Fort Ében-Émael and the end of the Phoney War (10 / 11 May, 1940)

In the early hours of 10 May 1940, the end of the Phoney War was heralded by an audacious assault on the Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael. A glider-borne force of just 70 German troops seized Belgium’s most modern frontier fortification and neutralised its garrison of some 800 men.

Of the eleven gliders that took off from Ostheim in Germany, nine landed with pinpoint accuracy on the roof of the heavily fortified complex, widely believed to be impregnable. In a matter of minutes, the attackers had achieved a stunning victory that helped open the way for German forces advancing through Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Through this, and similiar breaches, General Heinz Guderian’s armoured formations would demonstrate to the world the devastating effectiveness of Blitzkrieg.

Skeleton of a DFS 230 German Glider

The German gliders at Eben Emael

The fort bristled with an impressive array of weaponry. Two 120mm guns and sixteen 75mm guns were housed in hardened casemates, designed to cover three bridges along the Belgian border. All three were captured by German glider-borne troops within hours of the assault on the fort. Protecting the main armament, the fort’s roof was studded with anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, each installed in purpose-built emplacements.

Our exploration began at the fort’s entrance, deep beneath the gun emplacements on the western side of the complex. The contrast with the nineteenth-century forts around Liège, which were devastated by massive-calibre German siege guns in 1914, is striking. Among these was the famously named Big Bertha, whose enormous shells helped expose the vulnerability of the older fortifications to modern siege artillery.

The entrance to Fort Eben-Emael

The photograph above shows the entrance to the fort, alongside three of the red-shirted volunteers who do an excellent job of interpreting the site for visitors. Unlike the cramped warren of tunnels found in the Liège forts, Eben-Emael had wide, easily navigable access routes and spacious internal passageways. A long entrance tunnel leads to a series of junctions, with contemporary signs directing visitors to the various casemates above.

Most of the garrison’s accommodation, including the underground hospital, was housed in rooms branching off the main thoroughfare. In contrast to the Liège forts, where men had to cross open ground to reach toilet facilities or obtain clean water, Eben-Emael provided these amenities within the protection of the fort’s hardened structure. The facilities even included hot and cold showers, with the showers reserved for the two officers equipped with regulators to control the water temperature.

The main tunnel - Eben Emael

Destroyed casement

The nine surviving gliders reached their targeted landing points, landing on the roof of the fortress and depositing their assault troops within twenty or thirty metres of their objectives. The German glidermen immediately stormed the gun positions and casemates, using 50-pound hollow charges to destroy the fort’s heavy guns. The photograph above, showing the lower section of one of the casemates, illustrates the destructive power of these weapons. Particularly striking are the buckled steel door and the shrapnel marks along the corridor beyond.

Although the fort’s defences were neutralised in approximately twenty minutes, it was another day and a half before the surrounding area was secured by the German 4th Infantry Division, which had crossed the Belgian border waterways to reach the fort. During this period, Belgian ground forces and artillery made repeated but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to dislodge the German attackers. Eventually, the Belgian commander, Major Jean Jottrand, had no choice but to surrender.

The Belgian defenders suffered sixty men killed and forty wounded. The attacking Fallschirmjäger-Sturmabteilung ‘Koch’, meanwhile, lost seven men killed, with a handful more wounded.

Fellow battlefield walkers at Eben Emael

Museum exhibits in Eben Emael Fort

We spent around two hours exploring the fort, taking in its fascinating collection of artefacts and documents, as well as the film-based experiences and interpretive panels that bring its history to life.

Afterwards, we climbed onto the roof of the fort and joined the dog walkers strolling through what is now a peaceful pastoral landscape. The tranquillity is broken only by the concrete and steel cupolas that lurk among the long grass and surrounding bushes, silent reminders of the fortress’s former purpose.

To the east lies a man-made gorge, created in the 1930s to accommodate the Albert Canal. The fort was constructed to protect this strategically important waterway, and much of the spoil excavated during the canal’s construction was used to build up the hill into which the fortress was incorporated.

A pedestrian suspension bridge crosses the canal, and for just a few euros you can walk a few metres across into the Netherlands, enjoying spectacular views along the way.

Vroenhoven Bridge

A short drive away is Vroenhoven Bridge, which crosses the Albert Canal. On the morning of 10 May 1940, the bridge was captured by glider-borne troops under Hauptmann Walter Koch (who had overall command of the German assault on Eben Emael and the three crossings). It was along this route that German ground forces subsequently advanced to relieve the approximately seventy German glidermen who were keeping the fort’s 800-strong garrison pinned down inside Eben-Emael.

The original bridge has since been replaced by a modern structure which, as the photograph shows, offers a sun terrace for restaurant diners. Within the eastern abutment is a small museum, which incorporates an original pillbox that was attacked during the fighting on 10 May 1940. This bunker can be seen on the left-hand side of the photograph. Sadly, on the occasion of our visit, the museum was closed for a private event.

My photos of Fort Eben Emael and the Liege ring forts can be viewed here.

The day that the Wheezers and Dodgers bombed Birnbeck Pier (1943)

In 1942, the German Luftwaffe began investigating the possibility of using a rocket brake in aerial sea mining. The aim was to reduce the velocity of a parachute-dropped mine so that, when it entered the water, the fuse would not be damaged. In practice, however, the idea was put to one side after a more robust fuse had been developed—one capable of withstanding the impact of entering the sea after a rapid descent by parachute.

In June of the same year, the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD), known colloquially as the ‘Wheezers and Dodgers’, had, coincidentally, begun experimenting with a similar concept, but with considerably greater ambition.

According to the Old Testament, the Prophet Elijah used twelve large stones to build an altar on Mount Carmel. In reference to this biblical story, the DMWD adopted the name ‘Hajile’ for Project No. 81, The Deceleration of Parachuted Stores. The project’s scope extended well beyond the original idea of the dropping mines. It envisaged the airborne delivery of heavy equipment—including armoured fighting vehicles, bulldozers and substantial quantities of supplies—by using rockets to arrest their descent just before landing.

Birnbeck Pier, 1930s

Elijah's heavy lifting on Mount Carmel

The approach adopted by the DMWD was to arrest the fall of the parachuted load using a ‘nest’ of rockets suspended beneath the canopy. The object to be dropped would be secured in a harness and surrounded by a huge ‘candelabra’ of rockets. Fired at precisely the right moment, these would counter the descent of the load, reducing its velocity sufficiently to allow it to touch down relatively gently.

Dr E. I. Guggenheim of the DMWD carried out the initial calculations. The first of these occupies four full pages in DMWD Technical History, Vol. XVII, held at The National Archives at Kew. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the number of variables involved: the combined weight of the load and rocket unit; the weight of the parachute; the thrust produced by the rocket unit; the terminal velocity of the system; the velocity at any given point during deceleration; and the drag produced by the parachute.

It was, in other words, a deceptively simple idea that required some decidedly complicated mathematics.

How the Hajile concept works

After considering a number of possible sites where Hajile could be tested—including the lift shaft at Hampstead Tube Station—the first trials were conducted from the roof of the giant balloon hangars at RAF Cardington in Bedfordshire. These initial experiments were encouraging, but it was time for a more ambitious test.

The team therefore headed west, to the North Somerset coast, where Hajile’s capabilities would be put to a much more spectacular test. Extraordinarily heavy objects were to be dropped into the sea off Birnbeck Island, near Weston-super-Mare, from a Lancaster provided by the Air Torpedo Development Unit of HMS Vernon, based at Weston-super-Mare Airport.

It is here that the famous motor-racing photographer Louis Klemantaski enters the story. Known to his colleagues simply as ‘Klem’, Klemantaski had joined the DMWD because of his expertise in high-speed photography. Many readers will have seen his remarkable films of Barnes Wallis's Upkeep trials at Reculver in Kent.

Klemantaski had begun the war in the Army, serving as an instructor in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, but was subsequently summoned by the Admiralty because of his unique photographic skills. His ability to capture events that took place in fractions of a second made him an invaluable member of the Hajile team—and, as events would prove, he was about to have a ringside seat for one of the DMWD’s more spectacular experiments - and could be blamed for demolishing part of Birnbeck Pier!

Louis Klemantaski (right) - post WW2

ATDU Lancaster fitted for Hajile

In an unpublished memoir, buried deep in the Churchill Archives in Cambridge, an eyewitness describes what happened next.

I was on the pier when the pilot of an aeroplane, who was dropping 10 ft cylinders attached to parachutes into the sea for DMWD, had been asked to drop one nearer the pier so that DMWD photographer Klemantaski could get a better cine film of the drop. There were a number of visitors and I watched them in between watching the cylinder floating down from the sky. It was most interesting to note their gradual awakening to the fact that the pilot had achieved a “direct hit” on the pier. Some people were more or less paralysed and “rooted to the spot”, some fled along the pier towards dry land, some flung themselves on their faces. I squatted by the pier wall and hoped for the best, which happened since no one was hurt and the damage was confined to the pier buildings. I cannot remember how good a film Klem took but it should have been excellent, except for not showing what happened when the cylinder hit the water, because it didn’t.

Gerald Pawle, in his 1956 book The Secret War, wrote the following.

The concrete ‘bomb’ landed squarely on the roof of the DMWD’s engineering hut on the pier. It sheared through a massive steel joist and demolished the covered way leading to the steamer jetty. Fortunately, there were no casualties, although the WREN cooks preparing lunch just a few feet from the wrecked shelter must have thought that the end of the world had arrived.

The covered walkway can be seen in the photograph of Birnbeck Pier at the top of this post. It is on the right-hand side of the North Jetty, immediately to the left of the berthed steamer.

The Hajile project brought its share of frustrations and disappointments, but it did serve to advance the scientific study of deceleration, even though the system was never to become fully operational.

Jack Wide's photo album (see below)

As an aside, when I interviewed Cathy Keep, whose father, Jack Wide, was the piermaster at Birnbeck Pier she showed me a photo album containg images of herself as a baby, embossed with the name 'Louis Klemantaski’. This speaks to the close relationship the local Birnbeck team had with the DMWD 'interlopers'!