The most ferocious action for the Royal Rifles occurred on Christmas Day when Wallis ordered the Royal Rifles to launch a counterattack to retake the northern parts of Stanley village. Home protested against this order, saying it was well known that Maltby was going to surrender later the same day, but the attack went ahead anyway as it felt necessary to maintain the honor of the British empire. When the order to came to attack on Stanley on Christmas Day, McDonell remembered that his men were "...completely exhausted, covered with blood, dirt, wounds; on Christmas Day, I woke them up from the first sleep they'd had inside, behind a wall. We been pulled out for a day to get some rest. I called them together and said, 'At one o'clock the company is going to attack Stanley village below us', in broad daylight, no support, no artillery, no heavy machine-guns, nothing...Now they looked at me, as if I had lost my mind. I knew this was suicide. I knew I would never live through that day and then I thought to myself, well, if they're gonna mutiny, now is the time because this order is insane...but I stood in front of my troops and said 'We're going in at one o'clock.'...Not a single man said 'I can't do it, I wanna be relieved, I've been wounded', not a single person asked to be excused from the attack. Not a single man". The D company of the Royal Rifles commanded by McDonell advanced across four hundred yards of open ground, but were helped by the fact that the Japanese were not expecting a counterattack. Upon reaching the Japanese lines, fierce hand-to-hand fighting occurred with both sides using their bayonets to avoid killing their own as the close quarters made it inadvisable to fire their rifles. Finally the Japanese were expelled by the Royal Rifles. As the Japanese retreated across the open road, McDonell had his men open fire on them with submachine guns and three Bren guns, remembering that their losses were substantial.