The Need for Organisational Resilience - Chapter 3

Nevertheless, the main drive to cross the river was planned for Dinant, at 0300 am on 13

May. Likewise, at Monthermé, assault engineers were bound to make a dash across the

river, under the cover of smoke:

But we had no smoke unit. So I now gave orders for a number of houses in the

valley to be set alight in order to supply the smoke we lacked.

Minute by minute the enemy fire grew more unpleasant. From upriver a damaged

rubber boat came drifting down to us with a badly wounded man clinging to it,

shouting and screaming for help – the poor fellow was near to drowning. But there

was no help for him here, the enemy fire was too heavy. [Ref, p. 325 or Rommel]

Those infantry elements who had made it across the river were pinned down by well

concealed French bunkers. Rommel rushed to his headquarters to demand greater fire

support from artillery and tanks. Help finally arrived in the form of Panzer IVs from the 25th

Panzer Regiment. Cruising along the east bank, they poured fire into the French defences.

Under cover of this tank fire, engineers established a cable ferry that brought the first

armoured vehicles across the Meuse. Rommel rallied his battered troops to solidify their

gains on the west bank and start setting up a pontoon-bridge that allows more equipment to

reach the other side of the Meuse. His situation remained precarious, though.

On the west bank, the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais – who retreated across the Meuse

the day before – and the French 66th Regiment stood their ground to contain the German

bridgehead. Nevertheless, fatigued and running out of ammunition, they were in dire need of

a relieving force that could drive the Germans back across the Meuse. But a powerful

counterattack never materialised. Most French divisional commanders of mobile armoured

units were situated up to 15km behind the front-line. Communications were broken due to

German artillery fire and aerial bombardment. It took considerable time for divisional

headquarters to become fully aware of the unfolding situation. Counterattacks were

postponed for no apparent reason. While the German bridgehead was precariously

vulnerable, the French response in this section amounted to an improvised counter-attack by

an armoured squadron, unsupported by infantry or artillery. They were quickly destroyed.

The crossings of the Meuse at Dinant and Monthermé were mere sideshows, if one

considers the amount of air and ground support that Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps had at its

disposal at the picturesque city of Sedan. Roughly 1,500 aircraft – more than the combined

British and French air strengths – are brought down on a narrow stretch. At 07:00, incessant

waves of Dornier 17s ‘Flying Pencils’ and Ju87 ‘Stukas’ concentrated their bombing runs on

the less well camouflaged artillery positions. The cacophony of bomb blasts was intensified

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