Excerpt from ATTACKS
By Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

We continued the advance, reached Pirago without further encounter with the enemy, and crossed the bridge which we had blocked with fire during the day. Our machine guns at Dogna were silent, presumably because of the order sent them by telephone.

We worked our way forward on the road. On the cliff to the left some hundred yards away Italian artillery was firing shell after shell out over us in the direction of the crossing used by us in getting over the Piave. The shell fuzes left a peculiar luminous trail behind them in the dark night. It was a fine gratuitous fireworks display.

Only a hundred yards or so separated us from the first houses of Longarone. We moved forward slowly. There, in the light of the fireworks, a black wall extended across the bright road. It was about a hundred yards away. We did not know if it was a bend in the road or a roadblock. We moved up to within seventy yards and I made certain that it was a road block. We were expected.

I ordered a halt and brought up the machine-gun company. The company commander (a first lieutenant) received the mission of silently bringing several heavy machine guns into position along side each other on the road and preparing a fire attack on the barricade. After a short fire for effect, I intended to attack with the 1st and 3d Companies and take the south entrance to Longarone.