Two Hundred and Eighty Fort

German paratroopers also played a vanguard role in the invasion of Belgium. .access. Acting almost at the same time as the Dutch paratroopers, German paratroopers bloomed everywhere in Belgium. They opened the way for the German ground forces, and the 1st Cavalry Corps of Army Group A entered Belgium from the north of Liege. The place stretching south between Germany and Belgium is known as the "Appendix of Maastricht".

The 'junction' between the two countries is the famous Maas River, and not far away, there is an Albert Canal in Belgium. These rivers are like a fortress guarding Belgium's fragile border defense line.

In 1914, the German army entered Belgium through the same road in the same place. In order to resist the possible next German invasion, the Belgians began to build a grand fortress project here as early as the early 1930s.

Situated in a small village called Eben Emaar, a mile south of Maastricht, this fortress was the strongest and strongest in all of Western Europe. This Fort Eben Emaar can be called the northern fulcrum on the connection line of various important places. The south of the fortress points directly to Liege, which is the only way to the hinterland of Belgium.

They invested a lot of money into the fort, making the whole fort impenetrable, but ironically, they hired a German engineering team to complete the construction of the entire fort. Meticulous German engineers built the entire fortress extremely solidly, but copied a copy of the drawings and sent them to the German Wehrmacht.

To capture this important fortress, the Germans threw in 500 well-trained paratrooper assault troops. The task of these troops was to hold this line of attack for the German 1st Cavalry Corps of Army Group A.

This time, the German paratroopers decided to attack in a more novel way-they landed directly on a glider. The reason why Student chose a glider instead of a parachute for airdrop is that the first is that the huge noise of the ju-52 transport aircraft engine would expose the operation in advance; the second is that the paratroopers scattered in the air will not form an assault force, He needs these soldiers to land together and attack together.

They used 50 gliders to break away from the ju-52 transport aircraft at 7,000 feet above Aachen in the early morning. Each glider has 10 fully armed paratroopers equipped with mp-44 assault rifles or g42 machine guns and flamethrowers.

When the sky was just getting brighter, and the first ray of dawn was slightly revealed, these boxed transport gliders made of iron, wood, and rough canvas, with their lift and fall sleds, quietly landed on the ground like ghosts. The target is only 7 miles away. They made all preparations. These paratroopers secretly trained for this operation for a full three months. The training content was extremely harsh. Two paratroopers were even sentenced to death for violating discipline.

The glider force was divided into four detachments code-named concrete, steel, granite and iron. Their targets within a 5-mile radius were the Albert Canal and a bridge.

The steel unit landed on the west bank of the Albert Canal and quickly captured the northernmost mouth: the Feldweizet Iron Bridge; the 'concrete' unit occupied the bridge in the middle, that of Flönha. 'Concrete' viaduct.

Two detachments, later paratroopers, guarded the two bridges. They established bridgeheads on both sides, and the counterattack of the Belgian army was quickly repulsed.

At the southernmost bridge, the German paratroopers were in trouble. Kanne, less than a mile away from the Eben-Emaar Fortress, was the target of the Iron Squadron. A few minutes before the glider landed, it was spotted by the Belgian defenders. They fought back desperately and killed them. Killed more than 30 German soldiers. But the Germans had the last laugh. They captured the bridge and drove away the Belgians in one go.

The task of the unit code-named "Granite" is the most unusual. They were ordered to directly capture Eben Emaar Fortress. This fortress covers an area of ​​175 acres and is a pentagon. Usually there are 1,200 Belgian soldiers stationed here, but this morning there are only 750 soldiers inside the city wall because of the change of defense.

Cliffs along the canal guard the northeast face of the fort, and the other four sides are also defended by anti-tank trenches and a 20-foot-high rampart. Inside the fort, tunnels extend in all directions and there are many forts. The rotating turret is equipped with a variety of weapons. The only flaw is that there are not many anti-aircraft guns, and there are no mines on the wide fortress.

Fort Eben Emaar was very vulnerable to air strikes, which is why Germany chose it as a target. Under the futile anti-aircraft fire of the stunned Belgian machine gunners, 15 German gliders landed safely on the large lawn at the top of the fortress. The German paratroopers bravely jumped out of the plane and rushed towards their target with gunfire.

All the Germans are experts in blasting. They brought two and a half tons of explosives, a considerable part of which had a new type of device on it, which was shaped like a concave hemisphere. This kind of device can concentrate the power of the explosion downward, and can easily destroy the thick concrete fortifications.

Each of these explosives weighed 100 pounds and could blow up steel plates several feet thick in one blow. Ever since studying aerial photos and fortress maps, the engineers knew exactly where they placed their explosives. In less than 10 minutes after landing, they had blown up more than half of the selected targets.

Moreover, during the explosion, they discovered that the Belgian defenders had cut corners. Two turrets were simply decorations and were completely incapable of attacking. They fired so hard that the Belgian defenders were forced to retreat into a ditch for cover. They called up the artillery forces outside the fort, and shelled their own fort from outside.

The German paratroopers were forced to hide in the bunkers they had just blown up, waited for the shelling to stop, and then killed them. They threw the remaining explosives into the tunnels of the Belgian defenders, blowing up the Belgian troops inside.

However, because of the large number of Belgian defenders, they resisted desperately. The German army was unable to control the entire fortress for a while, and they had to wait for reinforcements to arrive in order to complete the seemingly impossible task.

Reinforcements came sooner than best expected, and these troops crossed the Meuse at unimaginable speed. Accador and his generals concocted a little espionage scheme to their own satisfaction, the purpose of which was to cross the bridge over the Meuse as fast as possible.

A special operations team dressed in replica Belgian uniforms arrived near the bridges, feigning retreating troops approached the target, and then opened fire at close range, capturing several important bridges.

As a result, the German infantry and cavalry were able to cross the Maas River at the fastest speed. After a few hours, the German paratroopers waited for their reinforcements. However, these supporters were blocked by an important battery No. 17 of the Eben Emaar Fortress. The German paratroopers trapped on the top of the fortress had to destroy this battery to be rescued.

But the design of this turret is very ingenious. The German paratroopers can't reach such a lower position, and there is no way to arrange explosives, so the Belgian defenders can continue to hold on, firing shells one after another to attack Germany. The mule infantry unit of the 1st Cavalry Corps.

The engineers in the paratroopers quickly found a way. They asked someone to tie the explosives to the end of the rope, install a detonator, tie them to their stomachs, and then they were pulled and hoisted to the top of the turret. Then use these explosive packs to block the gap in the fort's observation post. Soon the explosive package exploded, destroying some important fort parts, making the fort no longer able to operate.

The German paratroopers were actually very guilty. They were afraid of a counterattack by the Belgians because their strength was really limited. But until ten o'clock in the evening, the Belgian defenders did not have the courage to get out of their bunkers to fight back, but just stayed in their trenches for the last struggle.

Soon the German infantry caught up, and they began to use flamethrowers to clear the obstacles. As they approached the bunker, the soldiers pulled the trigger. The flames were very conspicuous in the dark night, rising into the sky under the moonlight, and the guns in the Belgian defender's bunker went silent.

The sound of the flamethrower woke up the exhausted German paratroopers above the fortress, who had fallen asleep by this time. When they realized that their reinforcements had arrived, they rushed down the hillside, shouting to meet their comrades. They sang and danced with the German engineers who came, and the two desperate guys even danced a dance in a dangerous place.

The next morning, more reinforcements arrived, German infantry surrounded the Eben-Emaar fortress, and Stuka bombers flew in, dropping bigger bombs and destroying more fortifications.

After a while, the garrison's loudspeaker sounded, and the Belgian garrison walked out of its fortifications, waving the white flag and surrendering to the heroic German paratroopers. In this battle, the Belgian defenders only killed 75 people, more than 50 others were injured, and the remaining more than 600 people were unscathed. The German paratroopers miraculously only killed 5 people.

The Germans once again completed their attack at the speed of running, and it took only two days for the entire 1st Cavalry Army to walk the road that they hadn't walked in 20 days back then. The German Army Group A has firmly controlled its advance area, creating the most favorable conditions for the launch of the sickle operation.

Akado decided to praise the paratrooper airborne operation. Student awarded the medal on behalf of all paratroopers. a month's vacation.

Of course, Akado was even more relieved that Sedang was completely in the hands of the German armored forces. Those wolves-like tank armies will appear behind the British and French allied forces, and 'advance' towards the English Channel at the fastest speed. --93337+dsuaahhh+25901562-->

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