On the afternoon of 6 September 1944, a resistance fighter shot the rider of a German Army motorbike returning from Poix towards Saint-Hubert. In retaliation and revenge, the German troops shot three inhabitants and set fire to the small hamlet of Moulin d'en Bas.

The following day, on 7 September at around 11:00, more shots were fired in Saint-Hubert. Resistance fighters fired on a German lorry returning to Germany. Maurice Leplang was picking gooseberries nearby and was stopped by the lorry driver and taken to the workshop of his father, Pierre Leplang. On entering, the driver asked his father to identify himself and Pierre, who was born in Monthermé (France, Ardennes), was unjustly suspected of being a French Resistance fighter. A German soldier shot him on the spot.