10th May 1940 - Holland
At 0500 28 Heinkel III bombers took off for an attack on Holland. Turning to port over the Frisian Islands, they followed the Dutch coast in a long arc, ending by turning again and running in to attack the airport of Waalhaven near Rotterdam. This attempt at an evasive course failed to confuse the Dutch defences, and they were attacked by Dutch fighters, in the first air battle over Holland. Despite this, the German squadron bombed with great accuracy, destroying hangers and killing more than 200 troops of the Dutch Queen's regiment who had been billeted inside.
This was just the first attack from the air, as multiple attacks were being launched against the Dutch airfields, designed to neutralise the Dutch Air Force and divert its attention from the vulnerable Ju52's. The first of these followed the attack on Waalhaven, dropping its cargo of airborne troops around the airfield. Despite the earlier attack the Dutch anti-aircraft defences were still responding, but their best efforts couldn't stop the landings and within 30 minutes the airfield was in German hands.
Once the airfield had been secured, the Luftwaffe commenced to land a stream of Ju52 transports to reinforce the paratroop force. It was a similar story at the Valkenburg and Ypenburg airfields. Although in general the Luftwaffe enjoyed air superiority, there were losses to desperate attacks by Dutch fighters, as well as to two raids by RAF Blenheim bombers operating out of England. Flak was also causing losses, and the first wave of Ju52's at Ypenburg had been almost wiped out, 11 of the 13 aircraft destroyed. The Dutch fighters were having success attacking the troops who had landed on the beach north of The Hague. These actions and those of the Dutch troops had, by nightfall, rendered the German invasion force ineffective.
Lieutenant-General Graf Sponeck, the commander of the airborne forces, realized that his main objective — an assault on The Hague, the seat of the Dutch Government and the royal family — was now impossible. At 1900, with no sign of any improvement in the situation, he established radio contact with Field Marshal Kesselring, commanding Luftflotte 2, and requested further instructions. Kesselring ordered him to forget about the assault on The Hague and try to group his men for an attack on Rotterdam. Sponeck promised to do what he could but he was sceptical about his chances of success.
This was not the only obstacle to the speedy occupation of Holland, intended to secure the northern flank of the invasion. The main obstacles in the Germans’ path were the Rivers Maas and Rhine, whose wide estuaries formed a great natural barrier over which there were only four major crossing-points: the bridges in the centre of Rotterdam, Moerdijk and Dordrecht.
The aim had been for these to be captured by airborne forces, then held until the 9th Panzer fougt its way through to relieve them.
Before this could be attempted, however, the bridges at Maastricht had to be secured.
The task of capturing the Maastricht bridges was assigned to a sub-unit known as the Bau and Lehr-Kompanie Brandenburg (Construction and Training Company Brandenburg) a commando unit formed specifically for this task in October 1939 and operating under the direct control of German Military Intelligence. In the early hours of 10 May, a party of Brandenburgers led by a Lieutenant Hocke and dressed in Dutch uniforms, with sub-machine-guns under their greatcoats, marched up to the Maastricht bridge masquerading as a party of Dutch troops who had captured some infiltrating Germans. The Dutch defenders of the bridge, however, were wide awake, and opened up with small arms fire. In the ensuing exchange, several Brandenburgers, including Lieutenant Hocke, were killed; the remainder scattered and were pinned down. A short while later, the Dutch blew up both bridges at Maastricht, with the result that the advance units of the German Sixth Army became hopelessly bogged down on the east bank of the Maas. A similar attempt to capture a bridge at Arnhem also ended in failure, but a third party of Brandenburgers did succeed in capturing a secondary bridge over the Maas at Gennep by means of an armoured train followed by a troop train. As a result the Peel-Ram line was already penetrated..
The capture of this bridge allowed 9th Panzer to push on and move into the gap between the Dutch Army and the reconnaissance forces of the advancing 16 Corps. These had pushed on ahead of the defensive line the Corps was expecting to hold, in an attempt to locate the German advance and give warning. Meanwhile engineers worked hard to repair the damage to the bridges at Maastricht.
The Dutch defence strategy was to fight a delaying action behind a series of defensive lines, eventually retreating into an area west of the New Hollandic Water Line, called Fortress Holland. The eastern flank of this area was covered by Lake Ijssel, and its southern flank by three broad rivers, two sections of the Rhine and one of the Maas (Meuse). The most optimistic predictions were that this could hold for up to three months even without any allied assistance.
Although airborne troops had attained some lodgements, their most important task, the capture of the bridges leading into Holland, failed due to the defenders blowing them up. The bridge at Dordrecht had been captured, although the garrison in the city still held out, but the long Moerdjik bridges over the Hollands Diep had been blown as soon as German forces were seen. Fortunately the original idea of holding them while French reinforcements arrived had been abandoned when the Dutch had been informed that the Allies would not initially advance further than Antwerp.
Even before the armoured train arrived, the Dutch 3rd Army Corps had already been planned to be withdrawn from behind the Peel-Raam Position, taking with it nearly all their artillery. Each of its six regiments was to leave a battalion behind to serve as a covering force, together with fourteen "border battalions". This withdrawal was originally planned for the first night after the invasion, under cover of darkness, but due to the rapid German advance an immediate retreat was ordered at 0645, to avoid the 3rd Army Corps becoming entangled with enemy troops. The corps joined the six battalions already occupying the Waal-Linge line.
The Light Division, was the only manoeuvre force the Dutch Army possessed. Its planned withdrawal had been similarly executed a day early. Its regiments had biked over the Maas and Waal bridges and then turned left through the Alblasserwaald when it was decided in the afternoon to use it to counterattack the German airborne landing on IJsselmonde. It reached the Noord, the river separating the Alblasserwaard from IJsselmonde, in the evening. There they discovered that the sector near the only bridge, built in 1939, was not strongly occupied by the airborne troops, as the Germans simply had not known of its existence because of outdated maps.
The main threat was now seen as the German control of the Dordrecht bridge, which gave the advancing army a route with which to relieve the paratroops and break into Holland. The Dutch Air force had no suitable force available - what planes they had were already fully committed against the airborne troops - so they begged the Allies to attack the bridge. The closest suitable force belonged to the British AASF, tasked with supporting the BEF from its bases in northern France. The BEF and 16 Corps were not yet in contact with the enemy, so a squadron of Battle bombers took off late that afternoon on a hastily-prepared mission. So quickly improvised that they had no proper maps, and were dependent on using Michelin maps of that area of Holland. Fortunately the experienced peacetime-trained crews were able to cope.
At around 1700 the 10 planes reached the bridge, fortunately without encountering any enemy fighters. The bridge was in constant use, and given its importance as the only current crossing point, was already covered by AA. Two of the Battles were hit on the approach, one of them falling in flames, but the other plane carried on. Expecting a level attack on the bridge, the AA crews were caught by surprise as the Battles turned into steep dives, with the clear intention of delivering a dive-bombing attack. The defenders hadn't realised that the Battle force had this capability, and the steep rate of descent meant it was in any case very difficult to get a hit on the planes.
Even so, they managed to kill one of the attackers before they could drop their bombs, the other seven releasing two 500lb bombs each. The attack was accurate. Two bombs hit the bridge itself, and the others caused casualties to the troops busy scattering for cover, before the planes levelled out and headed west a full throttle. Despite this one more plane was hit, but its armour and self-sealing tanks allowed it to continue for long enough to make a crash landing, where the shaken crew were helped by the local Dutch police.
While the bridge was repairable, it would be at least a day before vehicles could cross it. The Airborne attack could not expect any serious relief until that was possible.
