In their after-action reports, none of the French battalion commanders on the main line of resistance mentioned having received a visit during the fighting from their regimental commander. Similarly, the regimental commander never saw the division commander or the assistant division commander until he was forced completely out of his position. Likewise, the division commander never met with the corps commander. At each echelon, the French commanders remained rooted to their command posts.
While the German generals rode armored vehicles, used powerful and effective mobile radios, and surveyed the battle area in small aircraft, the French generals remained comfortably to the rear. The French generals were by no means cowards, but the style of leadership that had been imbued in them since 1914 emphasized the necessity of their remaining at their headquarters, sitting before large maps showing the entire battle. With their hands “on the handle of a fan,” as the French described this style of leadership, the generals made decisions, dispatched troops, contemplated actions, but did not move forward and inspire their soldiers. The French general was one who made decisions and managed the allocation of resources, not one who personally led his troops in battle.
Unfortunately, the decisions made by French generals in May 1940 were often made too late, for changing circumstances in the rapidly flowing battle were more quickly recognized by German generals who were forward than by French generals who were in the rear. While one would expect a commander who is fighting a defensive battle usually to be farther to the rear than one who is leading an attack, the French generals were positioned so they could fight a methodical, not a highly mobile battle.
WITH THE 2/147TH BEHIND TORCY
With responsibility for the center position in Lieutenant Colonel Pinaud's regiment, the 2/147th occupied the defensive area between Torcy and the Bois de la Marfée. The battalion commander, Captain Carribou, had three centers of resistance: one at Torcy along the Meuse River; another called “La Prayelle” that included Hill 247 and extended along the second line; and a third called “Prés des Queues” that extended along the stopping line in the woods of the Bois de la Marfée. Carribou placed the 6th Company, 2/295th, in Torcy; the 5th Company, 2/147th, in La Prayelle; and the 6th Company, 2/331st, in Prés des Queues. He thus had three companies arranged in depth, one along each line.
He also had a fourth company. As a fortress infantry battalion, the 2/147th had a fourth organic company that included infantry and heavy weapons. He split this fourth company, which had two platoons of infantrymen, a mortar platoon, and an antitank section. One infantry platoon, the mortar platoon, and the antitank section moved forward and reinforced the Torcy center of resistance with the 6th Company, 2/295th Infantry. The other infantry platoon moved to the rear to provide security for the headquarters of the 147th Regiment. The remnants of the company, which were little more than the command group and the communications section, occupied a strong point on the right flank of Prés des Queues.22
The 6th Company, 2/295th, located in the Torcy center of resistance, was larger than most companies, but Captain Carribou decided to strengthen it even further on the 12th when he detached a platoon from the 5th Company, 2/147th, at La Prayelle and sent it to reinforce Captain Auzas’ company, The 6th Company had earlier been reinforced by a machine gun platoon from the 2/331st. Including elements from the fourth company of the 2/147th, Auzas commanded elements from three different battalions and four different companies. His company defended the Meuse where the Gross Deutschland Regiment attempted to cross.
Around 0500 hours on the 13th, Auzas’ company saw enemy patrols that had crossed over from Sedan and had entered the large island between Sedan and Torcy. At 0700 hours the infantry in Torcy opened fire on and knocked down a German soldier near the destroyed bridge that led from Torcy into the island. Throughout the morning, artillery observers called in fire on German activity on the right bank of the Meuse. Beginning at 1400 hours, the bunkers near several of the destroyed bridges, particularly those near Pont Neuf, the northernmost bridge in Sedan, came under intense direct fire. Without steel covers over the firing ports, which could thus not be closed, many of the men inside the bunkers were quickly wounded by splinters, and several of the bunkers were put out of action.23
Some time after 1500 hours, the Gross Deutschland Regiment crossed the Meuse between Torcy and the Ruisseau de Glaire. Attacking with the 2nd Battalion in the first wave and other battalions following, their assault went against the French strong points on the west of Torcy that included only two machine guns and one submachine gun. Located in a small bunker where the Ruisseau de Glaire enters the Meuse, the submachine gun had been knocked out earlier, and the machine guns may also have been destroyed by artillery fire. Intense fire still came from the bunkers near Pont Neuf, however, and the first attempt by the 7th Company to cross failed.
Minutes later the Germans poured more direct fire into the bunkers, which soon ceased firing. Under this cover the 7th Company quickly crossed the river, accompanied by elements from the 6th Company. After crossing successfully, their objective became Hill 247, about three kilometers south between Frénois and Wadelincourt.
Once the infantry from the 2nd Battalion of the Gross Deutschland Regiment overcame the defenses along the river, the French positions immediately confronting them were on the outskirts of Torcy, and they attempted to avoid getting drawn into a fight in the city's buildings. While the 2nd Battalion tried to continue moving forward, elements of the 3rd Battalion crossed the Meuse and fought to clear Torcy. Nevertheless, French fire from Torcy on the flank of the 2nd Battalion and then fire from Les Forges and from the vicinity of Hill 247 (the La Prayelle center of resistance) hampered their forward movement. The German 1st Infantry Regiment had already reached Bellevue before the 2nd Battalion of the Gross Deutschland Regiment advanced a significant distance away from the river line.
Around 1700 hours the French defenders in Torcy received word to pull back to La Prayelle. With the Germans having partially moved around the city, the Frenchmen came under small-arms and artillery fire as they withdrew, but most made it safely back to the rear position of the second line. The leaders of the 55th Division believed the defenders in Torcy had fought well, probably better than any of the other companies along the river. Colonel Chaligne, the commander of the infantry in the division, later identified the men under Captain Auzas in Torcy as deserving special praise.24
If the men of Captain Auzas’ company performed well in Torcy, they did not strengthen the defenses of the second line. Despite the strong pressure already being exerted against Hill 247 and along the edge of the Bois de la Marfée, many did not remain to strengthen the defenses but continued to move to the rear. One lieutenant later offered an explanation for being far from the fighting. He claimed that his unit received orders in the middle of the night to occupy a position to the left of the 3/295th at Cheveuges, but enemy fire forced him and his men to pull back farther to the south.25 Considering the soon-to-be-desperate situation that Captain Carribou's battalion faced, this officer's explanation is probably little more than a cover for the panic felt by him and his men.
Throughout the fighting, Captain Carribou felt extremely isolated and did not know what was happening on the right and left flanks of his battalion. During the heavy bombardment by German aircraft, telephonic communications with regimental headquarters were regularly interrupted. As with the 2/331st, the telephone wires had been strung in the open and were frequently cut. Repairs became more and more difficult as German aircraft attempted to machine gun soldiers in the open who were trying to repair telephone wires. Carribou requested authorization to use his radio, but regimental headquarters refused to give him permission.26
Around 1630 hours Captain Carribou discovered that his battalion's left flank was completely uncovered. The infantry in the center of resistance to his left had disappeared, as had some of the 6th Company, 2/331st, which had been attached to him and which was supposed to occupy the Prés des Queues center
of resistance. Half an hour after discovering the gap on his left, he moved some of the engineers with his battalion into the breach and then went personally to his left flank to check on the “very grave” situation. In his report written two weeks later, Carribou explained that the 6th Company, 2/331st, had been in Prés des Queues for only three days and had not completely settled into its position.27 The 6th Company was supposed to hold the stopping line at the rear of the 2/147th, but the soldiers seemed to be more interested in fleeing than fighting. Even though Carribou had to intervene personally to keep them in their positions, many still disappeared.
Over the next two hours, officers and soldiers fleeing from the Germans found their way back to the battalion's headquarters. One of these was Second Lieutenant Loritte who had been captured at Wadelincourt but had managed to escape despite being badly wounded. He told Carribou that everyone else in the bunker that he commanded had been killed or wounded.28
In an effort to strengthen his position, Carribou took Captain Vitte (who commanded in the 2/147 the combination infantry and heavy weapons company whose combat platoons had been attached to other companies) and put him in charge of the soldiers who had fled from the principal line of resistance. He ordered Vitte to occupy a line that extended across the battalion's sector from the center of resistance on the left known as Col de la Boulette to the right edge of Prés des Queues. He thus tried to reestablish another line of resistance along the edge of the woods of Bois de la Marfée.29
Carribou then returned to his battalion command post and ordered the destruction of all papers and classified materials. He wanted to use the men in the battalion headquarters to establish a second line behind Captain Vitte's position.
As he worked to provide depth to his positions, the Germans continued to advance. The attack against Hill 247 (La Prayelle) came from two different directions. To the northwest, elements of the Gross Deutschland Regiment captured around 1800 hours the large bunker (number 104) about 700 meters northeast of Frénois and the smaller bunker (number 7 bis) about 400 meters northeast of Frénois. To the east, elements of the 10th Panzer Division captured the bunker (number 8 ter) about 700 meters southwest of the railroad station. Subsequent attacks brought pressure against Hill 247 from the northwest and the northeast.
Around 1840 hours Vitte saw some German infantry moving toward the crest of Hill 247, the strongest point in La Prayelle. These attacking German soldiers were probably from the 6th Company, 2nd Battalion of the Gross Deutschland Regiment. As the Germans pressed forward, a French officer ran toward Vitte, yelling: “Send us reinforcements. The Boches are near. They are going to break through. Send us a platoon immediately. There is still time.”
Vitte jumped up and yelled, “Forward,” but the moment he stepped from the woods, he came under heavy enemy fire. He fell to the ground and crawled back into the woods. No reinforcements went to the men at La Prayelle,30 and shortly thereafter the final bunker fell. The capture of La Prayelle around 1900 hours was one of the most important achievements of the Germans at this point in the battle. By occupying this key part of the second line of resistance for the French and ending their covering fire for units forward of the line, they provided important assistance to the units of the 1st Infantry Regiment moving into the breakthrough at Bellevue. Their seizure of Hill 247 also permitted the Germans to accelerate their work on bridging the Meuse at Gaulier.
After moving his command group forward into the woods south of Prés des Queues, Captain Carribou discovered that the rest of the 6th Company, 2/331st, on the stopping line at his battalion's rear had abandoned their positions. There was little he could do, other than send a messenger to regimental headquarters at 1915 hours to inform Lieutenant Colonel Pinaud of the desperate situation.31 Hill 247 and La Prayelle had fallen, he had no contact with units to his right or left, and he did not know what was happening in the rest of the regiment's area.
Perhaps even more ominously, soldiers continued to flee from the front. The S-2 of the 2/147th helped stop some of the panicked soldiers and move them into new defensive positions.32 But many of them simply faded away as soon as no one was watching.
Around 2045 hours the men under Captain Vitte withdrew in haste toward the line held by Captain Carribou and his few men. They were being pushed hard by the Germans, who in some cases were even ahead of them. Carribou's position included two submachine guns and a machine gun, and fires from the French halted the Germans about two hundred meters from them. Almost immediately, artillery fire began falling on the French position, killing one soldier and wounding another. At the same time, Carribou could tell from the fire to his flanks that his position was being bypassed and that he would soon be encircled. Having no reserves, he decided to withdraw.
At 2145 hours he and his men arrived at the house of the local forester in the middle of the Bois de la Marfée. Already at the crossroads by the house were three 25mm cannon and some personnel from the antitank company of the division, but they were prepared to depart. Lieutenant Marchand, the battalion S-2, tried to convince them to stay, but the platoon sergeant responded that division headquarters had ordered him not to allow his weapons to fall in the hands of the enemy.33 Carribou apparently ordered them to remain and reinforce his dwindling group of soldiers.
The captain placed sentinels around the crossroads and prepared to defend the position. He sent three officers to make contact with the defenders still continuing to fight at the French military cemetery (one kilometer northwest of Noyers and one kilometer east of Carribou's position). The officers managed to reach the command post of Captain Gabel (of the 2/295th Battalion) at the cemetery and discovered that a gap of about 800 meters existed between the two locations. After reporting to the battalion, they began making their way back to Carribou location. Less than 200 meters from Gabel's locations, a German machine gun fired at them, but they made their way back safely to the crossroads at 0200 hours.34
Though Carribou had only fifty men, nine of whom were officers, he received an order from regiment around 0200 hours to abandon his position in the Bois de la Marfée, move south, and reinforce the resistance around Chaumont. Bedraggled and exhausted, he and his men arrived at Chaumont at 0400 hours.
WITH THE 2/295TH BEHIND WADELINCOURT
Occupying positions on the right of Lieutenant Colonel Pinaud's regiment, the 2/295th had divided its area into three centers of resistance: one along the river, another in the west from Hill 246 to the French cemetery, and the third in the east from Mont Fournay to Noyers. It thus had one company forward and two companies side by side to its rear. The commander, Captain Gabel, placed the 6th Company, 2/147th, in the center of resistance along the river, the 7th Company, 2/295th, in the center of resistance on the western side of his area, and the 5th Company, 2/295th, in the center of resistance on the eastern side. The two rear companies shared a second line along the high ground between Hill 246 and Mont Fournay and a stopping line between the French cemetery and Noyers.
The battalion's position was rather awkwardly organized. The northern part of the center of resistance along the river (between the Ruisseau du Moulin and the railroad bridge known as Pont du Bouillonnais) did not have elements from the 2/295th behind it. Instead, the second line in that area came under the control of the 2/147th, the battalion to the west of the 2/295th. Men withdrawing from the northern part of the center of resistance along the river would have to move into another battalion's area.
Within the area of the 2/295th, the battalion and company commanders divided the centers of resistance into smaller strong points. Perhaps the most important of these was Etadan, the strong point around Hill 246 that lay behind the southern part of Wadelincourt. Of the thirteen bunkers in the battalion's sector, four were located at Etadan. Of the thirteen, however, only the three along the river had been finished; the other ten lacked weapons, steel covers for firing ports, or other necessary materiel.35
Captain Leflon commanded the 6th Company, 2/147th, which occupied the center
of resistance at Wadelincourt. He had divided the center of resistance into four strong points: three on the river (from north to south, Passage, Voie Ferrée, and Héron), and one near the large church in the northern part of Wadelincourt that was called Eglise. He had only one bridge in his area, the Pont du Bouillonnais, which no longer exists but which was approximately midway between the bridge in Sedan leading to the railroad station and the small island in the Meuse directly east of Wadelincourt. He located one strong point (Passage) behind this bridge and had no difficulty destroying the bridge on 12 May at 1700 hours.
The morning of the 13th proceeded smoothly despite four or five aerial attacks, and Leflon devoted most of his time to visiting the strong points. Telephonic links to battalion headquarters remained open, and courier liaison with the strong points functioned well. Nothing suggested things would not continue to go well.
When aerial attacks increased to an “extraordinary intensity,” difficulties began to appear. Around 1430 hours telephonic communications with battalion were cut, but Leflon did not send a courier to its headquarters. He later explained that it took a courier at least an hour to reach the headquarters and that a round trip took about two to three hours. Leflon tried to visit the strong points along the river, but as he moved forward, he came under small-arms fire. Though he initially tried to move behind the houses in the village, he soon abandoned his attempt to visit the strong points and returned to his command post.
The Breaking Point Page 23
