25.  On the 18th August 1944 the Di­vi­sion moved to the JESI con­cen­tra­tion area un­der com­plete se­cur­ity black­out with all ranks CBd.  Ca­mou­flage again be­came all-​im­por­tant and much ef­fort was ex­pen­ded and care ta­ken to con­ceal the fact that it was a Cana­dian Di­vi­sion.  Lt.​Col. R.​W. Arm­strong was kil­led in a jeep ac­ci­dent on the 19th Au­gust.  Only 150 Of­fi­cers and Other Ranks were per­mit­ted to at­tend his fu­neral the fol­low­ing day ow­ing to the se­cur­ity reg­ula­tions.  Lt.-​Col. F.T. McIn­tosh ar­rived on the 20th Au­gust and the Regi­ment moved to a for­ward con­cen­tra­tion area.  Mines were nu­mer­ous in the area and some cas­u­al­ties re­sul­ted in­clu­ding our own Sur­vey Of­fi­cer Lieut. H.S. Cas­sel­man.

26.  The next gun pos­i­tion was in a val­ley be­hind MON­TEMAG­GIORE.  It was a very deep val­ley but all means of in­gress and egress were un­der ob­ser­va­tion and Jer­ry's har­as­sing fire po­licy was very ac­tive.  The Recce party went in one ve­hi­cle ev­ery 15 min­utes and ar­rived com­plete just in time to sweat out a VIC­TOR tar­get on the re­cei­ving end.  The guns came up un­der co­ver of dark­ness on an in­no­cent-​look­ing but very bad road and the fi­nal score tur­ned over was 1 tank, 1 3-​ton­ner, 2 15​cwts.  Dur­ing the whole oc­cu­pa­tion en­emy shel­ling was con­si­der­able and Lt-​Col. F.T. McIn­tosh was kil­led after be­ing with the Regi­ment four days.

Gnr. Marchuck, A.J., whose courage and de­vo­tion to duty was out­stan­dingly dis­played on this night now wears the mili­tary me­dal.  He was a guide at a small cross­roads at the bot­tom of the val­ley where he re­mained thro­ugh­out the night des­pite heavy and in­ces­sant shel­ling.