 The artillery barrage came down at 1125 , and five minutes later the advance began . The sun had now risen , and Captain C. H. Smith 's D Company came under effective fire from machine guns and field artillery 700 yards ( 640 m ) to the north east . Within minutes , all but one of the company 's officers and all its senior non @-@ commissioned officers had been killed or wounded . C Company 's Captain W. B. Griffiths pulled his company back to the Wadi and called on a detachment of 3 @-@ inch mortars and a platoon of Vickers machine guns of the 1st Battalion , Northumberland Fusiliers to fire at the Italian positions . This proved effective , and Griffith 's company and a platoon of A Company worked along the Wadi Scemmas , eventually collecting 3 @,@ 000 prisoners . 
