into major combat, for the first time since it was rebuilt, against a well resourced enemy, including air power. Indeed, several units had already suffered attacks from Allied fighter bombers, known as 'jabo's', upon retraining north of Cassino and on the way to the Bernhardt line. The US 45th Division's objectives were to be the village of Lagon and several of the peaks that dominated the village and the road to St Elia. Key to these was peak 769, and several days of combat around peak 769 followed, between elements of the 179th US Infantry Regiment and 2 Kompanie 131 Regiment, with the summit changing hands. Finally the Americans secured the summit for good and the 2/131 withdrew from its last positions on the reverse slopes with only 12 men and one officer remaining in the company. On 9 December the US Division attacked the Germans in Lagon, capturing the village two weeks later. When the 5th Mountain division became available, the 10th Army replaced the 44th Division in the mountains and shifted it south to cover the more likely approach to the Liri valley, at the M gap. It would cover a wide sector with its units interspersed with those of the 29th Panzer Grenadier division. The defence was based on a series of low hills on either side of Highway 6, with the landscape rising dramatically on its left flank to the 1270 m high mount Majo. The US Fifth Army had used the short lull in operations since mid-December to freshen its forces, and plan for the renewed attack. The attack would use a task force from 1st Armoured Division, plus some British support on the left, two regiments of the 34th US Infantry Division, the 168th and the 135th, on the right and some special service troops on the high peaks of Mount Majo. The 1st Special Service Regiment had a battalion of specifically trained mountain troops, and these were used to cross the difficult terrain and seize the summit of Mt Majo on 4 January. The summit was in the sector of the 44th's 132 Infantry Regiment, who mounted repeated counterattacks but failed to regain the lost ground and suffered badly at the hands of American artillery of the US 93rd Armoured Field artillery Battalion fired in support of the special service troops. The Special Service troops went on to secure the neighbouring peaks. With