The start of the battle had much noise on 23 October 1942

You had the sound of artillery, bombers flying over, and large mortar bombs exploding. For another fifteen minutes, you had the sound of counter-battery fire and then everything was quiet. Approaching 10pm, you had the two searchlights that came together and that signaled artillery to fire. At the same time, the infantry moved forward. They were trained to be able to move at an exact speed. The signalmen were running their wires along to the right of the stakes to follow. The men were in fact following Montgomery's detail plan. There were details such as "traffic control points".

The infantry moving forward were more heavily loaded than usual, since that was part of the master plan. At the front of XXX Corps, the men broke into the enemy positions and "took their initial objectives". One Australian battalion reached their final objectives at about midnight. The engineers were working to clear paths through the minefields. The paths were needed for vehicles towing anti-tank guns and vehicles loaded with ammunition. The minefields that they knew about had paths cleared, but they found additional minefields that also needed paths to be cleared.

The Australian 20th Brigade attacked with two battalions, the 2/17th and 2/15th battalions. The engineers (sappers) with the 2/17th Battalion were able to clear gaps in the minefields. The men with the 2/15th Battalion found that they were in an area filled with "anti-personnel and anti-tank mines". They were only able to clear a path by 12:30am.

As the Australians advanced, the artillery bombardment continued. What they found, was that there was an enemy defense in depth that was beyond that the British maps showed. The enemy positions had wire, mines, and booby-traps. The Australians were well-prepared to deal with such things. There was fairly strong "resistance" from the enemy. As they moved forward, the men found that the Bofors guns firing tracers in the air were very helpful. By 3:45am, the success signal was sent.

The 26th Brigade attack in the north had succeeded "brilliantly". The engineers continued to clear paths that were mine-free. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.