 At 0750 Lieutenant Colonel V. T. England 's 2 / 3rd Infantry Battalion , accompanied by the Bren gun carriers of Major Denzil MacArthur @-@ Onslow 's A Squadron , 2 / 6th Cavalry Regiment moved off for Bardia . Major J. N. Abbot 's company advanced to the Italian posts , and attacked a group of sangers . The Italian defenders were cleared with grenades . By 0920 all companies were on their objectives and they had linked with 2 / 1st Infantry Battalion . However , the Bren gun carriers encountered problems as they moved forward during the initial attack . One was hit and destroyed in the advance and another along the Wadi Ghereidia . The 2 / 3rd Infantry Battalion was now assailed by half a dozen Italian M13 / 40 tanks who freed a group of 500 Italian prisoners . The tanks continued to rumble to the south while the British crews of the Matildas " enjoying a brew , dismissed reports of them as an Antipodean exaggeration " . Finally , they were engaged by an antitank platoon of three 2 pounders mounted on portees . Corporal A. A. Pickett 's gun destroyed four of them until his portee was hit , killing one man and wounding Pickett . The survivors got the gun back into action and knocked out a fifth tank . The portee was again hit by fire from the sixth tank , fatally wounding another man ; but it too was soon knocked out by another 2 pounder . By midday , 6 @,@ 000 Italian prisoners had already reached the provosts at the collection point near Post 45 , escorted by increasingly fewer guards whom the rifle companies could afford to detach . The Italian perimeter had been breached and the attempt to halt the Australian assault at the outer defences had failed . 
