Legend of Stonne
Capitaine Pierre Billotte, picture taken in september 1941 on the ship Empress of Canada. Capitaine Billotte is renowned for his action during the battle of Stonne on the 16th may 1940. A little village crucial to the german bridgehead in the Ardennes, Stonne was supposed to be occupied by a panzerdivision and the elite Grossdeutschland regiment as Guderian ordered, on the 15th may. On the first day the village was taken and re-taken no less than 7 times by the opposing sides, the german holding it for the night. On the morning of the 16th, the french counter-attacked again, capitaine Billotte commander of the 1st company of the 41th fighting tanks battalion entering first in the village in his B1 BIS tank "Eure". Facing, alone, a column of no less than 13 panzers, he immediately ordered his pilot to fire his 75mm gun on the farthest one (which burst into flames), while he fired his turret 47mm gun on the closest one, hitting it and so blocking the whole column. During the following minutes he managed to destroy the 11 remaining panzers and then 2 antitank guns, practically capturing the village by himself. After this episode, 140 marks were numbered on Billotte's tank, but no single one of the german projectile penetrated its armor. The battle of Stonne is remembered as "the verdun of 1940" by the Germans. Billotte is later wounded and captured, in june 1940. He escaped through Pomerania and reaches USSR where he was "kept" until Barbarossa, and then became the Free French representative in Moscow. He then came to London to be nominated as de Gaulle's chieff of staff and secretary of the National Defense Committe. Later he joined the famous Leclerc's 2nd armored division as a colonel and participated in the liberation of Paris as such, before being named général and organizing the 10th infantry division made up with former resistance members.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/french-forces/39218/legend-of-stonne