Rommel's 7th Panzer, the "ghost division," beat the neighboring 5th Panzer Division to the Meuse, though not by much. Col. Paul-Hermann Werner of 5th Panzer came very close to capturing the bridge at Yvoir, but a few Belgian engineers blew it up just in time. At Houx, some kilometers farther south, a motorcycle unit discovered a small lock with an intact foot bridge linking both banks of the river to a small island. These troops crossed the river at night on 12 May (leaving their motorcycles behind) and set up defensive positions on the west bank. At dawn the next day, the main German assault across the Meuse began.

From their crossing point at Roux, German infantry slowly infiltrated French lines and sowed confusion among the newly arrived French 39th Infantry Regiment. Meanwhile, just south ofYvoir, Werner- commanding 5th Panzer Division's advance guard- made an amphibious assault across the river but was beaten back with heavy losses by French artillery and machine-gun fire. Most of the boats were destroyed, and 5th Panzer Division had to no choice but to brave heavy French artillery fire and concentrate its efforts on the Roux foot bridge. Eventually the already weakened French 39th Infantry Regiment collapsed in the face of intensifying German infantry attacks, and by the end of the day the German bridgehead was deep enough to support a full-scale assault the following day. Six weeks later, the 47-year-old Werner would celebrate his regiment's arrival on the Atlantic coast by swimming out into the cold waves, where he suffered a heart attack, slipped under the waves and drowned.