founded in 1803 for the sons of soldiers. Married with three children and two grandchildren he is now a retired Chartered Accountant.

 

One evening in November 2011 he was walking through the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey when at the York & Lancs. section the first wooden cross he saw had his father’s name on it. He broke down in tears. He never knew his father, but the site of the cross made him determined to find out what happened to him.

He has spent over ten years researching the Battle for Monte Natale and has been to the battlefield several times. In 2022 he took part in an interview with Italian Television shown at the Roman Amphitheatre in Minturno, about the war in Italy.

Other published works include “Our Fight for Democracy” - a history of democracy in the United

Kingdom

 

NEW BOOK RELEASE

ISBN: 9781036108182

240 PAGES · HARDBACK

PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 2024

 PEN & SWORD MILITARY