The Battle of Sedan or Second Battle of Sedan took place in the Second World War during the Battle of France in 1940. It was part of the German Wehrmacht's operational plan codenamed Fall Gelb for an offensive through the hilly and forested Ardennes, to encircle the Allied armies in Belgium and north-eastern France. German Army Group A crossed the Meuse with the intention of capturing Sedan and pushing westwards towards the Channel coast, to trap the Allied forces that were advancing east into Belgium, as part of the Allied Dyle Plan.
German troops with French prisoners crossing the Meuse on 15 May 1940 near Sedan
View of the Meuse in the French Ardennes
German advance by 14 May 1940.
The RAF Fairey Battle suffered heavy losses over the bridgehead
Wolfram Karl Ludwig Moritz Hermann Freiherr von Richthofen was a German World War I flying ace who rose to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall in the Luftwaffe during World War II.
Richthofen in hussar uniform at age 18, shortly after his commission on the eve of World War I, 1914
Richthofen in front of his Fokker D.VII fighter, summer 1918
Hugo Sperrle, with Richthofen, somewhere in Spain (1936)