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Great and Bold World War II Raids

Khalid Elhassan January 3, 2025 16 min

Raid - Italian frogmen in manned torpedoes launched from submarine near Alexandria Harbor, by Ivan Berryman. World Naval Ships

18. Attacking a Land Fortification From the Air

Raid - Fort Eben-Emael — Fort Eben-Emael. Warfare History Network

In the wee hours of May 10^th, 1940, at the start of the German blitzkrieg against the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and France, a company of 80 elite German Fallschirmjaegers, or paratroopers, led by Hauptman (Captain) Walter Koch, boarded gliders tethered to Ju 52 transport airplanes, which towed them to the vicinity of Eben-Emael and released them on an approach path to their target. The gliders landed atop the fortress, which had been built to thwart attacks from land. The designers had not thought about a direct assault from up above by airborne soldiers. The German paratroopers exited the gliders, quickly formed into assault teams, and threw explosives down Eben-Emael’s ventilation shafts to explode within the fortress’ vitals. With an aggressive display of shock tactics, in which flamethrowers featured prominently, the Germans soon paralyzed the defenders, who found themselves trapped inside a fortress whose exits had been blocked.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.