Hello,
Colonel Gérard Saint Martin wrote that on the 15th May in the area of Stonne the German AT elements had been reinforced by several French 47mm SA37 guns (page 205 of his book). This gun is clearly able to knock out a Renault B1bis. I am not saying that in that precise case the German gunners were manning such a gun but the presence of these guns (and the reported ammo used during the battle of France prove that they used them), the presence of tanks, self-propelled guns, infantry guns etc. make the picture perhaps more intricate than at the first look.
More detailed action on the 16th May 1940 in Stonne :
On 16th May 1940, at 01h30, the 41e BCC is ordered to attack Stonne with its 1st and 3rd companies.
The 41e BCC was created on 16th November 1939 with troops of the tank park n°511 and Renault B1bis tanks. The battalion will be integrated in the 3e DCR, the last French armoured division formed before the beginning of the combats, on 20th March 1940. The battalion itself will have 6 months of intense training thanks to a good core of active officers and NCOs. The training at the company and battalion level is then rather good but the unit had only one training at the divisional scale on 9th May 1940.
Commander : commandant Malaguti
Staff commander : capitaine Cornet
Intelligence officer : lieutenant De Witasse
Signal officer : lieutenant Sery
1st tank company : capitaine Billotte
2nd tank company : capitaine Gasc
3rd tank company : capitaine Delepierre
Headquarters / Reserve company : capitaine Simo
During May/June 1940 all the tanks will be lost and the battalion will have 43 KIA (8 officers, 14 NCOs, 21 corporals and men).
The battalion will be engaged without interruption. The main engagements are in the Mont-Dieu area (15 km south of Sedan) during May, around Perthes and Rethel south of the Aisne River in a counter-attack against the 1.PzD during June and many smaller sacrifice missions (defense of bridges at Pogny etc.). The last tank of the battalion is lost on 15th June 1940.
The battalion has been awarded 8 Legion of Honour medals, 22 Military medals and mentioned in dispatches many times (64 times by the regiment, 34 times by the brigade, 43 times by the divisions, 13 times by the Army and 29 times by the Army Corps).
At 3h00, the 1/41e BCC and the 3/41e BCC are moving to the departure line in the woods of Fay. The Renault B1bis tanks will open the way to the III/51e RI of the 3e DIM (3rd battalion of the 51st infantry regiment). The infantry will be accompanied by Hotchkiss H39 tanks from the 2/45e BCC.
The troops could not perform a reconnaissance of the area before the attack and the intelligence about the enemy is very limited. The 41e BCC is not aware if the town is currently in French or German hands when it starts moving.
The B1bis tanks will advance in an inversed V formation. The B1bis "Vienne" of commandant Malaguti is leading the attack.
On his left the 1/41e BCC commanded by capitaine Billotte with 7 tanks :
• B1bis "Eure" (capitaine Billotte)
• B1bis "Lot" (lieutenant Delalande)
• B1bis "Vauquois" (lieutenant Bourgeois)
• B1bis "Volnay" (lieutenant Pignot)
• B1bis "Tarn" (lieutenant Rabin)
• B1bis "Beaune" (lieutenant Adelmans)
• B1bis "Sambre" (lieutenant Bramant)
On his right the 3/41e BCC commanded by capitaine Delepierre with 7 tanks :
• B1bis "Somme" (capitaine Delepierre)
• B1bis "Doubs" (lieutenant Bricart)
• B1bis "Meursault" (sous-lieutenant Guyhur)
• B1bis "Trépail" (lieutenant Dive)
• B1bis "Muscadet" (sous-lieutenant Soret)
• B1bis "Moselle" (aspirant Léonard)
• B1bis "Vertus" (lieutenant Hachet)
At 4h30 the 5th group of the 242e RATTT (12 155mm C guns) makes a 45 minutes artillery preparation on Stonne, the 'Pain de Sucre' hill (the dominating hill east of Stonne) and the south edges of the Grande Côte woods.
The woody hills of the Mont-Dieu area are dominating the plain 15 km south of Sedan. The town of Stonne and its hill called the "Pain de Sucre" (335m high) are located between the Mont-Dieu and the Mont-Damion. At Stonne the German advance could be stopped. From Stonne a French counter-attack could be launched on the flank of the German columns. The conquest of Stonne is therefore of importance for both German and the French armies on 15-16th May.
At 5h15, the 1/41e BCC encounters German elements. These troops are from the "Grossdeutschland" infantry regiment, supported by 2 tanks and an AT defense organized in depth. The 2 German tanks are quickly destroyed. Commandant Malaguti himself said about the Germans of the elite regiment : "beautiful warriors, they fired at us until we were at 100m of them. Then they ran away, fall down and simulated death or stayed in their foxholes until we killed them".
The 3/41e BCC reaches its first objective after 12 minutes and destroys the water tower of Stonne on which the Germans had deployed MGs. The French tank company stops and fires on the edges of Stonne to neutralize MGs and AT guns.
The 1/41e BCC outflanks Stonne by the north-west but capitaine Billotte is hampered by several cliffs and important slopes. He has to move to the right, arriving in Stonne itself (from the north-west) before the battalion commander. The B1bis "Eure" arrives nose to nose with 13 German tanks of the Pz.Rgt.8 (10.PzD) in column in the main street of the town. The first tank is only at 30m. Billotte orders the driver (sergent Durupt) to target the last tank with the 75mm SA35 hull gun while he destroyed the first tank with the 47mm SA35 turret gun. The first shots destroyed simultaneously the first and the last German tank of the column, the others could hardly move. In several minutes, the B1bis "Eure" advances in the street and neutralize the 11 remaining tanks while numerous shells are hitting the armor of the B1bis without penetrating it. 2 Panzer IV and 11 Panzer III are reported as being destroyed. Billotte crosses the whole town and destroys also 2 3.7cm PaK next to the 'Pain de Sucre'. The armor of the B1bis revealed later that it is scattered with 140 impacts and gouges, none of the projectiles penetrated the armor according to the war diary of the 41e BCC. One can see here a kind of small 'Villers Bocage'.
Malaguti entered the main street (from the south-west) a few minutes after Billotte and fired also at all the possible targets he could spot but none of the German tanks aligned in the street reacted anymore. Malaguti moves south, moves in two other streets and finally exits the town by the south. He spots 2 B1bis wrecks ("Hautvillers" and "Gaillac") from the 49e BCC (attack of the 15th May) and joins the 10th company of the 51e RI.
Billotte contacts the battalion commander (Malaguti) by radio to report that the woods north of Stonne are full of MGs and AT guns firing at him. He moves back to Stonne.
Delepierre, the commander of the 3/41e BCC contacts Malaguti by radio to know if he can carry on with its progression but he is ordered to wait for the French artillery. 10 minutes later, the French artillery lengthens its fire and the 3/41e BCC moves to its next objective. The company arrives in a very rough ground with many gullies and cliffs hidden by dense vegetation. The dangers are hidden and the visual contact between the tanks is made difficult. The B1bis "Somme" is isolated and attacked at 100m by 2 3.7cm PaK. In 2 minutes the armor is scattered by a dozen of impacts. None penetrated the armor but the turret is blocked and the optics of the observation copula are destroyed. One German AT gun is destroyed by a HE shell and the B1bis moves on. Due to a hidden gully the B1bis falls over and lies on the flank. The tank is abandoned, put on fire by the crew. The men manage to reach the French lines again.
On 16th May, the following B1bis tanks involved in the French attack have been lost during or will be abandoned after the attack :
• B1bis "Somme" : immobilized on the flank and scuttled by the crew
• B1bis "Vertus" : MIA (single tank lost possibly due to enemy fire ?)
• B1bis "Meursault" : first immobilized in a gully and against a big tree. It is towed by the B1bis "Moselle" and B1bis "Trépail". The tank will later be scuttled south of the Grandes Armoises due to important mechanical breakdown
• B1bis "Trépail" : the tank experiences engine mechanical breakdown and will be later scuttled
At 5h30 the III/51e RI (10th and 11th companies), supported by the 2/45e BCC (Hotchkiss H39 tanks), begins to move towards Stonne. They encounter German troops which have joined again their foxholes after the passage of the French heavy tanks. Around 7h00 the French infantry controls the town of Stonne.
At 10h00 and during more than half an hour the town is heavily bombarded by the German dive bombers. They are followed until 12h00 by the German artillery. At 15h00 the French tanks (41e BCC and 45e BCC) are ordered to move back to be used in other areas than the town of Stonne itself. At the end of the afternoon, the French infantry moves on the edges of the town because of the heavy German shelling. Reinforcements are arriving (III/5e RICMS from the 6e DIC) and north-west in the woods the German assaults have been defeated by the 67e RI.
Still on 16th May, around 17h00, the B1bis "Riquewihr" (lieutenant Doumecq) from the 49e BCC attacked towards Stonne and encountered a German infantry column, which fired at the tank with infantry weapons including anti-tank rifles, without effect. The B1bis crushed some German troops and pushed into the town defended by the Schützen Regiment 64. When the soldiers saw the bloody tracks of the tank they fled in panic and abandoned Stonne which remained unoccupied for the night. After that action Doumecq was nicknamed 'the butcher of Stonne' by his comrades. The B1bis "Riquewihr" will be the last one of the 3e DCR, abandoned on 18th June 1940 north-east of Dijon.
Sources :
• "Blitzkrieg à l’Ouest, Mai-Juin 40" (Jean-Paul Pallud)
• "Fallait-il sauver le char Bayard ?" (René Boly)
• "L'Arme Blindée Française (volume 1) : Mai-juin 1940 ! Les blindés français dans la tourmente" (Gérard Saint-Martin)
• "Le mythe de la guerre-éclair – la campagne de l'Ouest de 1940" (Karl-Heinz Frieser)
• "Les combats du Mont-Dieu – Mai 1940" (Gérard Giuliano)
• Testimonies of various veterans (René Tuffet, Roger Avignon) including several from the 41e BCC which were used in the book of René Boly.
• War diary of the 41e BCC
Regards,
David
), it sounds reasonable to me to infer that all three tanks were destroyed by Hindelang's crew. YMMV.