laststandonzombieisland

When the Germans swept into France in May 1940, the Gallic country had over 3,200 tanks on hand, by far besting the invading forces which only had about 2,400 Panzers they brought to the party.

However, it’s not how many you have but how well you use them that counts, and, by June 1940 it was all over.

As part of the Compiegne Armistice of 22 June 1940, which kneecapped the rump of the Vichy government’s military forces, especially those still in Europe, most of the decent French armor still in service– over 2,500 tanks– was turned over to the Germans.

The Germans allowed the Vichy a few small tank units– in overseas colonies. There, they fought the Americans in Morocco and the British in Syria in 1941-42.

Not one to throw away anything of value in the largest land war in Europe, the Germans dutifully used more than 800 old Renault FT17 and 800 newer Renault R35 light tanks in a mixture of static defense roles along the Atlantic Wall and constabulary uses in occupied areas.

More modern and better-armed/armored tanks (Char B1bis, S35s, R-35s, and H-39s) were passed on to armor-poor Axis fellow travelers such as the Italians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Romanians.

The Germans used over 500 11-ton Hotchkiss H35/H38/H39s in counter-partisan efforts in the Balkans and Eastern Front.

Armed with a 47mm L32 main gun, the Germans seemed to have thought highly of the 20-ton Somua S35 AMCs (Automitrailleuses de Combat), and some 300 of them were pressed into service, largely on the Eastern Front, with the 201. and 202. Panzerregiments.

Meanwhile, heavy Char B1bis were used by Panzer-Abteilung 213, the unit that garrisoned the Channel Islands, as well as in training and service roles and as Flammwagen flame tank conversions. Formed on 17 November 1941 in France, it was equipped with 56 captured French tanks: 20 FT17s, which were largely converted into pillboxes, and 36 Renault Char B1s.

The latter included two Char B bis command tanks with Abteilung Headquarters in Guernsey, 12 standard Char B1 bis tanks, and five flame tanks with 1. Kompanie in Gurnesy, and an identical 2. Kompanie in Jersey. It was assigned to 319. Infanterie-Division on the Channel Islands.

Fast forward to the Overlord and Dragoon landings in Normandy and along the Riviera in the summer of 1944, and the Allies increasingly came in contact with running second-hand pre-1940 French tanks kept in good repair by the German occupier.

Many were scooped up by Resistance groups who were happy to go from hiding in attics and garages to openly controlling strategic points from behind armor plates.

By early October, the Allied forces in liberated France had collected 60 working tanks (17 B1bis, 21 S35s, and 22 H35/39s) along with at least twice that many junked hulls that could be cannibalized for parts. Plus, workmen and repair shops at Souma and Renault were available.

With that, it was decided to set up a French tank regiment, equipped with these recaptured domestic tracks, to augment the French armored units that were already rolling against the Germans with American-supplied vehicles.

The old 13e Régiment de Dragons, which had operated S35s and H35/39s in 1940 before they lost 90 percent of their tracks in combat against the Germans and were disbanded, was reactivated on 16 October 1944 and given the job of rolling with these rag-tag upcycled tanks which were derided as “defective, unreliable, unstable and of fanciful operation.”

Under Chef d’Escadrons Georges Lesage, the 13e RD was authorized 20 officers, 90 NCOs, and 500 men, with a HQ squadron and one squadron each of S35s (1st Sqn, Capt. d’Aboville), B1bis (2nd Sqn, Cpt. Voillaume), and H35/39s (3rd Sqn). Support was a mortar battery on half-tracks, an oversized recovery and repair troop, and truck-carried engineer and medical platoons.

Talk about a wacky TOE!

Making lemonade, 13e RD was used not on a frontline where they could possibly bump into a Tiger or Panther, but rather in an infantry support role against isolated pockets of German holdouts along the French Atlantic coast that had been bypassed in the advance across Western Europe.

This included clearing out Royan (Operation Vénérable), the island of Oléron (Operation Jupiter), La Rochelle (Operation Mousquetaires), and the liberation of the Pointe de la Coubre. Grueling reduction operations against desperate and cutoff men where the object was a daily squeeze until the pocket was no more. 

However, they were popular with the locals, who were no doubt overjoyed to see the pre-war Republic’s tanks, operated by French crews, on parade after rooting out the “boche“.

“B1bis tanks recovered by 13e RD, parading in front of General de Gaulle at Les Mathes, on 22 April 1945, during the troop review organized after the battles of Royen and Pointe de Grave. These tanks are partly from the recovery campaign organized during the previous winter in Normandy:”

A report dated 13 June 1945 is equal parts complimentary and realistic:

The French equipment has generally given complete satisfaction on this front. The Somua has only confirmed the qualities of robustness and handling that it had shown in 1940. The B1bis, much more delicate in terms of maintenance and handling, has [not] caused any major problems […]. The tanks were used as support tanks for infantry units, arriving before or after the infantry depending on the circumstances, leading the infantry to the shutters, or being surrounded by them if necessary.

Post VE-Day, 13e RD was sent to help occupy the Rhine and remained there until it was disbanded in April 1946, its men then disbursed to other units.

Its sister unit, the 12e RD, had made it to Germany the previous May along with a smattering of French armor.

Re-established (sans armor) in 1952 as a paratrooper unit to fight in Algeria, today the Camp de Souge-based 13eme RDP is a fire brigade of sorts and has been deployed since 1977 everywhere from Chad to the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, and Syria.

Tracing its origin back to 1676, the regiment’s motto is Au-delà du possible (Beyond the impossible), which makes sense.