to Général d'armée Jean de Lattre de Tassigny's French First Army. Leclerc regarded the First Army as being full of traitors who had supported Vichy France. Moreover, de Lattre had sacked Général de division Edgard de Larminat for Gaullist sentiments, and Leclerc had good reason to fear that he might meet a similar fate. On 22 November, Haislip gave Leclerc permission to advance on Strasbourg. Leclerc surprised the Germans by advancing over country roads and tracks to bypass their defences. Strasbourg was reached on 25 November, and that afternoon the Tricolour flew over the Strasbourg Cathedral. The German offensive in the Ardennes in December and in Alsace in January led Eisenhower to consider abandoning Strasbourg, but strong opposition to the idea from the French caused him to back down. As a result, the 2e DB was transferred to de Lattre's command to assist in the reduction of the Colmar Pocket. Leclerc objected to the use of his troops in the attack on Royan in April 1945. As a result, only part of 2e DB was employed. The division rejoined Seventh Army, crossing the Rhine on 25 April, and joining the pursuit into Bavaria. Leclerc visited Dachau concentration camp after its liberation by the Americans. In an incident that took place 8 May 1945 at Karlstein near Bad Reichenhall in Bavaria, he was presented with a defiant group of captured Frenchmen of the SS Charlemagne Division. He asked them why they wore a German uniform, to which one of them replied by asking why Leclerc wore an American one. Leclerc told his men to get rid of them. That was taken as a death sentence. The group of French Waffen-SS men was summarily executed by the RMT without any form of military tribunal procedure, and their bodies left where they fell until an American burial team collected them three days later. On 2 June 1949 the bodies were exhumed and buried in the St. Zeno cemetery in Bad Reichenhall. For his services leading the 2e DB, Leclerc was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. South East Asia At the end of the Second World War in Europe in May 1945, Leclerc received command of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (Corps expéditionnaire français en Extrême-Orient, CEFEO). He represented France at the surrender of the Japanese Empire in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. On 28 November 1945, he