 In early 1944, towards the end of Tuker's time in Italy, during the Battle of Monte Cassino, Allied commanders were engaged in a controversy regarding what action should be taken against the monastery at Monte Cassino.The Germans had designated it a military-free zone but many senior commanders were reluctant to believe that the Germans would not occupy such a strategically important position.Tuker had found a book dated 1879 in a Naples bookshop giving details of the construction of the monastery at Monte Cassino which his division had been tasked to attack.