The Vulcan Cannons had the capability of firing 2000 rounds a minute through their six rotating barrels at a kill and accuracy range of up to 6000 meters.

On the north Specialist Houston "Tex" Thomas from Indio, CA manned side of the pass at about the 1050-foot level the Vulcan Cannon emplacement. "Tex" was a big, jovial black man.

About 4000 meters south, the Vulcan Cannons across the pass at about the 850 foot level were manned by Private William Langdon from West Seneca, NY, the top gunner in the 4th Squad. Bill was of Quaker ancestry and was an enigma for not claiming "Conscientious Objector" status.

About 12:45 a.m., Lieutenant Cardeni gave orders that something hostile was incoming and that the gunners were to shoot down anything coming through the pass. He stated that no "friendlies" would be flying below 2700 feet and anything else was to be shot down.

At that point, "Bill" Langdon suddenly came in touch with his Quaker upbringing, left his cannon and went back to awaken his squad leader, Aaron Yonts, from the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Langdon refused to shoot down anything with someone in it.

The Private said his piece and climbed into one of the auxiliary vehicles and went to sleep while Sgt. Yonts shook himself awake and climbed into the Vulcan Cannon and began adjusting his eyesight to the bright moonlight. Yonts then got on his radio and confirmed that Lt. Cardeni had indeed issued orders to shoot down anything flying under 2700 feet of altitude.

About 1:00 a.m. local German Time, Sgt. Yonts had his chance as something came down the valley headed for the pass. He described it as a flattened ellipsoid with rounded edges, about 30 feet long, and glowing with a silvery iridescence. He said it was moving at a rapid speed that was impossible to judge accurately as it was apparently trying to be evasive by zigzagging side to side.

It took a few seconds for Sgt. Yonts' Cannon's computer and Doppler radar to calculate a precise speed, range, and direction of travel and to achieve a lock-on. When the cannon was locked onto the object and he was visually sighting the object through the reticule gun-sights he began firing. First a few rounds for effect and then three four second bursts of 110 rounds each into the side of the object which was at about eye level.

Sgt. Yonts was almost eye level with the object as he watched his rounds pouring into its sides. He was expecting to see the "blooming flower" effect of the phosphorus rounds exploding but he did not, although he could clearly follow the trail of his shots pouring into the side of the object. "It was as if the shells were being absorbed or being vaporized at the explosion by some sort of "force field", Yonts said. Yonts' perception was that the rounds were going into invisible tubes that contained the detonations, so that he saw only pie-tin sized explosions but not phosphorus "blooming" that he expected. This was quite a remarkable containment of shells having a 35-meter kill radius.