At 4:25 a.m. on May 5, 1940, on the outskirts of Cologne, Germany, on the Ernstham and Hal airports on the Rhine River, the roar of engines could be heard in the darkness where you couldn't see your fingers.

Five minutes later, a light signal indicating that it was ready to take off pierced the night, and the JU-52 transport planes in full gear began to taxi slowly at the airport.

Each Ju-52 transport aircraft was hung a tow rope on which a DFS230 military glider was towed.

On the runway, the glider is towed and accelerates forward. After the JU-52 transport plane left the ground, with the help of traction, the pilot of the glider also pulled the control stick to let the plane lift into the air, and the glider left the ground, flew over the airport wall in the blink of an eye, and followed the JU-52 transport plane to climb to a high altitude, successfully completing the difficult night towing takeoff.

At both airfields, about every dozen seconds, a Ju-52 transport plane towed the glider and took off. A few minutes later, forty-one gliders were towed into the air, and after converging in the skies south of Cologne, they flew west together to the Belgian fortress of Eben Emar and the three bridges over the Albert Canal to the northwest.

Located five kilometres south of the Maastricht River, the Eben Emar Fortress is the northern pillar of the Liège Fortress and controls the depth of the strategically important Albert Canal.

The fortress was armed with 6 120-mm cannons with a range of 10 km, 2 of which could maneuver 360 degrees, 16 75-mm guns, 12 high-speed anti-tank guns of 60 mm, 25 twin machine guns and a certain number of anti-aircraft guns. One of the forts is bordered by the canal on one side and the land on the other three, and has a minefield, a deep ditch, and a 6.1-meter-high wall.

German Group B consisted of the 6th and 18th armies, a total of 29 divisions, and they were tasked with attacking Belgium.

As the right flank of Army Group, the XVIII Army was to attack along the Aachen-Maastricht-Brussels line.

The Ebenemar Fortress and its surrounding bridges were the route of the Eighteenth Army, and in order to prevent the Belgian troops from blowing up the bridges, the Germans specially developed an operational plan for the capture of the fortress by airborne assault, and the airborne troops were named after their commander, Captain Koch, called the Koch Assault Regiment.

The Koch assault regiment was divided into four squads, of which the Granite squad was responsible for capturing the fortress of Eben-Emar, and the remaining three squads were each responsible for capturing a bridge.

At about 5:20 a.m., the glider on which the Granite squad was flying successfully broke through the Belgian defenders' defenses and landed at the designated place above the fortress of Eben Emar.

The fourth squad of the assault team was responsible for storming the fortress's pillbox No. 19, which had firing holes on the north and south sides, and was equipped with anti-tank guns and machine guns.

After approaching the pillbox, the commandos first blocked the shooting hole of the pillbox with machine gun fire, and then sent people to rush to the side of the pillbox and stuffed a kilogram of explosives into the pillbox through the lookout hole of the pillbox, and after a loud bang, the gunfire in the No. 19 pillbox stopped.

Subsequently, the commandos stuffed 150 kilograms of special hollow explosives into the observation bunker, and blasted a way through the firing hole of the bunker to attack the bunker. After entering the pillbox, they found that the artillery inside had been destroyed, and the Belgian defenders had all been killed.

Eighty meters north of Bunker 19, the assault of the 6th and 7th squads of the assault team was much smoother, and when they approached the 15th and 16th bunkers to be captured, they discovered that the two pillboxes, which were mistaken for five-meter-thick armor, were actually disguised with thin iron sheets.

Almost simultaneously, the first and third squads of the assault team destroyed the defenders' pillboxes No. 12 and 18 successively.

Ten minutes after the granite team landed at the fortress of Eben Emar, they destroyed ten pillboxes, and their battle officially declared the German Army Group B officially in a state of war.

At 5:30 a.m., the German offensive against Belgium, Luxembourg and France was in full swing.

At Wallendorf, the Luftwaffe Hermann Goering Motorized Rifle Regiment crossed the border into Luxembourg, and the Luxembourg army, with a "strong" force of 400 infantry and 12 cavalry, surrendered without a fight.

The Hermann Gorens Regiment entered Luxembourg and announced the official offensive of Army Group A, which had forty-five divisions of three armies.

On the left flank of Army Group A, Army Group C, which had eighteen divisions of two armies, carried out artillery shelling of the Maginot Line defenders from the front, and their task was to feint the Maginot Line and attract the attention of the defenders.

In the skies, swarms of Stuka dive bombers, Do-17 bombers and He-111 bombers, escorted by fighter jets, crossed the border and bombarded French and Belgian airfields, railway junctions, heavily trooped areas and cities.

In just one day, the world was shocked by the German attack on the Western Front.

On the afternoon of May 5, Chamberlain, who had just narrowly retained the prime ministership in the no-confidence motion vote held in Parliament on May 4, submitted his resignation to the King of England because the British Labour Party was willing to form a coalition government with the Conservative Party to deal with the war situation in Western Europe, but the Labour Party openly expressed its unwillingness to accept Chamberlain's leadership.

When Chamberlain resigned, he formally recommended to the King of England the Secretary of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, to take over as Prime Minister.

At 6 p.m. on May 5, 1940, King George VI summoned Churchill and ordered him to form a cabinet. An hour later, Churchill met with Labour leader Attlee and invited Labour to join the United War Cabinet and gain support.

While Churchill was enjoying the thrill of power, in Paris, France, French Prime Minister Renaud was surprised and delighted.

Renault was horrified that the Germans had actually attacked, and there had been news from various sources that Germany was about to attack France, and just last night, there were warnings from Brussels and The Hague that Renault would invade today, but all the warnings were left behind him, and today, the German attack turned these warnings into reality. Remembering the last war, France and Germany fought for four years, with more than 1.5 million casualties, and nearly 5 million wounded, missing, and captured.

How long will it be this time, four years or five years? How many French lads will die from this, a million, two million, or three million?

To Renault's surprise, news came from the commander-in-chief of the French army, Gamblerin called Renault shortly after the outbreak of the war, claiming that everything the Germans were under his control, that the German offensive would be stopped in Belgium, and that not a single German soldier would set foot on French soil.

In the First World War, France had already suffered a defeat in the Schlieffen plan, so the Belgian direction was a key focus of the French army.

On the border between France and Belgium, Gunmerin laid the First Army Group, which consisted of thirty-two divisions of four armies, in addition to eight divisions of the British Expeditionary Force. As soon as the Germans attacked Belgium, the 1st and 7th Armies on the left flank of Army Group 1 and the British Expeditionary Force would immediately support Belgium and deploy defenses along the Deir River in Belgium to stop the Germans there and prevent the flames from reaching the French mainland.

Confirming that the Germans had really invaded Belgium, Gammelin couldn't help but let out a cheer of "they're finished" from his headquarters, and immediately reported the good news to Renault, generously sharing his joy with Renault.

Reynaud was slightly relieved to learn that all the actions of the German army were under the control of Ganmarin, and immediately ordered someone to contact the British government to discuss countermeasures.

Similar to the mood of Churchill and Renault, in Münster Ivel in western Germany, Hitler jumped up from the sofa excitedly after learning that the Anglo-French army had marched into Belgium in the cliff castle, paced around the house, waved his arms and shouted to Goering and Keitel and others: "Great, they have been fooled, their main force has entered Belgium, and our breakthrough in the Ardennes Forest is half successful." ”

Göring smiled and presented Hitler with a few top hats, and then said in his mind: "Today is the first day of the eight-week countdown. ”

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At 9 p.m. on May 5, the small town of Hertner, on the border between western Germany and Luxembourg, welcomed a group of dusty guests.

Chen Dao jumped off Bandit No. 1 and joined Major Schubert who remained here and said, "Arrange accommodation for the personnel immediately, they are tired." We rested here for two days and left for France at 8am on May 8th. ”

"Will two days be too long? In addition, today we and the main force of the regiment will pull off the three-day trip, and it will be very difficult to catch up. Major Schubert said.

"It doesn't matter, the distance between one day and three days makes no difference to me. I want to replenish the troops and equipment damaged in Norway, and I want to teach you the experience of fighting in Norway, two days is very little. Chen Dao said.

"Alright, we're scheduled to leave on May 8th." Major Schubert nodded.

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