Telling Griff to follow me in the scout car, I walked up to the barn. A few minutes later, while talking with my opposite number, a shell whistled overhead to explode harmlessly further up the hill. Suddenly, without any sound, I was enveloped in a red mist. Frightened and thinking my last days had come, I dashed out to throw myself under the scout car which Griff, wisely, had battened down. Feeling myself all over, for the expected injuries, I found none only that I was covered completely with a fine red dust. Subsequently, I found it resulted from a shell exploding upon impact on the barn's red-tiled roof. Fortunately, other than giving several members of His Majesty's Forces who had been in the barn, the fright of their respective lives, no one was seriously hurt. We were informed that an infantry spotter had seen two flashes, from what he thought was an SP gun, coming from across the river.

Major MacKean arrived an hour or so later when, after informing him of the incident, the decision was reached that Tac HQ should move only after dark. It was apparent, despite our approach to the infantry HQ being a slow one to avoid throwing up too much dust, that our progress had been observed by the enemy who were retreating up Rte 69, before the 6th Armoured Division, on the east side of the Arno.

Ever Onward!

Day-by-day, despite heavy shelling, the many hills to be climbed and streams to cross, the attack inched forward gradually veering north-west away from the river until coming up against a massif dominated by the Incontro Monastery sitting atop its highest peak. At this time the troops of 28th Infantry Brigade were relieved by regiments of 10th Infantry Brigade, who had had an easier time in their drive north, west of Monte del Chianti.

The OC, on his return from a meeting at RHQ, informed us that an assault on the massif, by 'B' Squadron in support of 2nd Bn Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, was a go for early next day. Later, when he came to collect some of his gear from the scout car, he told me that Captain Sidebottom would be in charge of Tac HQ during the course of the battle.

As soon as darkness fell, we cautiously made our way to the farmhouse where the DCLI had located their RHQ. While en route (as typically happened as the Kennelly-Heaviside Layer was descending) wireless communication had deteriorated, however, on this occasion to the extent that I had to employ Carrier Wave (i.e. Morse Code) to report our arrival to RHQ. The next order of business, while Captain Sidebottom was in conference with the infantry CO, Lieut-Colonel Musson, was for me to go over with the Signals Officer the communication procedures that had worked so well with the Somersets. Essentially this was keeping in touch, by use of 18 Sets, when Tac HQ was not in the immediate vicinity. Although the scout car was expected to remain at the farmhouse, during the course of the coming battle, this procedure was agreed to and set in place, fortunately as it turned out.