The Storming of the Church 

By Emanuel Lanzer 

We were moving in on the town, drawing our lines closer and clo- 
ser. The Dimitrovs had already gained a foothold and taken posse- 
ssion of a one-story factory on the road to the Church about fifty yards 
away. 
We made a couple of attempts to storm the Church but they were 
unsuccessful. Whenever our artillery shelled the Church, the Fascists 
ran out and took refuge in the town. But whenever we attacked, the Fas- 
cists took advantage of the pause in the shelling to run back into the 
Church through the main door (on the opposite side from us) and again 
get behind the parapets they had built in the windows and doorways. 
Their machine-guns could then easily repel our attacks. 
Unable to make headway, we sent out scouting patrols to observe 
just where the Fascists used to dodge and to find the best route for 
attack. One of these reconnoitring parties led by Dan Hutner, was ob- 
served by the Fascists. In the exchange of fire. Hutner was killed. 
In one of these charges we succeeded in taking a prisoner who gave 
us information on the layout of the streets and pointed out to us the 
Fascist strongholds in the vicinity of the Church. We made our plans 
accordingly. 
The Church had three entrances; our plan called for a rush on 
all three of them simultaneously. Our artillery and tanks were to shell 
the Church to drive the Fascists out. While the shelling was going on 
our storming parties were to approach as close as possible to the Church. 
The shelling was to cease at a fixed moment and our men were to dash 
into the Church before the Fascists had a chance to get back. 
We collected most of the Lincoln-Washington men inside the factory 
where our Battalion Headquarters were. A few machine-guns with 
a crew of two men each were left in our trenches to fire at the houses 
around the Church to keep the Fascists from shooting at our advan- 
cing men. A machine-gun was set up in a window in the factory, trai- 
ned on the Church. The rest of the Machine-Gun Company was assig- 
ned to participate in the attack. 

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