Suffering from dysentery and not feeling well, Crockett assembled eight men and armed them with automatic weapons; two had Bren guns and the remainder carried Stens. They also carried a full complement of platoon equipment; a PIAT, a 2 inch mortar, and a 38 radio set. They wore canvas shoes instead of combat boots (Canadian combat boots had steel hobnails, toe and heel plates) and took as much ammunition as they could carry. Crockett was going to rely on silence to get them across a damaged lock gate before the Germans could discover them. Crockett briefed his men, telling them that "...if the flare goes up, no matter where we are at, you get as low as you can and don't move....nobody fires until I tell you. There is a possibility that we are going to get caught on the lock gates."
At 0130 on 22 September, Crockett left his company commander at the edge of the canal and moved off. Crockett crossed halfway on his own, reaching a small island in the middle of the canal, then came back to lead the rest of the patrol. The Canal was ninety feet wide. Corporal R.A. Harold followed behind, and the patrol made it to a partially damaged stretch of lock gate; for the last eight feet, only a single six inch pipe was available to cross on. Crockett left the patrol, and edged across the wet pipe, slinging his weapon on his back and using a thin wire that the Germans had erected as a handrail. Reaching the north bank and finding a barrier of barbed wire, he returned to the patrol and brought them over.
Harold and Crockett eased the barrier aside; the rest of "C" Company could only wait in silence and wonder what was happening. Crockett had decided not to radio word of his success so far, for fear the Germans would hear his voice. Nonetheless, a flare suddenly went up, and Crockett heard a challenge in German. Some men were still on the pipe; German machine guns opened up and one was hit. The rest scurried onto the north bank, the two NCOs directing them into tall grass. Then Crockett yelled, in pure Western Canadian, "Give them shit!" and opened fire with his Sten, killing a sentry. He charged a German machinegun position and silenced it, then moved up with Private I.P. MacDonald, who fired two PIAT rounds at a German MG position inside a house. Crockett then directed the fire of the 2 inch mortar until a third German MG was knocked out.
Harold gave first aid to the wounded Highlander as this was going on, and tended to three other men who had also been hit. He and Private Myers led them back over the canal. This left Crockett with only three other men on the north bank, and they were running out of ammunition. Crockett ordered the radio man to send a request for assistance, but the radio man told him he had lost the aerial. Crockett shook the radio operator, impressed on him the importance of finding it, and then crawled on hands and knees with him, under German fire, until they found it in the grass.
The remainder of Crockett's platoon, followed by the rest of "C" Company, then followed over the lock gate and established a bridgehead. By 0420, 5th Brigade headquarters could be informed that an entire company had crossed the Albert Canal.