one of the most important monasteries of the world. the polish II corps shelled the motherfu**er to the dust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino

Lots of destruction because of a translation error :
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3554
The refutation of the “irrefutable proofs”
After the bombing Roosevelt, like Winston Churchill in London, decided therefore to defend the good intentions behind the decision of the Allied commands in the Mediterranean. Not only because the advance on Rome was in a very delicate phase (the Allied troops in the Liri valley were blocked while in the area of Anzio they were actually in danger of being driven back into the sea), but also because English General Henry Maitland Wilson, the Allied commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, claimed he had “irrefutable evidence” of the presence of the enemy in the abbey before the bombing. And when on 9 March, the English Foreign Office asked Wilson if he could provide an explanation backed by fact to the Vatican as to why the monastery was destroyed, despite the wholesale promises given to the Holy See about respecting the abbey, Wilson stated that he had at least twelve pieces of “irrefutable evidence” about the military use of the monastery by the Germans, but he also wanted to keep them secret to prevent the Germans from constructing false counter evidence in consequence. It was promised that the evidence would be given to the Vatican in due time. That time has never arrived: even after the war it took investigation and controversial historical studies on documents in the military archives to conclude that it was the result of an error. One of Wilson’s irrefutable pieces of evidence was detailed after the war by one of the people involved, Captain David Hunt, aide to British Field-Marshal Harold Alexander, commander-in-chief of the Allied armies in Italy. Hunt recounted how, shortly after the bombardment, the translation of an intercepted Nazi message was passed on to him. It said: “Ist der Abt noch im Kloster?” and the reply was “Ja”. Abt was translated as the abbreviation of “military division”, so the phrase was taken to mean: “Is the division in the monastery?”. “Yes”. It also seemed to Hunt the confirmation of their suspicions, the classic “smoking gun” as we would call it today. But Abt also means ‘abbot’.

so the germans werent lying.

The Abbey was defended by The Fallschirmjager, or elite German Airborn troops, said to be the most efficient fighting force in the German Army. Fighting them were US and Canadian "Devil's Brigade", Polish, and Brazillian units.

yeah...but the germans are still denying it

Afaik, the fallshrimjägers moved in after the bombardment, since the ruins turned out to be a very convenient deffensive position

VA is correct. The current account I'm reading "Cassino: The Hollow Victory" has the nearest German troops 200 yards away from the Abby. The Abby was leveled by various types of allied bombers.

well it wasnt the first case of "just to be safe" bombing. if u fired only when u saw your enemy then u would lose. :D