10th May 1940

[Pdf27]

At 03:15am, the steel doors on the Schusterline in Luxembourg are closed following reports of German troops across the border. Attempts by people in civilian clothes and speaking with a pronounced German accent to sabotage these and the radio station are foiled, and a small number of arrests are made. The Royal Family are evacuated to the Grand-Ducal palace in Luxembourg City as a precaution.

The German invasion force, consisting of the 1st, 2nd and 10th Panzer divisions enters the country 80 minutes later. They encounter no resistance save for a small number of landmines and a couple of bridges destroyed. They occupy the capital before noon, with 6 policemen and one soldier being wounded on the Luxembourg side (the Luxembourgish Volunteer Corps mostly staying in their barracks, while the police made a brief and futile attempt at resistance).
The French launch a brief probe across the border, before retreating back to the Maginot line. Roughly 50,000 Luxembourgish refugees follow them, including Grand Duchess Charlotte and her Government.

At first light the first German forces enter the Netherlands. The majority of the forces are in the South, in the region of Maastricht. Unfortunately for the Germans, they only manage to seize a small number of bridges intact. The bridge over the Juliana canal at Roosteren was captured by German troops disguised as Dutch police, but the Belgians managed to destroy the subsequent bridge over the Maas at Maaseik successfully. Unfortunately for the defenders, the Germans did manage to seize a bridge around 5km further north at Obbicht.

At Maastricht itself, all three bridges over the Maas were blown as soon as German forces appeared at the outskirts of the town at 05.45. The majority of the defenders on the East bank were then picked up in small boats held on the West bank for precisely this purpose. Unusually, because the Maastricht bridges would be so critical to any German invasion of Belgium the troops in Maastricht the commander had been given explicit instructions to defend the bridgeheads as long as possible. Civilians were to be evacuated from the area where possible, but civilian casualties should not to be his primary concern.

Later that morning, the first German troops arrived to the rear of the Peel-Raam line. They had managed to get four trains, each containing a battalion of infantry, over the captured bridges around Gennep. These unloaded themselves to the rear of the Peel-Raam line, where the Dutch soldiers manning it had only become aware of the invasion 30 minutes earlier. While this warning was sufficient for the Dutch soldiers manning the line to blow the bridges over the defence canal, the line was very poorly set up to defend against an attack from behind as well as being very sparsely manned. By 10.00, the Germans had penetrated fully through the line at Mill, and by dusk had also done so at Weert.

Meanwhile, in the North weak German units (a large proportion being SS) attempted to take various bridges in the region of Nijmegen, with little success. One bridge over the Maas-Waal canal near Nijmegen was taken in a badly damaged state, while the other canal bridges were destroyed. In the far north, the German force of approximately 50,000 men was opposed by a handful of Dutch troops assigned to demolish bridges. As they penetrated further in the resistance increased slightly, as the Dutch forces were deployed to give the defences of the Afsluitdijk a few hours to prepare, and for demolitions to take place on any shipping on the Ijsselmeer which could not be evacuated in time to the West bank.

Finally, the Germans launched a major airlanding operation. The primary purpose of this was to capture a line of bridges from Moerdijk in the south up to Rotterdam, enabling the advancing Panzers to bypass the defences of Fortress Holland. The strongest attack is on the airfield at Waalhaven, starting at 03.55 with a raid by Heinkel bombers and followed rapidly by 3rd Battalion of the 1st Fallschirmjaeger regiment. By 05.30, the first of a series of waves of Ju-52 transports arrives carrying more infantry, pioneers and anti-tank guns.

At Rotterdam, the Germans landed around 90 troops from seaplanes they had landed in the Maas and seized the Willemsbrug while Dutch civilians looked on, many assuming that it was some sort of Dutch army exercise. The troops landed at Waalhaven will attempt to reinforce them during the morning, trying to fight their way through Dutch troops in the suburbs of Rotterdam.

In Dordrecht, the Fallschirmjaegers had secured all the bridges and were consolidating their perimeter by 06.00. However, at Moerdijk the German attack went badly wrong. The Luftwaffe started attacking the Dutch positions at 04.00, and in accordance with standing orders the bridges were immediately demolished. An hour later, the first Fallschirmjaegers landed either side of the bridges. The small Dutch security force on the south side of the bridge was rapidly taken prisoner, but on the north side of the bridge it was a very different story. Around 300 Fallschirmjaeger were confronted by around 700 Dutch troops who were well equipped with machine guns and had a few light AA guns as well. The fight here rapidly degenerated into a stalemate.

Smaller groups of Fallschirmjaeger were also dropped around Leiden and The Hague, with the objective of seizing the Dutch government and Royal Family. They managed to seize the Valkenburg air force base, while the Ypenburg landings went much more poorly and the German force had been eliminated by the Dutch by lunchtime. Those at Ockenburg were forced off the airfield and into the dunes shortly afterwards.

In Belgium, at 05.20 the first German gliders of the assault on Fort Eben Emael and the nearby bridges over the Albert Canal land at their objectives. At Eben Emael itself, the 9 remaining gliders land on top of the fort and start engaging the artillery bunkers covering the bridges over the Albert Canal. Within an hour all the 75mm bunkers had been destroyed or disabled and the Fallschirmjäger troops dig in to repel attacks from within the fort until the advancing infantry could relieve them the following day.

The airborne attack on the bridges over the Albert Canal did less well. At Veldwezelt and Vroenhoven the German troops captured the bridges but were faced with multiple counterattacks and barely managed to hang on with support from Stukas.

At Canne, however, the German mechanised column supposed to relieve the Fallschirmjägers arrived early and the Belgians had time to blow the bridge before the gliders landed. The airborne assault went in anyway and succeeded in storming the Belgian positions, but took serious casualties from counterattacks and barely held on until relieved. Around a third of the attacking force was killed, and half of the rest were wounded.
In the south of the country, around 300 German troops were inserted around Neufchâteau using Fiesler Storch aircraft in order to cut off Belgian reinforcements from the advancing Army Group A, advancing through Luxembourg towards southern Belgium.

The Belgian Air Force was crippled on the first morning of the war, with roughly half of their machines shot down or destroyed on the ground. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the overwhelming German superiority in quantity and quality, they were also mentally beaten with the average surviving aircraft flying only two sorties per week.

On the Allied side, Plan E was immediately implemented. The BEF and 7th Army advanced into Northern Belgium, with the first BEF units reaching the Scheldt Estuary by the evening of the 10th. The troops immediately start digging in, while the Engineers set up obstacles and start preparing bridges for demolition.

Further south, reconnaissance units of the French 2nd Army are sent into Belgium to get further information on the German attack and ideally identify their main axis of advance. The rest of 2nd Army, however, does little beyond recalling those on leave and sending out some artillery observers into Belgium where appropriate.

For the first time in 13 years the Menin gate was not closed to traffic at 8pm. 2nd Battalion, the Royal Sussex Regiment was marching through at the time as their transport had been temporarily assigned to I Corps. B Company was just approaching as the first notes of The Last Post rang out, and the Major in command issued the order "Eyes Right". 2 Royal Sussex had been part of the "Contemptible Little Army" of 1914 and fought at both the 1st and 3rd Battles of Ypres, and the CSM of B Company had fought there himself. Not a man in B Company was without a lump in his throat as they marched through the gate and on past the Potijze cemetery where many of their comrades were buried.

Back in Holland, by mid-morning the German attack on the Valkenburg Air Force Base was starting to bog down, quite literally in the case of the first wave of Ju-52s which were sinking into the marshy surface and could not be moved. This led to the second wave of aircraft being unable to land on the airfield and so directed into the dunes along the sea shore.

By lunchtime, the Dutch had a battery of 120mm howitzers firing on the airfield, and even managed an attack from around a dozen Fokker C-V and C-X bombers. This was followed in the early afternoon by a counterattack which recaptured the airfield and confined the remaining German forces to the dunes and the village of Valkenburg, which would not be retaken today. 60 Ju-52s (around 15% of the entire German inventory) were captured or destroyed on this airfield alone.

At around 9am General Student landed with his staff at Waalhaven and was informed of the situation. Apart from the destruction of the Moerdijk Bridge, the operation had gone exactly as planned, although the Dordrecht and Rotterdam bridges were seeing heavy Dutch counterattacks. Given the overall operational plan (for the Panzers to advance into Fortress Holland via the Moerdijk and Dordrecht bridges), Student decides to commit those additional forces flying in to Waalhaven to reinforce the Dordrecht bridgehead, with instructions to assist the forces trying to capture the North end of what remained of the Moerdijk bridge if necessary. The forces in Rotterdam are instructed to hold as long as possible then withdraw if necessary.

The Dutch response to the invasion only starts showing a semblance of cohesion around lunchtime – before then the magnitude and speed of the disaster have been too great for them to react to, and what actions there have been (such as at Valkenburg or Ypenburg) have been the actions of local commanders taking the initiative, rather than planned operations.
Now, however, the high command starts to react to events and give orders. There are reports of Paratroopers in Dordrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague, although it seems likely the attacks on the Hague are a diversionary force as they are told those airfields are likely to be retaken soon. Therefore it appears that the Germans are trying to lay down a carpet of paratroopers for their ground forces to advance along, in order to bypass the defensive lines of Fortress Holland.
They therefore send instructions to the Light Division (their main mobile reserve) and to the 8th Infantry Division, both currently in reserve, to recapture the bridges at Dordrecht. It is recognised that this leaves Rotterdam highly vulnerable to attack from the paratroopers at Waalhaven, but they are believed to be a secondary threat compared to the risk of the German ground forces advancing through Moerdijk and Dordrecht.
At 6pm, the first forces of the Light Division crossed the bridge at Alblasserdam (which strangely enough was not shown on German maps), racing for Dordrecht. General Student did not hear of the existence of this bridge until 7.30pm, when he sent two companies of infantry and anti-tank and artillery platoons to the bridge in an attempt to deny it to the Dutch. These would be spotted and engaged by the Dutch around 1km from the bridge, enabling reinforcements to keep flowing over it.

[bobbins66]

Enjoying a new read through, thanks.

[Belushi TD]

I seem to recall that loosing the JU-52's was a major issue for Germany, because they were out of production? Or were in low rate series production? Either way, the Germans basically entered the war without a transport plane that was ready to be mass produced.

Thank you for reposting this. I find your writing to be well researched as well as plausible. And, you make the details interesting.

Belushi TD

[Pdf27]

I seem to recall that loosing the JU-52's was a major issue for Germany, because they were out of production? Or were in low rate series production? Either way, the Germans basically entered the war without a transport plane that was ready to be mass produced.

It's a number of things. Germany wasn't really set up for a long war (and indeed the Anglo-French planning explicitly relied on this, basically planning to swamp the Germans in materiel in 1941), so their production capability was pretty limited and AIUI it wasn't great for mass production. In addition, the Ju-52 wasn't a great cargo aircraft, and was doing a lot of roles (assault transport, air cargo, supporting the leading Panzers, multi-engine pilot training, etc.) which stretched the force pretty thin and meant that losses had knock-on impacts elsewhere in the system.

[Belushi TD]

I recall someone once telling me that the JU-52 was the generation of aircraft before the C-47/C-46. They all suffered from having to load/unload through the door in the side of the plane, but the C-46/-47 were able to lift more and take it a lot farther, a little faster, and were more reliable and easier to fly, to boot.

I'm not sure if it was someone at this board, or if it was one of the cargo pilots that hung out at the bar I drank at in Anchorage.

Belushi TD

[Pdf27]

I recall someone once telling me that the JU-52 was the generation of aircraft before the C-47/C-46. They all suffered from having to load/unload through the door in the side of the plane, but the C-46/-47 were able to lift more and take it a lot farther, a little faster, and were more reliable and easier to fly, to boot.

Ju-52 is a direct descendent of the F13, which first flew in 1919. The structure is basically a metal version of a WW1 fighter - steel tube spaceframe fuselage and wings, with a corrugated aluminium surface attached to it. That's a generation behind stressed-skin aircraft like the C-46/47.

There are much more modern aircraft out there - the Ar-232 for instance first flew in 1941 and had a proper rear loading ramp, but never went into production.