On June 9 and 10th 1940, hundreds of French Senegale troops were rounded up by the Germans and machine gunned, because of the colour of their skin. Six of their white officers attempted to interefere and were executed with their men for doing so. On the whole 600 Colonials were lost in combat, machine gunned as pows , executed like rabbits by rifle shots or hunted in the CRESSONSACQ forest until almost the last one of them. Only a handful of survivors managed to cross the Oise River. The French officers were buried in a mass grave and found by a farmer a few days later. May they be remembered and may this warcrime never be forgotten. The locals commemorate the fallen every year. page_CRESSONSACQ.htm