INVASION OF THE LOW COUNTRIES

AND THE LITTLE SHIPS OF DUNKIRK

In May 10th 1940, when the much-postponed and frequently amended Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) plan for the invasion of Holland, Belgium and France was put into effect, the land forces of Germany totalled 157 divisions, 49 more than there had been when Poland had been attacked at the beginning of September 1939. Seven were fighting in Norway, one was occupying Denmark, ten were keeping watch between the Carpathians and the Baltic. Three more were still training in Germany. The remaining 136 were committed to the great offensive in the West that was to prove to be France's greatest humiliation.

The Luftwaffe remained dominant in the air, being able to put into action 3,634 front line aircraft, of which 1,016 were fighters and the rest, 1,562, bombers. The latest French fighter aircraft - the sleek, fast Dewoitine 520 and the Bloch 151 - were both too few and too late to be effective in the battle, and most of the fighters of RAF Fighter Command were at home awaiting the inevitable attack on Britain - there were in fact 130 RAF fighters and 160 British bombers in Europe, many of them hopelessly out of date and outclassed by the modern aircraft of the Luftwaffe .

Allied land forces totalled 135 divisions against the 136 fielded by the Germans - 94 French, 10 British, 22 Belgian and 9 Dutch - but, according to military observers of the time, many of the French divisions were made up of poorly trained, ill-disciplined and unwilling conscripts. Thus the balance of power was not as the figures suggest. France had, at that time, mobilised one man in eight. Britain, by contrast, had mobilised one in forty-eight, but her army was more effective, professional in outlook and prepared to fight.

At dawn on May 10th, General Kurt Student's 7th Airborne Division, General Albert Kesselring's Luftflotte II , and General Graf von Sponeck's 22nd Infantry Division began the mighty attack that was to complete the subjugation of continental Europe and humiliate France. The Luftwaffe raided airfields and towns in Holland, Belgium and Northern France, and Student's airborne troops took the important Moerdijk bridges across the Maas estuary to prevent their destruction, the banks of the Maas at Dordrecht and parts of Rotterdam. The airborne troops also succeeded in capturing Waalhaven airport.

General Von Sponeck's 22nd Infantry Division was given the task of taking The Hague and securing the co-operation, or the person, of Queen Wilhelmina or both. It is said that the General was so confident that he set out in full dress uniform, so that he would be properly dressed for his audience with the Queen. In the event, things did not go too well for him. His troops encountered the Dutch I Corps, who put up a fierce fight, recapturing the airfields earlier taken by the paratroops of the 22nd Infantry Division as part of the plan to encircle the capital. Von Sponeck was wounded, 1,000 of his men were shipped off to England as prisoners that evening, and he never did get to meet the Queen.

The most sensational event of May 10th and May 11th was the capture by glider-borne paratroops of the fort at Eben-Emael on the junction of the Albert Canal and the Meuse. Regarded as impregnable, Fort Eben-Emael was defended by 1,200 well trained men who had been taught to expect a traditional attack at ground level. The paratroops instead landed on the roof in gliders, and systematically fought their way down through the building, which was not designed to enable its defenders to cope with such an assault. The outcome was that eighty men under the command of a sergeant silenced the mightiest guns on the Meuse, and made possible the capture of the 1,200-strong garrison, all within thirty hours.

Three Panzer Corps, Heinz Guderian's 19th, Reinhardt's 41st and Hoth's 20th, attacked at lightning speed through the Ardennes forest in South Belgium and Luxembourg, heading for the Meuse and the battle with France. The Belgian forces withdrew from the Ardennes in the face of this assault to a position behind the Meuse, leaving two infantry companies with the thankless task of holding up Guderian's 1st Panzer Division with road blocks.

The Anglo-French Army Group 1, of which the British Expeditionary Force formed part, crossed with a strength of 32 divisions into Belgium, thus putting into action the French C-in-C General Gamelin's brainchild, the Dyle Plan. From his HQ at Vincennes - which, incredibly, had no radio transmitter - Gamelin sought to launch an Allied counter offensive between the Ardennes and the Moselle. Sadly, not all his subordinates had sufficient confidence in the plan to do as they were bidden, and, in any event, Gamelin had neither the quality nor the quantity among his French troops for the plan to work. The German success at Eban-Emael had already taken the Albert Canal and key points on the Meuse. It would take more than the Allied Army Group 1 to do any more than defend. Even that proved difficult.

Although the French 7th Army had reached Breda on May 11th, by the 12th it was in retreat under pressure from Guderian's Panzers . Later that day the Panzer units reached the Meuse along a 130km front, from Dinant to Sedan. They had advanced 120km in three days. The French 7th Army fell back to Antwerp.

Next day, the Battle of the Meuse began. The three Panzer Corps established bridgeheads over the Meuse at Sedan, Montherme and Dinant, destroying the French 9th Army and opening an 80km gap in the Allied line. At Tirlemont, the French 2nd and 3rd Light Mechanised Divisions fought fiercely all day against 16th Panzer Corps, but were forced to fall back. On the 14th, Guderian's 1st Panzer Division crossed the Meuse at Sedan in force, and by nightfall the next day the French Army was in full retreat.

In Holland, fierce resistance around and in Rotterdam angered the Germans sufficiently for Hitler to order on May 14th the reprisal bombing of the city. Despite the fact that the garrison had already agreed to surrender, 100 Heinkel 111 bombers were not turned back, and the bombing went ahead. Tremendous fires in the fats and margarine stores of the port caused enormous destruction, nearly 1,000 people were killed and 78,000 were made homeless. The next day the Dutch Army formally surrendered, although isolated units held out until the 17th. The Dutch Army had lost 2,890 dead, 6,889 wounded. Some 2,500 Dutch civilians had lost their lives. Many more would follow during the grim days of occupation.

Friday May 17th saw the entry of the Germans into Brussels. At Montcornet, Colonel, later General, de Gaulle's 4th Armoured Division attacked Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps fiercely but was driven back, and later that day the 16th and 33rd Panzer Corps were detached from the German 6th Army in Belgium and sent to join the forces on the Meuse. Next day, Guderian's Panzers reached Peronne on the Somme. Disaster was clearly in the air for the Allies and, on Sunday May 20th, General Gamelin was dismissed and replaced by General Weygand. Colonel de Gaulle seemed almost to celebrate by having another go at Guderian, this time almost taking the General's Headquarters before being driven back by Stuka attacks from the air.

Next day, Guderian raced for the Channel coast along the Somme, and despite fierce resistance from the British 12th and 23rd (Territorial) Divisions, the 1st Panzer Division captured Amiens at midday, and the 2nd Division reached Abbeville and Noyelles at the mouth of the river by evening. They had advanced 386km in only 11 days.

By Wednesday May 22nd, Guderian was striking north to attack the encircled British troops at Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk, and by the next day, as the Germans crossed the River Scheldt at Oudenarde and the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium was put on half rations, the forces on the Channel beaches were hemmed in. At Boulogne, six British destroyers evacuated 4,400 troops under heavy fire, and the French destroyers Jaguar and Orage were sunk. The situation was desperate.

Then, on Friday May 24th, there occurred one of the strangest events of the war. Hitler and Field-Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, to the intense frustration of the Panzer generals, ordered the Panzer Divisions to halt at Gravelines, South West of Dunkirk. Why this order was given remains the subject of intense speculation, but, whatever the reason, it resulted in what has become known as "The Miracle of Dunkirk". At Boulogne, the British were less fortunate - 5,000 British and French troops were captured on Sunday 25th May. At Calais, the British garrison rejected a call to surrender and repulsed attack after attack.

All through Sunday 25th, massive preparations had been under way along the British coast to mount one of the strangest and greatest seaborne rescues of all time. On Monday 26th, and for the next week, every vessel that could cross the English Channel to collect men did so - fishing boats, pleasure boats, small sailing boats, even the Thames paddle steamer Gracie Fields . Many small vessels, and all the naval ships that survived the fierce bombardment to which the flotilla was subjected returned several times, braving the most appalling conditions to rescue the British and French soldiers marooned on the beaches.

When Hitler and von Rundstedt realised what was afoot, on the 26th, the Panzer Divisions were given the order to attack, but the respite had provided the stricken Allies with the opportunity to mount a ring of artillery around the besieged army, and the Panzers were unable to penetrate to the beaches and prevent the evacuation. Between the 26th and June 4th, 338,226 men, including some 120,000 French and Belgians, were evacuated from Dunkirk by a total of 861 ships and private craft. Sadly 243 vessels were sunk. The Luftwaffe lost more than 130 aircraft, the RAF 106, with 87 pilots either dead or captured. When the Germans took Dunkirk on June 4th, they captured large quantities of abandoned British and French equipment and vehicles - 2,472 guns, 84,427 vehicles and 657,000 tons of ammunition and stores.

Meanwhile, on May 28th, King Leopold of the Belgians had announced the surrender of the Belgian Army against the wishes of his cabinet and many of his people. On Friday May 31st, the French 1st Army surrendered near Lille after a four-day siege.

Dunkirk marked for the people of Britain an end and, in a different way, a beginning. But for France the agony continued. The Battle of France was about to begin.