(5/5) Dangerous Missions - Eben Emael - World War II

At the outbreak of World War II, Fort Eben Emael in Belgium was the strongest fortress in the world, and it lay exactly across the German invasion route of Belgium and France. The forts elimination was essential for the success of Hitlers invasion of the West. Deemed impregnable to conventional attack, Hitler himself suggested the means for its capture with the first glider-borne assault in military history. On 10 May 1940, ten gliders carrying just 77 paratroopers landed on top of the fort. Using top-secret hollow-charge weapons for the first time in warfare, the assault pioneers of Sturmgruppe Granit subdued Fort Eben Emael within just 30 minutes, and the fortress surrendered within 30 hours. It remains one of the greatest raids in the annals of Special Forces.

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• Emael
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[mrgoodvibrations]

Poor Schmit lost out on the Iron Cross for his drunkin ride of turret 120. LOL

[subtle0savage]

Excellant. Thankyou for putting this up.

[Eurofighter19]

Great documentary.

[petervalientes]

french speaking is a bang of loser since second world war,

[alanheath]

Rudolf Witzig is the oldest person I know of who joined the army. He rejoined at the age of 39 in 1956!

[alanheath]

All credit to the attackers who trained hard and disgrace to the Belgian commander who clearly did not.

The museum has tours - there were a lot of people there on the day of my visit. Unfortunately all the tours were in Dutch, a language I don't speak but I managed to get the gist of what was going on. Later I was able to join an English language group for the introduction.

For anyone in the area it is definitely worth visiting and if not, well you can see my video of my visit!!

[PipeDD714]

MANY thanx for posting this excellent piece on a relatively obscure action. Some questions remain: How extensive was German intelligence regarding fort plans? (Their attack scheme seemed to indicate significant knowledge.) WHY were the Belgians so invested in clearing the admin spaces? Why were reinforcements garrisoned so far away? Had the Belgians ever heard of readying ammo stores? Any truth to the legend that the Germans employed acrobats tp place the charges?

[waterslak1]

that was not nice/and fair of the germans :C

[alanheath]

@lemonite1 Thanks for the comment - I think the documentary here is much better although it does benefit from preparation.

I have already promised our host GD that I will do something on Arnhem one day but I dont go that way very often.

In the meantime you can see some of the other stuff I have done on Remagen, Seelow Heights, Danzig Free City and others. A lot on the Nazi death camps too!

[lemonite1]

@alanheath

Wow, your channel is almost better than the documentary.Great shots of the locales and very clear/objective reporting. Btw, if you are ever in the area, could you do something on the sites of Operation Market Garden? The bridge at Arnem?

[alanheath]

Since writing the above, I have been there and need to say that the natural postion of the fort offers excellent defence so the location is correct.

I have a lot of film of Eben Emael on my channel if you are interested.

[lemonite1]

@alanheath Come to think of it, and looking back at the previous episode, I think you are right. If the purpose of the fort is to defend the bridges, then shouldn't the fort's main battery be directed in that direction?