In his report stating the ev ed events that occurred during the period from 1 st March to 18 May 1940, the General BEZIERS-LAFOSSE recounts his surrender:

“I had decided to resist the last and around 11 o'clock we had to stop the resistance we had put up against the enemy, stubborn and without a spirit of retreat.

I could have considered two solutions: either blowing up our shelter with us, but I had no explosives;  or to make a glorious sortie with the bayonet against the German soldiers who surrounded us lying behind the trees of the forest and the embankments of the road: I did not believe I had the right to have most of the 20 to 30 killed with certainty. men who still surrounded me.

The magnificent courage, of which they and the others: officers, officers and soldiers of the 22nd ID have shown during this hard period from May 10 to 18 and especially during these last hours of resistance in the state forest of ST-MICHEL, he did not did not surprise me from the Bretons and Vendeans whom I had the honor of commanding.  It was the same as that demonstrated during the 1st world war by their elders, at the head of which I was also. 

End of quote.