Time being of the essence, the Regiment went into immediate action and, having found the Ponte dell'Uso intact, 'C' Squadron successfully crossed the Uso on Tuesday, October 3rd. The next day, as elements of the Squadron advanced down-stream, before swinging to the west, to occupy Borghi, the remainder of the Regiment concentrated near Poggio Berni preparatory to crossing the river at a nearby ford.

Soon after darkness fell, led by 'A' Squadron, all the Churchills had made it safely across, however, many HQ Squadron's Shermans failed to climb up the far bank under their own power and had to be towed up. While 'A' Squadron was making its way to take up positions south-west of Borghi, 'B' Squadron drove upstream to harbour a few hundred yards north of Ponte dell'Uso.

Crossing the Rubicone

Before we had settled down for the remainder of the night, Major MacKean had put us in the picture of the day's operations. Before any crossing of the river could take place the town of Sogliano al Rubicone had to be cleared of the enemy, prior to any descent being made to the bridge nearly one thousand feet below the town. Our Squadron's role was to give the impression that it would be making the main assault up the road from the bridge, whereas, in fact, the Gurkhas with Churchill and Sherman tanks in support would launch the attack from the north-east along a ridge leading from Monte San Giovanni.

As the day dawned, fully expecting to be heavily "stonked", the Squadron's tanks started to move as if preparing to advance, however, as no enemy ordinance came our way (the Gurkhas having quickly captured Sogliano despite some stiff enemy resistance) the Squadron continued up the road into the town itself.

When it became known that the infantry had already crossed the river, the bridge being found intact, Skipper, having been told that the ridge on the other side appeared to be much too steep for any tank to climb, decided to take a look for himself. Ballyrashane and one other Churchill (if my memory serves correctly it belonged to 1 Troop) made their way down the steep winding road to the bridge where the Gurkhas had set up an HQ in a nearby stone hut. Once there, it was more than obvious that even a Churchill "mountain goat" could offer nothing more than moral support for the infantry who were already fighting their way up the ridge.

Following a consultation with a Subadhar at the hut Major MacKean, having first instructed the two tanks to take positions with guns at full elevation a couple of hundred yards past the bridge, took off unaccompanied on a recce to look for possible way for the tanks to climb the ridge.

Initially, during Skipper's absence, despite the continuous sounds of weapons being fired, we had nothing to do except to gaze upon the hillside before us. This ended when a Havildar came running up to tell us that a German position had been spotted just a few hundred feet above where we were sitting. Although neither tanks could see anything both let loose with their BESAs, with a few rounds of HE thrown in for good measure.

Although shot and shell had landed but a hundred feet or so up the slope it was close enough for a white flag to suddenly appear. As the firing ceased, a German officer came down to discuss terms for surrender but, as a Hauptmann, he refused to do so with me, a lowly non-com, repeatedly saying "Offizier, offizier." Consequently, I, with "Titch" Young carrying a tommy-gun, escorted the German to the Gurkha HQ.

On entering the hut, the Subadhar, recognising one of a superior military rank, came to attention saluting the German captain who failed to salute in return. From the arrogant manner in which the German conducted himself, it became increasingly obvious that he was not going to surrender to an officer of non-Aryan descent, especially one wearing only a lieutenant's pips. Consequently the Subadhar ordered two Gurkhas, who had been in the background caressing their kukris, to take the German, who was wearing a good-looking wrist-watch, up to the Gurkha Brigade HQ in Sogliano. In just a few minutes, before we had made our departure, the two returned both wearing big smiles and one a wrist-watch!