The most celebrated moment in the unit's history was the Liberation of Paris. Allied strategy emphasized destroying German forces retreating towards the river Rhine and considered that attack on Paris would risk destroying it, but when the French Resistance under Henri Rol-Tanguy staged an uprising in the city from 19 August, Charles de Gaulle threatened to send the division into Paris, single-handedly, to prevent the uprising being crushed as was then happening in Warsaw. Eisenhower agreed to let the French armored division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division liberate Paris. In the early morning of 23 August, Leclerc's "2e DB" left the south of Argentan on its march to Paris, a march which was slowed by poor road conditions, French crowds, and fierce combat near Paris. On 24 August, General Leclerc sent a small advance party to enter the city, with the message that the Second Armored would be there the following day. This party, commanded by Captain Raymond Dronne, consisted of the 9th company (La Nueve) of the 3rd Battalion of the "Régiment de marche du Tchad". Dronne and his men arrived at the Hôtel de Ville, in the center of Paris, shortly before 9:30 pm on the evening of 24 August. On 25 August, the 2nd Armored and the U.S. 4th Division entered Paris and liberated it. After hard fighting that cost the 2nd Division 35 tanks, 6 self-propelled guns, and 111 vehicles, von Choltitz, the German military governor of Paris, capitulated at the Hôtel Meurice. The following day, 26 August, a great victory parade took place on the Champs Élysées, which was lined with a jubilant crowd acclaiming General de Gaulle and the liberators of Paris.