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Category: History: “No more backing off! We get killed on the spot! ”
One of the plaques dedicated to the combatants of the 1st regiment of France, in Belmont. (Photo LIonel Fontaine). –
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On September 11, 1944, at Belmont, near Fayl-Billot, the detachment of French soldiers under Midshipman Pasquet was silenced by facing a retreating German column.
It was, from 1942, the only French military formation tolerated by the Occupier. Suffice to say that the resistance members looked with great suspicion, even hostility, at the 1st regiment of France, created in the free zone and of which a detachment arrived in the North-East (in the occupied zone) at the end of May 1944. Mission of the men of Commander Samuel Meyer : monitor the Paris-Kembs high voltage power line. This is why one of its elements settled in Haute-Marne, in Champigny-lès-Langres.
Commander Meyer joined him there on August 15, 1944, carrying his command post at Hûmes, then gathering his three companies at Bussières-lès-Belmont. Staff at its disposal: 248 officers, non-commissioned officers and helmeted, dressed and armed soldiers.
While London refused the passage of the 1st regiment of France to the Resistance, the officers of the Meyer battalion, without much enthusiasm, made the decision, on September 2, 1944, to join the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) of Haute-Marne. They will form the Oscar group, which will fight in the region of Fayl-Billot in conjunction with the maquis of Bussières.
Wounded and captured
On September 11, 1944, Lieutenant Bertrand’s section of Arras left, before dawn, for the Château de Saulles. It must ensure the protection of a first-aid post. Arriving on Belmont, it runs into the head of a German column which was trying to join the national 19, capturing Major Teudesmann. Soon, the fight begins, in the village, then at the height of the cemetery. Reinforcements are sent by Meyer. In particular the twelve men of the aspiring Michel Pasquet. The young officer arrives near the cemetery when he is caught under fire from the Germans who are entrenched there. “Now it’s over to back down!” We get killed on the spot! “, he says.
It’s hell on the little group. Pasquet, who is only 19 years old, Master Corporal Pierre Bernard, Jean Perrotet, Armand Dalloz, dead calling his mother, Raymond Jamet, Waclaw Wlazyk are killed. Jean Garchery, Marcel Davoult, Jean Ferré are injured. They will be captured with Corporals Pascal Leone and Paul Thomassin, soldiers André Begel and Louis Roux.
At around 4 p.m., their comrades from the Arras and Schoch sections were finally able to pick up the slack, before at the request of a team of British soldiers present in the region, four or five P-47 fighter planes came to strafe the column, also fought. by the guerrillas of Bussières.
Review of the day: six French soldiers and two civilians killed, eight FFI wounded, seven taken prisoner. A few hours later, three young nurses and two guerrillas were massacred in the castle of Saulles.
Main sources: Bernard Famin, “First regiment of France, 1943-1944. Itinerary of the 2nd battalion (Meyer detachment) from April to October 1944 ”, 1995; archives of the Oscar group, Service historique de la Défense, in Vincennes.
L. F.
Posted on 09/06/2021 10:56 AM
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