Finding the British occupying a well-fortified position astride the road to Berbera, De Simone hoped to winkle them out of it by working around their flanks. To pin the defenders in place, the Italians would make a frontal assault aided by tanks. The British had reinforced their position with concrete bunkers and barbed wire, but lacked enough troops to adequately cover all of their frontage.

Despite the assistance of aircraft, artillery and tanks, the Italian frontal assault ground forward only slowly. A summer hailstorm disrupted both sides, but the linchpin of the British defense proved to be Lt. Eric Charles Twelves Wilson of the Somaliland Camle Corps’ Machine Gun Company. He kept his gunners in action as their weapons pits were wiped out one-by-one in furious close assaults, standing by his own Vickers gun with Somali gunner Omar Kujoog. Eventually the Italians overran his emplacement, destroying his weapon, wounding Wilson and killing Kujoog. Wilson received the Victoria Cross posthumously despite not having actually died; when released from Italian captivity he lobbied for Kujoog to be equally recognized but the British Army refused. In 2002 Eric Wilson, then 90 years old, introduced Omar Kujoog’s son Suleiman to Queen Elizabeth II who wished to personally thank the Kujoog family.