17.  On the 17th May the Regi­ment moved up for the as­sault on the GUS­TAV and HIT­LER lines to a con­cen­tra­tion area in the val­ley be­low CA­SINO.  It was an ex­treme­ly dark night un­til Jerry dive bom­bers ar­rived and lit every­thing up like day with para­chute flares.  Things were very inter­est­ing for a short while but no cas­ual­ties were suf­fered.  The fol­low­ing mor­ning a gun posi­tion near PIG­NAT­ARO was oc­cu­pied but there was no fir­ing and the Regi­ment moved for­ward again the fol­low­ing day in or­der to be in posi­tion to fire the bar­rage on the HIT­LER line.  As a re­sult of the en­emy oc­cu­pa­tion of Mount CAI­RO and the moun­tain­ous ridge on the right all gun posi­tions were ex­posed and suf­fered as a re­sult.  The bar­rage posi­tion was heav­ily and con­tin­ually shel­led.  There was a heavy con­cen­tra­tion of troops, tanks and vehi­cles in and around the area and it was evi­dent that Jerry had ob­ser­va­tion des­pite the ef­forts at con­ceal­ment in­clu­ding smoke gen­er­a­tors.  Ca­su­al­ties suf­fered here were 6 kil­led and 12 woun­ded which was re­mar­kably light con­sid­er­ing the amount of en­emy shel­ling ta­ken.  Once again good gun pits, slit tren­ches, quick re­ac­tions and in­sis­tence that no one take un­ne­ces­sary risks paid di­vi­dends.