MAY 28, 1940
HUPPY, FRANCE
1730 HOURS
The French tanks are too far apart.
Twenty-nine Char B1 bis rumble into this small village, lined up like ducks. They are alone, General de Gaulle preferring to hold back the infantry for now.
Under normal conditions, the entirety of the small village of Huppy is a five-minute stroll from southern entrance to northern exit. One main road splits the town, houses set back from the narrow lane. The air smells of pine forest and cow farms. Somewhere within this very narrow stretch of land are hidden soldiers of the 57th Bavarian Infantry Division. They are new to the war, just arrived today from Remagen, Germany, and eager to make their mark. The practice of replacing battle-weary troops with fresh reinforcements has already been shown to give the Germans an advantage over the exhausted French. And while they have no armor to speak of, the Nazis are fortified with anti-tank guns more than capable of winning the day.
The French 4th Armored Division knows that General de Gaulle has sent them to draw fire—thus the lack of infantry. But too great a separation leaves a tank vulnerable, allowing enemy gunners to focus their arsenal on one armored vehicle at a time. So as the Char B1s funnel into Huppy, those that have fallen behind struggle to catch up.
But their timing is inconsistent, closing the separation too quickly, now making it almost impossible for enemy gunners to miss, leaving not just one tank but the entire group vulnerable. “The tanks were slow in coming together,” one worried French officer will lament, “and then it seemed to me they were too close together. The enemy had a great many very well placed anti-tank weapons.”
The Nazis open fire without warning. The Char B1s rock violently as enemy rounds meet French steel. The sound of enemy machine-gun bullets and anti-tank shells colliding with each thick hull is that of a thousand staccato sledgehammers. Inside each tank, it is the same: teeth rattle, adrenaline spikes, panic.
And then, amazingly, relief. Just a little, but enough.
To the amazement of German and French alike, nothing penetrates the Char B1s’ dense construction. Pak 36 and 75mm rounds ricochet off the sloping exterior, spinning wildly into the evening air. The danger is no less real to the crews inside each tank, but mortality is not so close anymore.
Now it is the French who take aim.
General de Gaulle has given strict orders that his tanks maintain forward movement at all costs, searching for enemy guns while firing on the move. Even as the incoming fire continues, drivers in the forward left portion of the hull scan the battlefield through viewing slits—one at the very front of the B1, one immediately to the driver’s left.
Behind the driver, at the rear of the crew compartment, tank commanders stand atop a small ladderlike step just above the floor, searching for targets. The three-foot-long 47mm gun pokes straight forward, loaded and primed, soon to deliver an armor-piercing round into enemy position at seven hundred meters per second. The extent of the commander’s exterior vision is whatever can be seen through a gunsight no wider than the mouth of a Chablis glass. There is no right or left. His eye and the barrel of the big gun are synced. What he sees is what soon will die.
The commander’s right hand holds the sight steady while his left reaches for the electrical turret rotation switch. Rounds continue to rock the B1’s hull. A half minute is required for the complete turret revolution needed to scan the entire battlefield. But that is unnecessary. With each anti-tank round they fire, the 57th Bavarian clearly reveals their positions.
The tank commander moves his right hand to the 47mm firing mechanism. His left takes hold of the gunsight.
The turret is no place for fat men. Six inches is all that separates the breech of the 47mm gun from the commander’s torso. A shock wave washes over him as he pushes the firing mechanism, pressing his eyebrows flat. The shell explodes forward, traveling down the barrel of the gun and rocketing toward whichever teenage German whose muzzle flash has given him away, destroying the young man’s hopes and dreams in the time required to take a final breath.
Quickly the commander swings open the breech guard, hinged on the left, removes the spent shell, then reaches down and to his right for the fresh round being lifted up to him by the loader. Slamming the foot-long projectile into the chamber, the commander bangs shut the breech guard and instantly places an eye to the gunsight to find a new target.
The men inside the Char B1s barely knew what the crew compartment of a tank looked like eleven days ago in Montcornet. Now they are surgical in their movements and sure of their roles. They do not yet swagger into battle like the finest panzer crews, but their confidence grows with every engagement.
One by one, German gun positions are destroyed. The road ahead is clear.
De Gaulle’s infantry arrives to ensure the streets are free of snipers. A British unit, the vaunted 51st Highland Division, provides additional infantry support. A seventeenth-century castle in a forest of old beech trees remains standing. Despite being well within range of the German artillery, the general commandeers the stately building for a command post and field hospital. An ancient prison cell in the north tower is ideal for prisoners. A captured Nazi swastika flag is laid out as a tablecloth. Throughout the evening, the general keeps track of the battle by venturing out in a lightweight tank, as always refusing to show fear.
De Gaulle, in the words of the 4th Armored Division’s official history, was “always in the front line, often among the advance reconnaissance units, with his headquarters exposed to enemy fire . . . although he had no air support and his tanks were subject to constant attacks by Stukas, he always stood with the hatch of his own tank open and, if on his feet, refused to notice bombs and thundered at anyone who threw themselves on the ground.”
Emboldened, French tank commanders press on toward Abbeville.
“By the evening we had taken Huppy and there we were at Mont-de-Limeux, from which the Germans had fled in disorder before leaving their supper in their traveling kitchens,” one commander will exult. “We took 400 prisoners!”
As the French tanks push closer and closer to the bridges, the Germans fall back. Victory seems assured. This marks the first time any French unit has forced a Nazi retreat. Yet communications once again become an issue. De Gaulle cannot be everywhere at once and loses track of the battle. He is unaware that his advance units are nearing the Somme.
The general knows only that the Char B1s remain under enemy attack as they press on. Lack of gasoline and ammunition are becoming an issue, yet the tanks rumble forward, often crushing enemy anti-tank guns under their heavy treads rather than waste a round by opening fire. The Germans continue to flee in panic, terrified of the suddenly unstoppable French armor.
“An atmosphere of victory hung over the field,” de Gaulle will remember. “The wounded were smiling. The guns fired gaily. Before us, in a pitched battle, the Germans had retired.”
But as dusk settles at 9:00 p.m., bridges over the Somme in sight, de Gaulle gives the order to pull back. He has no idea how close he has come to total victory.
The French attack again at 4:00 a.m., but the advantage is lost. As de Gaulle’s army rested, refueled, and reloaded during a short night of sleep, the Germans filed back into their old positions, renewed in their desire to beat back the French. The big German 88s, which many consider the most lethal artillery piece on either side of the war, seal the French fate with precision delivery of armor-piercing rounds that decimate the otherwise indomitable Char B1s.
“The division,” one French officer will lament, “had reached the limit of its powers.”
Charles de Gaulle’s defeat is applauded as a moral victory. Even the general sees it that way, writing to Yvonne of his “great success.”
Yet the bridges over the Somme still stand. De Gaulle is relieved of command.
But this is not the end for Charles de Gaulle, nor has his love for France diminished. For all de Gaulle’s brooding and silence, the general is a man of deep passion about the true nature of his country and what it stands for.
“All my life I have had a certain idea of France,” he will write. “This is inspired by sentiment as much as by reason. The emotional side of me tends to imagine France, like the princess in the fairy stories or the Madonna in the frescoes, as dedicated to an exalted and exceptional destiny. Instinctively I have the feeling that Providence has created her neither for complete successes or for exemplary fortunes. If, in spite of this, mediocrity shows in her acts and deeds, it strikes me as an absurd anomaly, to be imputed to the faults of Frenchmen, not to the genius of the land. But the positive side of my mind also assures me that France is not really herself unless in the front rank . . . our country, as it is, surrounded by others, as they are, must aim high and hold itself straight, on pain of mortal danger. In short, to my mind, France cannot be France without greatness.”
So it is that the general will not back down “until the enemy is defeated and the national stain washed clean.”
And as General de Gaulle will soon learn, that enemy is everywhere. And the stain is still spreading.