Messervy's 7th Indian division, attempting to cross the Irrawady in broad daylight, initially suffered heavy losses as their assault boats broke down under machine-gun fire directed from the positions where the 7th battalion had dug in. Slim noted this in his memoirs as the longest opposed river crossing attempted in any theatre of the Second World War Eventually, however, support from tanks of the Gordon Highlanders firing across the river and massed artillery forced the nearly hundred of the defenders at Nyaungu to surrender, the rest fled. At Pagan, the defending 9th battalion also suffered a similar fate offering resistance to the 11th Sikh Regiment before it withdrew to Mount Popa.