The Palazzo Marcosanti shown here with the area of exposed ground the Leicesters had to

cross after they had negotiated the river.

The attack would go in on the night of the 22

of September, and the troops all

prepared in their own ways before the action. They had a lot of raw recruits straight out

from England, including a new officer, none had seen action. 24hr rations and ammo came

up to be shared out, the officer would not take any food, said he would not be needing any,

Bill thought this was a very bad sign.

At ten o'clock that evening they lined up on the bank, high explosive shells started

falling as they moved off into the river, pebbles and shrapnel flying everywhere with the

shell bursts. The first person Bill saw go down was the new officer, he thought he probably

expected it as he had eaten no food before going in. Bill had a feeling he was going to get hit

too, but he put it out of his mind and pressed on. The water was waist high, and they were

being heavily machine gunned and shelled. He reached the far bank which was six feet high

and had an overhang, this made it very difficult to climb out with full kit. As they advanced it

became very dark, one machine gun was very close, and causing a lot of injuries. A whisper

came down the line telling Bill and another chap to report to the sergeant with six grenades

each and nothing else, he said they were going to outflank the gun position and take it out.

They crawled behind the sergeant keeping the tracer bullets to their right, getting close

enough he stood up and threw the first grenade. Bill and the other soldier followed,

throwing as fast as they could pull the pins out and destroyed the gun.

P a l a z z o M a r c o s a n t i