The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

‘Joy riding in canoes on the Meuse is forbidden!’ he said with a grin.
The joke was not lost on the general; he had used the very same words
during an exercise in preparation for the operation a month before.
Fierce fighting was now raging around both crossing points in Sedan,
while to the west 2nd Panzer were struggling to even reach the river. The
town itself was burning, smoke billowing into the sky. Heavy gunfire
boomed through the valley, while small arms chattered constantly. Yet in
many ways, although the crossings were principally being made by a
handful of German infantry divisions, the key encounters were being
engaged by just a handful of men. As the 1st Rifle Regiment pressed
forward to relieve the pressure on 2nd Panzer’s crossing, for example, it
was Oberleutnant Günther Korthals with only around seventy men from the
43rd Assault Engineer Battalion who managed to achieve the decisive
breakthrough. His highly trained men worked their way from bunker to
bunker, using the lie of the land as cover and making the most of blind spots
in the bunkers’ embrasures to creep up upon them, and then, with a
combination of explosives and flame throwers, destroyed one after another,
including the key Casement 103, which stood sentinel over a bend in the
river and barred the way of both 1st and 2nd Panzers’ advances. Korthals
did not lose a single man; it was an astonishing achievement.
Possibly even more valiant was the performance of Feldwebel Walter
Rubarth and his Gruppe of fourteen men. In 10th Panzer’s sector, the
crossing attempt seemed to have stalled dead until Rubarth and his men,
under heavy fire, managed to get across the river and destroy a number of
key bunkers. In doing so, he and his men enabled the rest of the infantry to
successfully make the crossing.
As evening approached, the bridgeheads began to link up, yet it was
another key moment that sealed the day. 1st Panzer’s objective for the day
had been Hill 301, a crucial feature overlooking Sedan which held a number
of further French positions that were ranged over all three bridgeheads.
With the village of Frenois at the foot of the hill captured, Oberst Balck saw
his men were exhausted, but he also recognized that the stunned French
were now in disarray. Recalling an episode in the First World War when his
unit had failed to exploit a hard-won encounter, he urged his men forward.
‘Something that is easy today,’ he said, ‘can cost us rivers of blood
tomorrow.’ Dusk was falling as his weary men began their assault up the