The Fall of Eben Emael by Chris McNab

Author:Chris McNab
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Fall of Eben Emael: Belgium 1940
ISBN: 9781780962634
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Fallschirmjäger gather around a map placed on the wing of a Ju 52, studying their intended landing zones. Only in the immediate hours before the Eben Emael operation did the men of Sturmgruppe ‘Granit’ learn of their assault objective, although many must have suspected it would be Eben Emael. (Cody Images)

… I intend to go back when I am told that twenty gunshots will be fired from Coupole 120. This seems to be getting serious. Could this really mean war? The major has been told that the turret is not working. An act of sabotage? I believe that the shots will be fired from another cupola. At that time I reached my room inside the fort and couldn’t hear the twenty shots being fired… Father Lamaye who did not leave comes to see me around four thirty – ‘We are at war!’ he says. ‘German planes have landed on the fort. So it is real this time. I put my helmet on, take my gas mask and we go out into the passage… The men are bustling about everywhere. What is going on above us? I am going to the infirmary. Our three doctors are there, Commandant Willems and Lieutenants Dumay and Steegen. Doctor Steegen tells us that he has seen planes coming down onto the fort. The machines were flying silently, their engines stopped. Yet at that time we didn’t know they were planes without engines – gliders! (Quoted in Dunstan 2005: 48)

Further investigation after the raid revealed that during the first crucial minutes of the Eben Emael action, the wrong sort of alert was sounded, telling the troops that the fortress was facing attack from the surrounding countryside, not that the top of the fortress itself was compromised. All these failures would feed into a disaster for the Belgian troops that day.

The first glider to land was that of Trupp 5 headed by Erwin Haug, which had the MICA as its primary objective. The precision landing by pilot Unteroffizier Heiner Lange was performed with such aplomb that the wing of the glider actually smashed up one of the machine guns. Quickly the paratroopers disgorged from the glider, throwing grenades at the gun emplacements and firing with their small arms. Quickly, four Belgians in one position surrendered, while at another nearby position one Belgian soldier was killed and two wounded in this opening act of the attack.

Within minutes of the assault on the MICA positions, the rest of the gliders were down on the roof of Eben Emael and multiple positions assaults were under way. We will treat each position separately, but together they formed a dynamic attack pattern that threatened to overwhelm the defenders’ responses.

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