Operation Fall Gelb
3rd May 1940
Hitler postpones X-day, the start of the offensive, until the 6th due to poor weather. Good weather is deemed essential for the planed air landings and to maximise Luftwaffe support of the ground troops.
6th May 1940
X-Day is delayed again, until the 10th May.
10th May 1940
At 21:00 on 9 May, the code word Danzig was relayed to all German army divisions, beginning operation Fall Gelb. Security for the operation was so strict that many officers, due to the constant delays, were actually away from their units when the order was sent.
Some time after midnight a French reconnaissance aircraft operating between the French border and Düsseldorf spotted the headlights of long columns of vehicles heading westward. However it took hours before higher authority was warned of this, by which time other actions had shown the defenders what was about to happen.
At around 3am, in advance of the general attack, a sabotage unit of sixty-four men in five parties crossed the frontier between Roermond and Maastricht. Three parties wore Dutch steel helmets and great-coats over their German uniforms; the other two wore fitters' and mechanics' overalls. Their aim was to capture various bridges, but the bridge guards succeeded in blowing most of those attack
The fortress of Eben Emael was located between Liege and Maastricht, and was seen as the key to the defence of Belgium from a German attack across the narrow belt of Dutch territory in the region. Constructed between 1931–1935, it was reputed to be impregnable and was at the time the largest fortification in the world. The fortifications mounted 120 mm and 75 mm guns, giving the ability to bombard targets across a wide area of the eastern Liège region. It was expected that the fort would at least delay any German attack in the area with this artillery, and was expected to hold for 5-7 days, buying the Belgian Army time to mobilise and dig in.
The defensive use of the fortress was equally obvious to the Germans, who had implemented a detailed and complicated plan of attack using an airborne force.
At 0330 forty-one Junkers 52 transports had taken off from the airfields of Butzweilerhof and Ostheim on opposite banks of the Rhine near Cologne. They had set course westwards in a long stream, guided by a line of flashing navigational beacons stretching all the way to Aachen. Assault Group Koch had been training for six months under the tightest security, The group's 41 gliders were divided into four parts, each with a different objective.
The task of capturing Eben Emael was assigned eleven gliders carrying eighty-five men. The second Assault Detachment, ninety-six men in eleven gliders, was to capture the bridge over the Maas at Vroenhoven and prevent its destruction by the defenders. The third Assault Detachment, with ninety-two men in nine gliders, was to capture the bridge at Veldwezelt over the Albert Canal to the north of Vroenhoven. The final group, with ten gliders and ninety soldiers was headed for the third bridge over the canal, at Kanne.
At 04.15 the Junkers of the first Assault Detachment released their gliders, now reduced to nine in number, over the fortress of Eben Emael. The Belgian gunners were on alert, but were not expecting a glider-borne attack. The landing force spread out, attacking the bunkers on top of the fortress with satchel charges, and within 10 minutes had destroyed many of them. By now the defenders had realised that they were under attack, and the garrison commander contacted the commander of one of the artillery batteries surrounding the fort to lay a barrage on top of the fort. A battle raged atop the structure for over three hours before the attackers managed to reinforce their toehold, the men niside resisting despite dive-bombing attacks by the Luftwaffe. The fortress finally fell after new shock troops reinforced the glider troops, and Eben Emael surrendered by noon on the 11th. The fortress which had been expected to slow and attack invaders for a week had fallen in just over a day,
The other detachments had not been so successful; the bridges in Maastricht itself had been destroyed by the defenders, and the one at Kanne, which linked Maastricht with Eben Emael, had been blown up just as the assault gliders touched down. However, the main bridges at Vroenhoven and Veldwezelt had been captured intact, although they had subsequently come under heavy Belgian fire, and they were being crossed by the leading elements of the Panzer Divisions.
At Arras the night time quiet was disturbed just before dawn by the arrival of German aircraft attacking the nearby airfields. The raid was part of a widespread attack by the Luftwaffe on the Allies' airfields', railways, headquarters and key supply points in an effort to cripple air forces and disrupt communications as the opening move of the German western campaign.
News of German movements towards the frontier had reached the Belgian Government during the night and at four o'clock in the morning their Foreign Minister, M. Spaak, called on the British Ambassador in Brussels, Sir Lancelot Oliphant, and appealed for British help in resisting the German invasion, and on hearing this the BEF was instructed to commence it's move to the Dyle line.
The British Expeditionary Force had been deployed along the Franco-Belgian frontier between Halluin and Maulde. Plan D required them to make a rapid advance across Belgium, which required careful planning. Fortunately the roads were not congested with refugees at this time, and the plans - and aerial photographs of the intended routes - had been well prepared. By the night of the 10th the armoured cars of the cavalry screen had arrived at the Dyle river. The rest of the Divisions in I, II and III Corp were following. There was an issue with one unit of the 3rd Division, where the frontier barrier was closed because they could not show the necessary papers to enter Belgium. They solved the problem by crashing through the frontier barrier with a 15-cwt truck.
Meanwhile to their left the three division of the French 16 Corp were moving into Belgium, headed for Antwerp. They had been allocated all the spare transport 7th Army had available to speed this up, as it was imperative it reached the intended defensive positions before the Germans. As the remainder of 7th Army was only to move forward more slowly into a position to act as reserve, this allocation was deemed acceptable.
These were not the only forces moving forward; to the south of them the French 1st Army was also entering Belgium, its lead elements heading for the Gembloux Gap in order to buy time for the rest of the Army to take up its defensive positions and prepare field fortifications.
