sector 332.sec.003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

At first, when we reached the border and I arrived with my division - and I arrived after 24 hours; that means on the 7th in the morning - I was in the northern section of the Suez Canal, and I took command of the northern sector, and I found out that all the strongholds were surrounded, although none of them had been taken yet; that the Egyptians were crossing and crossing and crossing on bridge-heads, and that the tank force sent to this sector... I met the brigade commander, with two tanks and one APC, and all the rest were all either stuck in marshes near the Canal, and had gone for help, or [had been] hit, and I understood that the Sinai division had very great casualties. They had only 10 tanks left after the first night. My forces were rushing in; an Egyptian force attacked us and tried to block our way. While we tried to get off the tank carriers, we were attacked. I turned a brigade against them, which fought them all day, until they managed to eliminate the commando forces. And then I managed to get to the front and deploy along the northern sector, and to begin to evacuate the Sinai division forces, the regular soldiers who had fought there all night, and to organize forces, and to structure new forces. That went on until the afternoon, from the morning to the afternoon. Forces kept rushing in, and it continued at night. The convoy of my division spread out from El Arish toani, maybe 110 kilometers, on a narrow road between sand dunes. It advanced and advanced, but I knew it would take a long time before it would be concentrated in one spot. And we also gave preference to the tanks to move forward, and artillery and engineers and infantry came in later; first the tanks rushed into the front.