Lieut. Archibald dug him­self out and des­pite the con­tin­uous shel­ling or­gan­ized the evac­ua­tion of the woun­ded and per­son­ally pul­led the am­mu­ni­tion from a bur­ning trailer, pre­ven­ting a fur­ther ex­plo­sion and loss of life.  He suf­fer­ed se­vere burns but with a to­tal dis­re­gard for his own safety, by his own ef­forts, his cool­ness and or­gani­za­tion un­doub­tedly saved the lives of his men and en­abled the guns to be fired des­pite the con­tinu­ous shel­ling”.

HITLER LINE - 23 May 44

18.  The barrage was fired and 1 Cana­dian In­fan­try Divi­sion broke through the main HIT­LER line de­fen­ces on the 23 May.  Dur­ing this bat­tle the first WIL­LIAM tar­get in the his­tory of the Royal Ar­til­lery was en­gaged with 19 Field Regi­ments, 9 Me­dium Regi­ments and 2 Heavy Regi­ments.  The tar­get was 600 yards of road near AC­QUINO and was fired scale 10 re­sul­ting in ap­prox­i­mately 74 tons of me­tal ar­riv­ing in the area in slightly over a minute.  Once the PONTE CORVO — AC­QUINO line was brea­ched 5 Cana­dian Ar­moured Divi­sion pas­sed thro­ugh 1 Cdn In­fan­try Divi­sion and the bat­tle pro­cee­ded at a heart-​break­ing pace.  Recce par­ties went for­ward and found them­selves fol­low­ing the tail of the mop­ping-​up in­fan­try, en­ga­ging in the sni­per hunts them­sel­ves.  The guns began the move to the PONTE CORVO posi­tion at 2000 hrs on the 24th May and ar­ri­ved at 1200 hrs 25th May after a move of 4 miles through a ter­ri­fic traf­fic tie-​up.  By the time the guns ar­ri­ved they were out of range and the Recce par­ties crac­ked off again.  The tanks had been cal­ling for ar­til­lery fire and the 17th was given road pri­or­ity over every­thing ex­cept am­bu­lances but even so the unit had to make its own road across the fields.  The new posi­tion was just short of the MELFA.  The gun area was more or less in the open fields and very little fir­ing was done from here except for the oc­ca­sional tar­get by the air O.P..
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