Brigadier Edward Puttick, temporary commander of 2nd New Zealand Division, ordered Brigadier Lindsay Inglis of 4th New Zealand Brigade to attack and seize the prison and the airfield the Germans were believed to be constructing nearby. Inglis detailed just one battalion and a handful of tanks to the task, arguing that his other battalions did not know the ground and might become lost in the gathering darkness. The battalion commander in turn sent only two of his companies forward.

“A small two-man tank cautiously nosed its way into view,” von der Heydte wrote later. “The sight of this tank removed half the terror. The sound of its tracks while it had remained invisible had been infinitely more frightening than its appearance now that it had materialized. It attracted all out fire, like a tin roof under a hail storm; nevertheless it kept coming toward us. It had advanced within fifty yards when there was a sudden, ear-splitting detonation. The little tank swerved violently, pulled up with a jerk in front of a telephone pole, and remainder there motionless.” The New Zealand infantry hesitated to go forward after the tank’s destruction, and the attack quickly fell apart.