Stonne

“AP” I yell.

Krause removes an armor piercing shell from the wicker basket, handing it to Fuchs, the loader.

Fuchs places the AP round gently within the open breach on our Pak-36 anti-tank gun.

Pohl closes the breach, making the gun ready.

We’re dug in, and loaded, for the inevitable French counter-attack.

“Now we wait” I tell my men, as we scan through the town, and up the lane on the right.

Armor crews rush to their idling tanks, all lined up in a column up the narrow lane in the small village of Stonne.

Small French houses bracket each tank in the line.

Those could be my house. This could be Boppard, where mom is now. What if the French offensive had broken through the Sigfried Line last year, advancing all the way through Boppard? What if mom had been in a house surrounded by French tanks?

Damn those French tanks!

Just as I think about French tanks, a Char-B1 appears up the road, on the edge of this small French town.

The moment I notice it, it fires two shots; one from it’s 47 mm turret gun, and the other from its hull-mounted 75 mm gun.

He was ready!

Instantly the first and last tanks in the column lined up on that narrow street burst into flames.

Get him, Get him!

“Prepare to fire at that Char-B if he comes within range” I calmly tell my crew.

We all stare in amazement as the French tank moves forward, rapidly firing both guns at the line of German tanks.

The German tanks fire back, all nine left in operation are pounding the French tank with everything they can throw at it.

Nothing is penetrating!

That thing is a beast!

The Char-B keeps coming, knocking down tank after tank in the German column.

Four German tanks are burning as they are pushed aside by the oncoming French monster.

“In Range!” Vogt screams above the sound of more shells firing and the eruption of our compatriots flammable armored vehicles.

“Fire!” I scream back.

At this range we’re just knocking on the door.

“AP” I yell, starting the loading process for my AT gun all over again.

The French tank simply continues forward, impervious to all the steel thrown at it.

Krause removes an armor piercing shell from the wicker basket, handing it to Fuchs, the loader.

Our shell quietly disappears into the Char’s armor, with no discernible result.

Fuchs places the AP round gently within the open breach.

Pohl closes the breach, making the gun ready.

The French tank is closer now.

May this round find its way home!

“Fire!” I scream, yet again launching an armor piercing shell at the French Char-B.

Another two Panzers explode as the Char-B thrusts its way through the small town.

“AP” I yell, repeating the loading process.

The French tank continues forward so it is now only a few hundred meters away.

Again, the shell is absorbed in the French tank’s thick armor, with no result.

It’s as if that thing is swallowing our steel, then spitting it back out at our tanks as it goes.

Krause removes an armor piercing shell from the wicker basket, handing it to Fuchs, the loader.

Fuchs places the AP round gently within the open breach.

Pohl closes the breach, making the gun ready.

Our tanks rapidly fire at the onrushing French machine, but their shots are as effective as my own.

Another two Panzers explode.

How many are dying from this one French Char-B?

I sure hope he’s alone!

“AP” I yell, hoping the closing range will help my rounds penetrate.

Krause slowly removes an armor piercing shell from the wicker basket, as he stares at the oncoming French beast.

Fuchs reaches out, taking the shell from Krause.

Their faces are solid with fear.

Is my face expressing the same thing?

That monster is under 100 meters away, and still coming strong.

“Stay focused on your duty.” I remind my crew.

Their faces turn back to their work.

Fuchs places the AP round gently within the open breach.

Pohl sternly closes the breach, prepping the gun.

“Fire!” I yell just as two more Panzers blow up.

That’s the last of our tanks.

Now it’s up to us.

The French tank dashes toward us.

Our last round ricocheting off the front armor plate.

We’re useless against this behemoth!

As he closes range we should penetrate.

We should!

“AP” I scream, knowing this will be our last round before he’s on us.

The French tank’s machine gun opens up on us, spitting rounds all around our position.

This is it!

Krause gingerly removes an armor piercing shell from the wicker basket, while his body trembles.

“Krause, stay with us.”

A round smashes through Krause’s left leg, crumpling him just as he hands the round to Fuchs, whose face is pale white.

“This is our chance to knock it down, load up Fuchs!” I scream.

Fuchs automatically places the round in the breach, which Pohl snaps shut.

They are breaking!

“Medic! Medic!” Fuchs screams, hoping to help Krause.

Am I breaking?

“Fire!” I scream, as I stare down the on-rushing French monster.

“NOTHING!” I holler before realizing anything slipped out.

Krause is whithering in agony on the ground with Fuchs over him.

We’re no longer an operational unit.

BCHCHCHOOOOO

I’m blown away from my gun.

Darkness surrounds my small area of remaining site.

That Monster bit me too!

Looking back toward where my gun had been set-up, I see Pohl dangling over the destroyed breach.

I can’t see Fuchs or Krause anywhere.

The French tank has already turned, making its way up the small lane to our right.

Hopefully the other Pak-36 over there can find a way to penetrate his armor.

My eyes go dark.

My world goes quiet.

My mind goes still.

On May 16, 1940 a single French B1 bis named “Eure” and commanded by Captain Bilotte forced its way into the town of Stonne. Hotly contested, Stonne switched sides 17 times over the course of the German invasion of France. Captain Bilotte’s Eure attacked a German column from Panzer Regiment 8, destroying 2 Panzer IV and 11 Panzer III tanks, along with 2 Pack 36 anti-tank guns. After his successful assault, Captain Billotte turned around, heading back out of the village. His tank had endured 140 shell impacts, all of which failed to penetrate the thick armor of this massive beast of a machine. After the battle Bilotte was nicknamed “The Butcher of Stonne.”

Contrary to popular opinion, even though France eventually fell to the German onslaught, the French put up a heck of a fight with some advanced and awesomely powerful equipment. Poor communication, tactics, and strategic leadership, as well as operational plans and some good German luck led to France’s defeat. It wasn’t their ability to inflict heavy losses on the Germans which caused them to fall.

Today Captain Bilotte’s Eure can be seen in the center of Stonne. His name is also given to an award in the game “World of Tanks” in which the player destroys a large number of enemy vehicles quickly. Pierre Armand Gaston Bilotte went on to serve as a military attache, a division commander, the head of France’s military mission to the United Nations, and eventually Minister of National Defense.

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Threads of The War, Volume IV.

High Life

There should be beautiful flowers here.

Staring across the Ypres River, I can’t help but imagine how this area must look when there is no war on. For the past three weeks artillery, gas, aerial bombs, and field guns ravaged the banks of this, probably, once beautiful riverbank, turning a natural environment to shell-hole mud-filled pits of despair, and the soft sloping banks of the river into a no-man’s land littered with the blood soaked broken bloated bodies of the dead and dying.

The Huns are not only killing us, they’re killing Spring.

There is no life here, only death.

No hope here, only hardship

No future here, only the slow silent spread of greenish yellow clouds across a corpse strewn landscape between two masses of to be slaughtered men.

My battalion arrived yesterday, relieving what was left of a unit of French Colonials from Senegal, on this part of the line. The Hun have been attacking since late April, using a new and terrifying method of death, Gas.

When we arrived we were met by around 30 bedraggled and utterly broken colonials; all that was left alive of over 4,000, from what I heard and can see. Bloated bodies of thousands of the fallen litter the near bank of the Ypres River, where it looks like many died trying to drink water to relieve the asphyxiation caused by gas.

We were issued masks made of a sheet of cotton sewn under a coarse fabric, connected to an elastic band that wraps over the ears. 

The Colonials didn’t have masks.

Are we better off than they were?

We’re crouched down in the reserve trench, about fifty yards from the front-line trench, hiding our bodies from the roving eyes of German snipers and artillery spotting planes.

Behind us lays the remnants of what was once a collection of trees. All of the branches are bare of leaves, but a few branches still remain. Besides the lice, and rats, these trees are the only life in my whole field of view.

Did the animals leave, or were they killed? Do any still live nearby? If so, how?

“Batterson, stop daydreaming and get your kit, we’re going on patrol!” Sargent Goodale barks in his high pitch.

“Yes Sargent!” I reply.

Without standing up to my full height, I slowly move my bent body toward my pack.

Just as I’m putting the straps for my pack over my right shoulder someone screams out “GAS, GAS, coming across the river!”

“MASKS ON MEN” Goodale barks again, in an even higher pitch.

I reach into the sack now strapped to my left side where we were told to put our mask, pulling it out in one smooth movement of my wrist.

Good thing I practiced!

I quickly plant the cotton against my mouth, pulling the elastic band around my left ear, then my right. Other men are fumbling with their masks, knocking helmets off, dropping the white cotton filters into the sticky mud.

Thank God I practiced!

“Everyone down, the gas will float over us” Goodale yells through his mask, the high pitch dampened because his mouth is covered in cotton and cloth.

In talking with the Colonials, I heard that the gas stayed low and filled in the trench and river between the banks.

I look up, exposing my head, to see the gas approach. Across the river now, the yellow-green cloud doesn’t seem to be moving, but rather simply expanding. Air only littered with mud, dirt, and the grime of war is consumed by the ever enlarging cloud of split pea mixed with mustard colored chemicals. The cloud of gas continues expanding up the river bank, but does not seem to get above two meters in height.

“Sargent, instead of staying low we should seek high ground!” I yell through my mask.

“Batterson, shut it and stay down, they’ll be attacking behind the gas.” His high pitch muffled even more by the tilt of his head cutting some of his airflow.

Looking around I can see the whole company laying low.

“The Colonials said that the gas stayed low, it’s doing that now, we need to get up high!” I yell again.

“Damn it Batterson, you insubordinate slime. You stay down or I’ll shoot you myself.” Sargent Goodale blurts as he fumbles to remove his sidearm from his prone body.

The whole unit lays in wait as the gas expands to where we are. 

“Aaaarrrgghhh, aaaarrrgghhhh” gurgling and chocking sounds emanate from the front line trench.

The gas must be sinking into the trench.

“Rise out of the trench, come up and out, stand above the gas!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

“That’s it Batterson, one more peep out of you and it’s a bullet through the . . .” his words cut short by the approach of the gas.

I’m not getting caught in this!

Just as the cloud expands to occupy the space of my prone unit, I jump into the air. As I turn, I can make out the sound of coughing, choking, and gagging from the men of my unit, but I’m not listening or looking at anyone. Without a second thought, I run from the line toward one of the trees still visible.

If I can get up the tree I may stay above the cloud.

Scurrying as fast as my legs can pump, I approach the naked, and bullet or shell splintered, tree.

Up, quick before the cloud arrives!

My arms strain, flexing more than I’ve exerted in the past months in Army training, to launch myself up the tree faster than I ever achieved as a boy. Legs scrambling to find footing, I simply race up the trunk as if I had squirrel claws on my hands and feet.

I’ve never climbed a tree this fast before.

My life has never before depended on climbing a tree.

Below me the pea-mustard cloud envelopes the base of the trunk as it moves west toward the rear of the line.

I can no longer hear the gurgitations of the men in the front trench, but those of my battalion are nearby. What sound like muted screams, metal scabbards falling, and men moving quickly in many directions comes through the cloud, but I cannot see anything inside.

“Glad these trees are here!” some guy calls out from another tree just a few meters away.

I don’t recognize him.

“I didn’t know anyone else knew to do this.” I reply just loud enough for him to hear me.

“What do you mean, you told everyone to get up!” he retorts.

Looking harder at him, I cannot make out his name, and can only see his eyes under his helmet and behind his gas mask.

“Did anyone else get up?” I ask.

“I didn’t see anyone. Looks like it’s just the two of us.”

In the spring of 1915 the Germans began the first mass use of Chlorine Gas in warfare at the 2nd Battle of Ypres.  Initially those who first experienced it did not know what to do.  French Colonial troops were the first victims, losing thousands of men who attempted to wash away the gas by drinking from the Ypres River’s gas tainted waters, thus worsening their condition and bringing on a more painful death than had they simply ran away.  What remained of these men were replaced on the front by British troops supplied with rudimentary, and ineffective gas masks. Those who could speak French talked to the Colonials, learning from them that the gas tended to stay low to the ground, filling shell holes and trenches. They shared this information, but it went against what commanders knew at the time about war, which was that you stay down so you don’t get shot. When the British units were gassed in May they donned their gas masks and laid low, except for a few who chose another option.  Of a Battalion of over 1,000 men deployed along the River in one attack, five survived by climbing a few remaining trees. Weeks later, not even these trees remained. Over the course of the war gas masks were made much more effective through intense scientific study and experimentation, eventually being supplied for men, horses, and other animals necessary for the conduct of the war.