By the fol­low­ing day enemy re­sis­tance had soft­ened and the In­fan­try closed up to the SENIO tho­ugh con­si­der­able dif­fi­culty was ex­per­ienced in ous­ting Jerry from the dyke on this side.
38.  Just as it was hoped the unit would re­main in its pres­ent pos­i­tion a move was made across the LA­MONE to a new area along­side the NAV­IG­LIO.  This was a de­so­late piece of coun­try with plenty of mud, few “ca­sas” and not nearly as com­for­table as the for­mer pos­i­tion.  Ne­ver­the­less pre­par­a­tions for Christ­mas went ahead and with the help of some ex­tra rum is­sues and a dou­ble is­sue of “bronco” beer the se­cond Xmas was as joy­ous as the exi­gen­cies of the ser­vice per­mit­ted.  Christ­mas trees were set up in each troop com­mand post and all troops had an ex­cel­lent meal.  In the Of­fi­cers' Mess a wes­tern bar was es­tab­lished which pos­i­tion was con­soli­dated and repor­ted firm at 1800 hours.  The CCRA and the CRA vi­si­ted the men and even the “A” and “B” Eche­lon Of­fi­cers showed their no­ses at the front — the first time the 10 mile sni­pers had tur­ned out in such strength.  En­emy shel­ling of for­ward ar­eas star­ted again on the fol­low­ing day and coun­ter-​bat­tery and coun­ter-​mor­tar fire be­came main ac­ti­vity.  Some cas­u­al­ties were suf­fered in 60th Bat­tery which moved to its al­ter­na­tive pos­i­tion.

MEZZANO - Sugar Factory - 4 Jan 44.

39.  On the 30th De­cem­ber 1944 a Recce of a gun area to sup­port the drive NORTH to LAKE COM­MAC­CHIO was car­ried out but ano­ther pos­i­tion was soon found in the area of AM­MO­NITE when the Com­man­ding Of­fi­cer Lt-​Col. G.A. Ran­kin in­formed the in­no­cent recce party that their first pos­i­tion was in front of the FDLs.  The Regi­ment moved to AM­MO­NITE on the fol­low­ing day.  New Years' Eve was very “wet” but des­pite the nu­mer­ous “heads” a heavy am­mu­ni­tion dum­ping pro­gram was car­ried out.  On New Years' Day, some­thing went wrong with a flight of Amer­ican Bos­ton Bomb­ers and they gave MEZ­ZANO bridge area a good wor­king over.  It was ra­ther too close for com­fort and the Ital­ians just could­n't un­der­stand it un­til some­one vol­un­teered the in­for­ma­tion that the pi­lots were “multi zig-​zag” with which ex­plan­a­tion they seemed per­fectly sa­tis­fied.
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