Twelve tanks were allotted to the 152nd Brigade for the operation, a number which was more than doubled by reinforcements which arrived during the day. An artillery barrage was also arranged which opened for twenty minutes south of the village, and then moved across the area to be attacked at the rate of 200 yards every ten minutes. The tanks moved off at 10 A.M., the plan being for those destined for the village to enter it from the flanks. On the right the 6th Gordon Highlanders advanced on a two-company front, their objective being the high ground north of Fontaine village; the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders followed in rear, ready to form the defensive flank. As is liable to happen when an attack is delivered from the point of a salient, the advancing infantry were badly enfiladed by machine-guns from the direction of La Folie Wood on their right flank. In addition, every house on the south side of the village seemed to hold one or more machine-guns, which the tanks, having entered the village from the flanks, had left undamaged. Repeated attempts were made to cross a zone swept from end to end by bullets fired from the front and flank; but though part of "C" Company, 8th Gordon Highlanders, managed to reach the outskirts of the village, they could not maintain themselves there, the battalion being compelled to dig in on a line about 500 yards south of the village. On the left the 6th Seaforth Highlanders advanced with the task of capturing the ground lying between the wood and the village, and of joining up with the 6th Gordon Highlanders north of the village. This battalion, too, suffered heavily from enfilade fire from houses in the village which had escaped the tanks. However, chiefly owing to the gallantry of individual officers and men, the enemy resistance was overcome. One officer, for instance, advancing ahead of his platoon against a machine-gun in a ditch alongside the Bapaume-Cambrai road, shot two of the team, and then carried back the gun under fire. A sergeant put a gun out of action by heading an attack along a trench occupied by a party of about thirty Germans, of which he bayoneted three himself, thus cowing the others into surrendering. A dash through the German barrage by an officer and one N.C.O. captured fifty Germans garrisoning a trench. By means of these and similar exploits "C" Company, pushing in by section rushes, and closely supported by "D" Company, reached the north-east corner of Bourlon Wood. "D" Company from this point tried to gain the high ground north of the village, but the fire from Fontaine was so intense that their efforts had to be abandoned. Meanwhile "A" and "B" Companies with the tanks were endeavouring to enter the west side of the village. They successfully cleared the outskirts, but every endeavour made to enter the main streets failed. Machine-gunners or riflemen seemed to be manning the windows of every house.