CREEDE HINSHAW: War blurs lines between what targets are off limits

The radical Muslim ISIS state is wantonly pillaging, plundering, selling and demolishing irreplaceable religious sites in the Middle East. One of many places under threat in eastern Syria is Dura Europos, site of the earliest known church building in the world and one of the earliest known synagogues as well.

Even more painful is the bombing of active mosques, synagogues and churches and the indiscriminate slaughter of adherents of each of these major world religions.

In a strange juxtaposition to this mayhem I have been staggered by the depth of destruction that indiscriminately befell many ancient and active religious sites during World War II.

I have been reading Rick Atkinson’s breath-taking Liberation Trilogy on the U.S. invasion of North Africa and Italy during World War II; my father, a member of the Signal Corps of the 3rd Division, participated in these invasions. Atkinson won the Pulitzer Prize for “An Army at Dawn,” the trilogy’s first volume.

Allies and Germans tried in various ways to protect some of these treasures. Americans had lists of Italian monuments to avoid destroying; Germans, at least partially out of self-interest, did not destroy Rome when they retreated. Of course the Germans viciously destroyed or confiscated anything belonging to the Jews and plundered art treasures throughout the war.

As the violence and bloodshed in World War II escalated, the lines blurred between what targets were off limits. A million civilians died during World War II in Europe.

Over the years my father referred to Cassino, but I had no idea the depth of slaughter involved there until reading this book. Brave American troops were mercilessly mowed down by the Germans as they tried to capture this mountain village with four churches that lay beneath Monte Cassino crowned by an ancient monastery founded by St. Benedict. The allies – to drive out the Germans – destroyed the entire village and every church.

But what to do about the historic and still active monastery towering over the valley? It seemed like the ideal headquarters for the Germans. Allied forces – after a lengthy debate and conflicting information – decided to bomb the monastery to smithereens.

Bombers dropped 600 tons of explosives on the ancient and active religious site, pulverizing the venerable stone retreat. The Germans had never set foot inside this haven; instead it had been flooded with Italian refugees: the poor, the infirm, the elderly. Upwards of 400 civilians were killed and as an American commander had predicted, the Germans quickly dug deeply into the monastery rubble, making it even more difficult to root them out.

Atkinson makes it clear that as war’s bloody demands spun out of control Germans and Allies indiscriminately bombed entire cities, destroying churches, museums, and heritage.

The bravery of the American army (and our allies) in World War II was astounding. Much of Atkinson’s account made me want to weep as he described war in all its horror and nobility. His account reminds me – as today in the Middle East – that war, once unleashed, knows few boundaries.

Creede Hinshaw is a retired Methodist minister in Macon.