SIXTY years to the day the German-held mountain-top abbey of Monte Cassino fell to the allies, veterans of the World War II battle were back in Italy for a service of remembrance.

With the Duke of Kent representing the Queen, the May 17 event, organised by the Royal British Legion and held at the Cassino Commonwealth war cemetery, was attended by hundreds of octogenarian veterans of all the nationalities involved in the battle.

British, Polish, Canadian, New Zealand and Indian veterans were joined for the first time by a German representative, who laid a wreath at the cenotaph.

Among those who made the 60th anniversary pilgrimage to Cassino - which followed similar memorials in 1989 and 1994 - was Gordon Cruse (80), of Shrewton, who, as a 20-year-old gunner, served in the Italian campaign with the 78th Division of the Eighth Army.

On May 17, 1944, the young Gunner Cruse was driving his colonel and a wireless operator up the Liri Valley towards the German-held Gustav line, when they looked up and saw the Polish and Union flags flying over the abbey.

"It was a great moment," said Mr Cruse.

"We had been expecting victory, and were recce-ing new gun positions for the next advance."

The victory over the Germans at Cassino followed four months of fierce fighting in the Appenine mountains, in one of the worst-ever winters in the region.

During the battle, Mr Cruse drove supplies at night to observation post personnel near the front line, who came over the mountains with mules to collect food, water and batteries for communications equipment.

"With no lights, I had the windscreen and the hood down on the jeep and just had to feel my way along the tracks through the woods," said Mr Cruse.

"The bad weather and the smokescreens made it even more difficult - but somehow we all managed to meet up at the rendezvous point."

During his recent visit, Mr Cruse was able to retrace some of those journeys.

He said: "Although there has been a lot of development in the area, some of the old tracks are still visible, and some of the same bombed-out buildings are still standing, just as they were 60 years ago."

As he celebrated the Cassino victory in 1944, Mr Cruse could not have known that tragedy was about to strike his family elsewhere in Italy.

Barely two weeks later, his uncle, Eddie Cruse, was killed, aged 28, during the Anzio beachhead landings. Mr Cruse said: "A couple of months after Cassino, I stopped to speak to a Wilts Battalion soldier I met at the roadside.

"He had been at Anzio and told me Eddie had died there."

Mr Cruse visited the Anzio beachhead cemetery during his recent trip to Italy, and placed on his uncle's grave crosses sent by Eddie's surviving brother, Harold Cruse, and sister, Iris Watson, both of Shrewton, and by his daughter, Selina, who was just five years old when her father fell at Anzio.