On June 26, 1940, Major-General Keller, inspector of the tanks, wrote: "The tank units did all their duty. In all circumstances they magnificently fulfilled their mission. The effectiveness of their action was recognized by the adversary himself.
Wherever they were engaged the enemy had to stop or slow down its lead. They have succumbed only under the weight of numbers, after having fought to the extreme limit of their forces. It is important that history keeps track of these facts, because these facts include lessons that everyone must know. "
These words, written after the most terrible defeat in the history suffered by France and her army, are particularly just for the men of the 1st Armored Division.
Six months earlier, on January 16, 1940, after months of procrastination, this great unity was created and entrusted to General Christian Bruneau, who for a long time was convinced that the French army must be endowed with a real armored force , Powerful, autonomous and conceptualized.
With its two battalions of heavy tanks Renault B1bis, its two battalions of light tanks Hotchkiss H39, its battalion of mounted fighters and its regiment of artillery towed all-terrain, 1st DCr is then the most powerful great unit of the French army .
Settling late, she will not have the time, in spite of the efforts of her leader, to train properly and will start in combat on May 10, 1940, under difficult conditions. First placed at the disposal of the First Army in the gap of Gembloux, it will change mission on May 14 to come to lend a helping hand to the Ninth Army, buried on the Meuse of Dinant.
Committed on May 15, 1940, in spite of common sense and against the advice of its chief, General Bruneau, it will undergo the frontal impact of 5. and 7. Panzer-Divisionen and will be almost annihilated on the heights north of the village of Flavion in Belgium.
At the beginning of June, the 1st DCr was reconstituted and entrusted to General Welvert, with only three battalions of tanks, one of which was heavy. It is then only the shadow of the magnificent unity it has been. If the bravery and self-sacrifice shown by her men, as in May, were undeniable, she could only sink inexorably, carried away by the defeat of the French army as a whole.
