FYI: > The world's most glorious monastery, at Monte Cassino in Italy, was destroyed during the second world war because of a mistake by a British junior offic

FYI: > The world's most glorious monastery, at Monte Cassino in Italy, was destroyed during the second world war because of a mistake by a British junior officer, according to new evidence in a book due out this week. > The officer - translating an intercepted radio message - mistook the German word for abbot for a similar word meaning battalion. His version convinced his superiors this meant a German military unit was using the monastery as its command post, in breach of a Vatican agreement which treated it as neutral. > Allied generals ordered a huge bombing attack. Only when the planes were in the air did a British intelligence officer, Colonel David Hunt, recheck the full radio intercept. He found that what it actually said was: "The abbot is with the monks in the monastery". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/04/johnezard https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/04/johnezard