Panzer Divisions, The Blitzkrieg Years 1939-40

As the sun was setting in the late evening of 20 May 1940, the vanguards of 2. Panzer Division entered the city of Abbeville in France. Later that same night, they reached the town of Noyelles and their objective: the Somme river estuary. It was the culmination of a ten-day battle during which the division, along with the other two parts of Guderian’s XIX. Armee Korps, had crossed the Meuse, broken through the French defensive lines at Sedan, and penetrated deep behind the enemy lines, covering more than 300km from the German border to the Atlantic shores. At the conclusion of this ten-day drive, the remnants of two French armies plus the British and Belgian ones, which formed the core of the Allied forces, were trapped with their backs to the sea. The inconceivable had become reality; Germany had won a stunning victory, her enemies were in shambles. A little more than a month later France capitulated, and the entire world marvelled at the German blitzkrieg.