On the edge of the Mormal forest, Capitaine Pierre Dunoyer de Segonzac, the son of a naval officer who traced his noble patent to 1558, awaited the Germans with the Somua S35 cavalry tanks of his First Squadron of4th Cuirassiers. Major Theodor Graf Schimmelmann von Lindenburg, the aristocratic commander of the 15th Panzer Regiment's Second Battalion, had received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross just four days previously. Their commands would fight a deadly duel on the road to Le Quesnoy.

Dunoyer de Segonzac graduated from the St. Cyr military academy at the age of 19, and after service with the horsed cavalry had become an expert instructor on the Somua S3 5 cavalry tank. He had trained his men thoroughly in their use and tactics. When the Germans attacked the French position near Jolimetz with a full panzer regiment supported by a motorized infantry regiment, some ofthe Somuas charged them and drove the panzers back while destroying several German tanks and anti-tank guns. Not one Somua was lost, and firing ceased at noon when the Germans realized that a continued frontal assault would cost them far too dearly. Dunoyer de Segonzac would command a training school under the Vichy regime. Charged with creating a "new elite" of young men to serve as the vanguard of the National Revolution, he instead organized them into Resistance cadres, hid Jews on the school grounds and later took up arms himself.