German paratroopers also played the role of the vanguard in the invasion of Belgium. Acting almost simultaneously with the Dutch paratroopers, the German paratroopers were 'flowering' all over Belgian territory. They opened the way for the German ground forces, and the 1st Cavalry Corps of Army Group A entered Belgian territory from the direction of due north of the city of Liège. The place, which stretches south between Germany and Belgium, is known as the "Maastricht appendix".

The two countries are bordered by the famous Maas River, and not far away, there is the Albert Canal in Belgium, which acts as a fortress to defend Belgium's fragile borders.

In 1914 the German team entered Belgium from the same place and on the same road. In order to resist the possible next German invasion, the Belgians began to build a magnificent fortress here as early as the early 30s.

Situated in the small village of Eben-Emar, three miles south of Maastricht, this fortress is the most fortified fortress in all of western Europe. The fort of Eben-Emar is the northern fulcrum of the line of important points, and the southern part of the fortress leads to Liège, which is the only way to the heart of Belgium.

They invested a lot of money in the fortress to make the entire fortress impregnable, but ironically, they hired a German engineering team to complete the construction of the entire fortress. The meticulous German engineers built the entire fortress to an unusually strong one, but gave a copy of the drawings to the Wehrmacht.

To occupy this important fortress, the Germans threw in 500 well-trained paratrooper assault units. The task of these units was to hold this offensive line for the German 1st Cavalry Corps of Army Group A.

This time, the German paratroopers decided to attack in a more innovative way - they landed directly in gliders. The reason why Studenter chose a glider instead of a parachute for the airdrop was that he was afraid that the loud noise of the JU-52 transport plane's engine would "expose" the operation in advance, and second, he was afraid that the paratroopers would be scattered in the air and would not form an assault force, and he needed these soldiers to land in a concentrated manner and attack together.

They used 50 gliders in the early morning to break away from the Ju-52 transport at 7,000 feet above Aachen. Each glider is accompanied by 10 heavily armed paratroopers armed with MP-44 assault rifles or G42 machine guns and flamethrowers.

As soon as the sky was 'clouded' and the first glimmer of dawn was slightly revealed, these transport gliders made of tin sheets, wood, and coarse canvas, with their sleds, quietly landed ghostly only seven miles away from their targets. They were prepared, and the paratroopers secretly trained for this operation for three months, and the training content was so harsh that two paratroopers were even sentenced to death for violating discipline.

The glider unit was divided into four detachments, codenamed 'concrete', steel, 'granite' and iron. Their targets within a five-mile radius were the Albert Canal and three bridges.

The steel detachment landed on the west bank of the Albert Canal and quickly captured the northernmost junction: the Feldwitzet railway bridge;

Two detachments and later paratroopers guarded the two bridges, they built bridgeheads on both sides, and the counterattack of the Belgian troops was quickly repulsed.

At the southernmost bridge, the German paratroopers were in trouble, and Canne, less than a mile from the Eben-Emar fortress, was the target of the iron detachment, and a few minutes before the glider landed, it was spotted by the Belgian defenders, who fought back, killing more than 30 German soldiers. But the Germans had the last laugh, they captured the bridge and drove the Belgians out in one fell swoop.

And the detachment mission codenamed 'Granite' was the most unusual. They were ordered to take the fortress of Eben-Emar directly. The 175-acre pentagonal fort is usually garrisoned by 1,200 Belgian soldiers, but this morning there were only 750 soldiers inside the walls because of the change of guards.

The cliffs along the canal guard the northeast side of the fort, and the other four sides are defended by anti-tank trenches and a 20-foot-high wall. Inside the fortress, tunnels extend in all directions, and there are many forts. The rotating turret was equipped with a wide variety of weapons, the only flaw being that there were not many anti-aircraft guns, and the wide surface of the fortress was not mined.

The fortress of Eben-Emar was very vulnerable to air strikes, which is why Germany chose to target it. Under the futile high-fire fire of the stunned Belgian machine gunners, 15 German gliders landed safely on the large lawn at the top of the fort. The German paratroopers heroically jumped out of the plane and rushed to their target with artillery fire.

All the Germans were specialists in explosives, and they brought two and a half tons of explosives, a considerable part of which had a new type of device on it, which was shaped like a concave hemisphere. This device allows the force of the explosion to concentrate downwards and can easily destroy heavy 'mixed' concrete fortifications.

Each of these explosives weighs 100 pounds and can blow up several feet of steel at once. Ever since studying aerial photographs and maps of the fort, the sappers knew everything about where they had placed their explosives. In less than 10 minutes after landing, they blew up more than half of their selected targets.

And in the process of exploding, they found that the Belgian defenders were cutting corners, and two turrets were simply ornaments, completely incapable of attacking. They opened heavy fire, and the Belgian defenders were forced to retreat into the ditch for concealment. They called in the artillery forces outside the fortress and shelled their own fortress from the outside.

The German paratroopers were forced to take refuge in the bunkers they had just blown up, waited for the shelling to stop, and then came out again, dropping the remaining explosives into the tunnels of the Belgian defenders, blowing the Belgian troops inside to the ground.

However, because the Belgian defenders were outnumbered, they resisted desperately. The Germans were not able to control the entire fortress for a while, and they had to wait for reinforcements to arrive before they could complete what seemed impossible.

Reinforcements arrived a little faster than the best had expected, and the troops crossed the Maas with unimaginable speed. Accardo and his generals hatched a small spy plan to make them proud, and the purpose of this plan was to cross the bridge over the Maas River as quickly as possible.

A special operations team in imitation Belgian uniforms rushed to the vicinity of these bridges, and the troops who pretended to be retreating approached their targets, and then they opened fire at close range, capturing several important bridges.

The German infantry and cavalry were able to cross the Maas as fast as they could, and within a few hours, the German paratroopers were waiting for their reinforcements. However, these supporters were blocked by the important Gun Battery 17 of the Eben-Emar Fortress, which the German paratroopers trapped on top of the fortress had to destroy in order to be rescued.

However, the turret was so cleverly designed that the German paratroopers could not reach so far below and could not place explosives, so the Belgian defenders were able to hold on, firing one shell after another at the mule-horse infantry units of the German 1st Cavalry Corps.

The sappers of the paratroopers quickly found a way to do so, and they had the explosives tied to the end of the rope, a fuse detonator, tied to the stomach, and then pulled and hoisted to the top of the turret. These explosive 'charge' packs were then used to plug the gap in the fortress observation post. Soon the explosive pack exploded, destroying some important fortress parts and rendering the battery inoperable.

The German paratroopers were actually very weak-minded, and they were afraid of a counter-offensive by the Belgians, because their forces were so limited. However, until 10 p.m., the Belgian defenders did not have the courage to come out of their bunkers to fight back, and only stood in their trenches for the last struggle.

Soon the German infantry caught up, and they began to clear the way with flamethrowers. As they approached the bunker, the soldiers pulled the trigger, and the flames were conspicuous in the dark night, rising into the air under the moonlight, and the guns in the Belgian defenders' pillboxes were suddenly dumb.

The sound of flamethrowers woke up the exhausted German paratroopers above the fortress, who were already asleep by this time. When they realized that their reinforcements had arrived, they rushed down the hillside, shouting to greet their comrades. They sang and danced with the German sappers who had arrived, and the two undead fellows even danced in a dangerous place.

The next morning, more reinforcements arrived, the German infantry surrounded the fortress of Eben-Emar, and Stuka bombers flew in, dropping larger bombs and destroying more fortifications.

After a while, the defenders' radio horns sounded, and the Belgian defenders stepped out of their fortifications and surrendered to the heroic German paratroopers waving white flags. In this battle, the Belgian defenders lost only 75 killed, more than 50 others were wounded, and the remaining 600 were unscathed. And the German paratroopers miraculously lost only 5 people.

The Germans once again completed the attack with the speed of running, and the entire 1st Cavalry Corps took only two days to cover the road that had not been completed in 20 days. German Army Group A had firmly controlled its advance area and had created the most favorable conditions for the unfolding of Operation Scythe.

Accardo decided to reward the paratroopers for the paratrooper operation, and Student honored all the paratroopers on behalf of them, and all the paratroopers who participated in the attack and defense of the fortress of Eben Emar were rewarded with a promotion of the first rank, and the officers were allowed to enjoy a month-long vacation.

Of course, Accardo was even more pleased that the 'color' was completely in the hands of the German armored forces. Those wolf-like tank armies will appear behind the Anglo-French forces and 'advance' to the English Channel at the fastest speed - 93337 + dsuaahhh + 25901562 - >