The rain that had covered the crossing now threatened to cut the bridgehead off. Gen. Vokes noted that the water gap widened from 45 feet to 300 feet in 24 hours. The engineers could offer no hope of getting supporting arms across for at least a day. At 0705 on the 22nd, Brigadier Bogert told his battalions to hold their positions. Daylight brought one piece of good luck. German machine-gunners on the riverbank, unaware of what had happened on their flank, walked back with their mess tins to the farmhouse kitchens that were now D Company’s headquarters. “This surprised and surprising breakfast line-up netted us 56 prisoners of war,” Bell-Irving wrote. By the end of the morning the battalion held some 150. The Germans still had tanks, and the Seaforths had almost no PIAT bombs left. At 1215 a tank and infantry drove A Company out of the buildings on the main road. The artillery observation officers, calling down fire from the guns east of the river, became the bridgehead’s strongest defence. Supplies crossed by assault boat and later by raft, and nearly 200 prisoners worked as porters and stretcher-bearers. Telephone lines laid across the river were carried away by floating haystacks. On the afternoon of the 23rd, Maj. R. Clark led a patrol back towards the main road. The covering 2-pounder jammed, and Clark was killed in the withdrawal. By 0300 on the 24th a floating bridge was open, and at dawn the Germans pulled back. Lt-Gen. McCreery wrote to Bogert that the battle had been “a great example of how determined, well trained infantry can destroy enemy tanks with their own weapons.” The four days cost 2nd Brigade and the West Nova Scotia Regiment 191 casualties, 33 of them fatal. The Germans had simply withdrawn to the next river. 📷The Marecchia River, seen overrunning its banks following heavy rain, is sweeping a Bailey Bridge downstream. Army Numerical 73, 41995. 📷Seaforth's with Stens, Enfields & a PIAT, in Bagnacavello, Senio River, Italy. From the Album (Scrapbook) of Major W.David Blackburn.