The following month, as the Italians surrendered, new commander, Brigadier C. D. Armstrong had been appointed to Mihailović's HQ. On 20 September, new reinforcements Captain Patterson, Captain Vercoe, and Sergeant Scott were dropped. Patterson landed without a hitch, but both Vercoe and Scott fell in trees and were heavily injured, unable to walk. On 15 October, in order to try to sabotage the Bor copper mines, SOE headquarters sent 48-year-old Major Scorgie, a mining-engineer who was hoping to work with someone 'inside'. The ground attack did not go ahead mainly due to the RAF not being able to provide airplanes for the simultaneous diversionary air-raid. On 22 October, Rootham, Greenwood and Scorgie left Gornjane and picked up a former Danube pilot to act as a technical adviser on their way to the river. The plan was to fire a 20-mm anti-tank gun and sink a tug-boat. The gun had 12 rounds of ammunition but no telescopic sights. They reached Boljetin and started the operation on 26 October around 09:15, by shooting at an approaching German tug-boat "Centaur". They did not sink the tug-boat but managed to hit it and disrupt the shipping lane for some time. The German propaganda leaflets denied this and stated that 150 of Mihailović's supporters in Belgrade were shot on 28 October, as a reprisal for this and for the two German soldiers killed near Kladovo earlier in the month. In spite of the awful consequences, Rootham saw the importance of the action. In January 1944, the group had attempted to blow up the main railway bridge over the Morava river, south of Stalać. Another railway bridge over the Ibar river was to be destroyed on the same day, thus paralyzing the north-south railway traffic in Serbia. General Mihailović was to issue the order for both attacks. In spite of frantic signals sent to Mihailović's HQ for the permission to carry out the plan, the order never came, damaging the morale of the group. On 2 March, the mission received the telegram that the decision had been taken to evacuate all the British men and officers at present with Mihailović and to move towards Brig Armstrong's HQ in Western Serbia. They were not surprised, as few weeks previously, Rootham noted:  During this time, Lieutenant Hargreaves was captured by a small detachment of German ex-Afrika Corps.