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10:59 P.M. All quiet.
11 P.M. Four thousand guns—standing hub to hub—open the world's greatest artillery bombardment. The earth trembles for miles. The firerce, roaring, barking, vibrant thunder grows in intensity. The sky slobbers a ghastly red. Huge hills literally topple over and those who lived therein, live no more.
5:30 A.M. The Rolling Barrage. Seventy-three tanks tear holes in the barbed wire already wrecked by the artillery. The infantry, with a rifle strength of 108,000, jumps off. In the tense darkness, they crawl among the dead and the dying. Shells are whistling and bursting. Machine guns are spitting. It is a test for any man. Five hundred planes overhead keep back the enemy airmen and assist the infantry. The gates of hell seem to have opened.