Thought you knew everything about German airborne operations in World War II? Think again. Unless you've been studying sources in Dutch and German, you're almost certainly unfamiliar with the details - and the magnitude - of the Wehrmacht attack on The Hague in May 1940. E.H. Brongers has written a full account of a dramatic battle little studied outside the Netherlands, and one that might cause some readers to reassess views of German invincibility during their blitzkrieg in the west.
The author sets the stage with a chapter about opposing plans and forces, with
especially interesting information concerning the Dutch. Their military
equipment was already obsolete at the end of World War One, and it was
scarcely updated between the wars. The government belatedly made funds
available to purchase a modest amount of modern equipment from other nations
on the eve of WWII, but not nearly enough. At the outbreak of war some cities
and private companies felt so threatened by the possibility of air attack that
they collected donations to purchase AA weapons through a military program
which gave ownership of the guns to the armed forces but ensured they would be
placed to defend the localities which had provided the funds (and which were
also required to provide volunteer gun crews). In this manner the defenses of
The Hague, for example, were augmented by eleven 20mm AA guns.
According to Brongers, the battle which he covers here was basically the
brainchild of Adolf Hitler. A combined force of paratroopers and airlanding
troops under General Hans Graf von Sponeck, commander of the 22nd Luftlande
Division, had the mission of capturing Queen Wilhelmina, the Dutch government,
and the Dutch armed forces High Command by a surprise attack on The Hague.
Preparations included considerable espionage by the German military attache,
aerial photography, and compilation of large amounts of publicly available
information about the city. Here's how Brongers describes German plans.
The attack would be carried out as follows. First, the combat aircraft would
fly over The Netherlands in a westerly direction, without taking any offensive
action. The intention was that the Dutch would then believe that it was a
massive air attack on England. Above the North Sea, the planes would turn
back. Their sudden return, combined with bombing and strafing, would only
increase the surprise effect. The aerial bombardments had an objective to
eliminate the defenders of Ypenburg and Valkenburg. At Ockenburg this would be
achieved by strafing. In addition to that, bombing attacks on the barracks in
The Hague would prevent the sending of reinforcements. At the same time, under
cover of these air attacks, the paratroopers would be dropped in the immediate
vicinity of the airfields.
The next phase would be the destruction of any remnants of resistance from the
airfield defence left over after the bombing and strafing. This would be
carried out by the paratroopers, who would have re-grouped in the meantime to
secure the airfield for the in-transit transport aircraft. The landing of
these planes and the disembarking of the airlanding troops would conclude the
first part of the operation. The aircraft had orders to return to Germany to
pick up those units of the division that had stayed behind. What was next to
happen was now clear. The deployed units would advance into The Hague to
occupy the Royal Palace and the government buildings, while the High Command
of the armed forces would be taken prisoner. The entry into The Hague was also
prepared thoroughly. Commanders were issued with maps of The Hague, published
in Holland, on which the routes to be followed were marked. Important
locations were noted, such as headquarters, government buildings, palaces,
barracks, post offices, etc. Lists were also carried with the names of the
many persons who had to be arrested immediately.
After the occupation of The Hague, General Graf von Sponeck would go to the
Queen (equipped with a bunch of flowers), to persuade her to call a halt to
resistance. If neither she nor the Commander-in-Chief was willing to give such
an order, uncoordinated Dutch counterattacks might still be expected. The
final phase of the entire operation consequently consisted of consolidating
The Hague against such operations. To the east and south, this could be
achieved by closing the access roads to the town, using Ypenburg and Ockenburg
as bases. A proportion of the units to be landed at Valkenburg had the mission
to occupy the banks of the Oude Rijn between Katwijk-at-Sea and Leiden, to
prevent the movement of Dutch troops stationed in the province of North-
Holland in the direction of The Hague. To link up with the eastern outskirts
of The Hague, the motorway between The Hague and Leiden would be occupied.
Thus, a possible escape attempt by the Royal Family and the government to the
airport Schiphol could be prevented. General Putzier's air corps was ordered
to destroy all the Dutch troops that might hasten to the rescue. The Germans
did not expect that, after the success of the 'coup', the Dutch army would
still be able to constitute a serious threat. In the worst case, the city had
to be held until the armoured units advancing on the axis Moerdyk-Rotterdam
had reached The Hague.
Very early on the morning of 10 May 1940, Luftwaffe aircraft flew past The
Hague and continued over the sea as planned. Not according to plan, the noise
of the air formations passing overhead proved sufficient to rouse the
defenders who were consequently alert when the aircraft turned back to
approach The Hague again. Ypenburg airfield outside the city was the first
target. Luftwaffe bombers attacked the Dutch defenses and transports dropped
the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Fallschirmjaeger Regiment around the area.
Disregarding damage to the airfield, Dutch aircraft based at Ypenburg managed
to get into the air and claimed some victories before they were shot down or
forced to land elsewhere
Despite air attack and paratroopers on the ground, Dutch defenders continued
to hold most of their positions along the perimeter of the airfield when Ju
52s began bringing in reinforcements from 22nd Luftlande. According to
Brongers, the transports and troops were slaughtered by Dutch machine gun fire
as they touched down, leaving Ypenburg littered with burned out aircraft.
The author briefly compares the situation at Ypenburg with the German capture
of Fornebu airport outside Oslo in April, and that fight is worth examining in
more detail. At Fornebu, the paratroopers tasked with dropping on the airfield
turned back due to heavy fog, but the transports carrying the airlanding
troops continued resolutely. A few Me 110s attacked the defenders and then,
out of fuel, landed on the Norwegian-held runway. This proved sufficient to
induce the Norwegians to begin withdrawing, allowing the transports to land
with minimal losses so that German troops could secure the airfield. In short,
a few Luftwaffe fighters managed to land at an enemy airfield and chase away
the defenders, making the situation safe enough for the transports. The author
reports a Dutch officer had witnessed the landing at Fornebu and relayed the
story of events there back home, so a few lightly-armed troops had been
deployed specifically to protect airfields in the Netherlands. Those
precautions might have been sufficient to prevent a repetition at The Hague of
events in Norway.
Reviewing the sequence of events, it seems like there were three contributing
factors for the German failure to secure Ypenburg prior to arrival of 22nd
Luftlande:
- The bombing attack failed to break the defenders who had been assigned to
defend the airfield
- Many aircraft carrying paratroopers completely missed Ypenburg
- Others were shot down by defenders before the troops could jump
- The interval between airdrop and airlanding was too brief to allow the
field to be secured by the scattered paratroopers on the ground before the
transports arrived
As a result, the battle at Ypenburg would not take the same course as that at
Fornebu.
Brongers provides a number of Dutch eyewitness accounts (along with plenty of
nicely complementary accounts from the German side) showing that, although
some of the inexperienced defenders slipped away, enough troops remained on
the job to keep Ypenburg out of enemy hands. The Germans eventually regrouped,
gained a foothold, and resorted to marching phalanxes of prisoners toward
Dutch positions to induce the defenders to either kill their own comrades or
else surrender. Meanwhile, the transports of the 22nd Luftlande began landing
in desperation on the nearby Rotterdam - The Hague highway. This brought in
some much needed reinforcements to help drive off the defenders, but wrote off
most of the aircraft. Despite heavy German casualties and a runway blocked by
wrecked planes, Ypenburg finally fell to the attackers.
At Ockenburg airstrip southwest of The Hague, a few paratroopers landed to
find a considerably weaker defense than at Ypenburg. This airbase was
protected only by raw recruits with a few NCOs and officers for a total of 96
men. Even so, they managed to inflict considerable casualties on the
airlanding troops whose transports touched down on the field before the
defenders had been pushed back. With a total of approximately 700-800 troops
of 7th Flieger and 22nd Luftlande committed, however, after about two hours
Ockenburg airfield was secured at around 8:00 am. Unfortunately for the
attackers, their timetable - as at Ypenburg - was completely disrupted and the
runway was blocked - also as at Ypenburg - by wrecked and burning transport
aircraft.
Reinforced by troops from planes crash-landing on any relatively flat stretch
of ground, the German units gradually began moving toward The Hague where they
were initially resisted by ad hoc groups of administrative personnel, labor
units, and the Royal Military Band. The tenacious defense conducted by the
recruits on the field and the thin screen of service personnel managed to
delay the Germans just long enough for Dutch infantry to arrive on the scene
at the outskirts of The Hague. By 10:00 the German advance from Ockenburg had
been halted and the reinforced Dutch troops were poised to counterattack and
recapture the airfield.
North of The Hague, near Leiden, the German paratroopers attempted to seize a
third airfield, Valkenburg, which was not yet complete in May 1940. Valkenburg
was defended by two companies of infantry and a platoon of four heavy MGs.
Here the initial Luftwaffe bombing was more effective in causing casualties
and disrupting the defenders. As at Ypenburg and Ockenburg, the paratroopers
had not secured the field when the transports began landing, but the Ju 52s
met with considerably less fire which allowed the attackers to quickly
disembark, organize, and overrun Dutch positions. However, the unfinished
surface of the airfield meant that many planes were wrecked and none could
take off again from the swampy ground. When the next wave of transport
arrived, they were unable to land at Valkenburg, thus forcing most to turn
back although a few chose to land on the beach to the west. The attackers
attempted to push out from the airfield, including an advance southward toward
The Hague, but without reinforcements this group would not be able to
influence the main battle to the south.
Meanwhile, a few German transports, lost and/or unable to land elsewhere, made
emergency landings on the beach at the Hook of Holland and on the small island
of Rozenburg.
Completely contrary to German orders, paratroopers and airlanding troops
landed east of the Hook of Holland and on the Island of Rozenburg in the early
morning of the 10th May. As a result of navigational errors by the pilots,
numerous aircraft had lost their way and consequently the greater part of a
company destined for Ockenburg was dropped in the possibilities. The
concentration of paratroopers near Hook of Holland had obviously wrong spot.
From what has previously been described, it is clear that many aircraft full
of airborne troops couldn't land anymore on the airfields and were busy
looking for other induced the crews of thirteen transport aircraft to land
their troops in this neighbourhood.
On the Dutch side all this was of course unknown. The obvious conclusion was
reached that the enemy was after the entrance of the New Waterway (the canal
between Rotterdam and the sea). That way, Rotterdam would be cut off from the
sea, while the Germans then could also prevent foreign help arriving via this
important point of access.
Before further happenings are described, it is necessary to have a look at
which Dutch units were encamped in this new theatre of operations. As a result
of the neutrality policy, all entrances of importance along the North Sea had
been reinforced with troops. Amongst these was also the so-called 'Position of
Hook of Holland' that had as a mission the protection of the entrance of the
New Waterway and to prevent landings from the sea at this spot. A number of
obsolete coastal batteries were located there, some of which could fire
inland. There was also a regimental staff with one battalion, the 2nd
Battalion of the 39th Infantry Regiment, and the 15th Reserve Border Company.
Support troops had eight mortars and four pieces of obsolete 6 cm infantry
guns at their disposal.
The Royal Netherlands Navy was represented by a number of small ships, such as
patrol vessels and minesweepers. Finally, there was a detachment of naval
troops consisting of sixty marines and a number of conscripts such as clerks,
signalmen and medical personnel. The whole element was commanded by Commander
J. van Leeuwen, RNLN (Royal Netherlands Navy).
It goes without saying that the focus of the defence was on the coast. To
defend the Hook of Holland in the rear against an enemy that might have landed
elsewhere, a land defence had also been prepared, so that the 'Position Hook
of Holland' could be defended against attacks from all sides. The positions of
the landward defences had however not been completed by the 10th May. The
mainstay of the defence was formed by the infantry battalion. This was
initially manned by many Dutch conscripts who lived in Germany. For security
reasons, it was decided in February 1940 to send these men back to Germany. It
was feared that they would give away military secrets to the Germans in their
letters home or during leave. A less pleasant consequence was, however, that
the battalion was severely weakened in manpower, so that in reality it was no
longer a battalion. In addition to this, the unit had a reduced number of
light and heavy machineguns.
In one case the strays were opposed by a force of villagers, marked with
orange armbands, who attempted to deal with a planeload of Germans who had
landed nearby. In the afternoon, the Dutch destroyer Van Galen shot up
stranded aircraft and three Royal Navy destroyers arrived with a landing party
dispatched to protect and/or demolish important installations in the area.
Although the German attack from the sky had seized three airfields and
obtained scattered footholds elsewhere in the general vicinity of The Hague,
the overall plan had failed. Attackers had been unable to push into the city,
so that the Queen, the government, and the High Command continued to function.
While German divisions poured into the Netherlands from the east, the
commander of Fortress Holland ordered his local units to recapture Ypenburg,
Ockenburg, and Valkenburg airfields and destroy all enemy forces in the area.
At Ypenburg, the counterattack was initially led by ad hoc groups such as a
few men from a training school, a platoon of Grenadiers, a military police
detachment, and fifteen recruits from the cavalry depot, relying partly on
captured German weapons and ammunition. Reinforced by a company of Grenadier
Guards and supported by three batteries of artillery, the ragtag Dutch troops
managed to retake the airfield shortly before 3:00 in the afternoon, only to
suffer an attack by British Blenheims which had been dispatched to attack the
position when it was still in German hands. By evening the last of the Germans
had been killed or captured in the vicinity of Ypenburg and the entire sector
was under Dutch control again. While Brongers offers no hard figures, he
indicates "hundreds" of Germans were captured and at least two hundred killed
in the battle, many slaughtered when their transports attempted to land on the
airfield under heavy machine gun fire. The issue at Ypenburg seems to have
been sealed by three factors:
- The airlanded troops were nearly wiped out in their transports
- The runway was blocked by wrecked and burning Ju 52s which prevented
further reinforcement
- Consequently, there were insufficient troops on the ground
- The Dutch were able to commit a few artillery pieces to support their
counterattack
Ockenburg airfield was recovered in much the same manner, with artillery
support and even an air attack conducted by three Dutch bombers. Here 179
Germans were taken prisoner, but General von Sponeck, commander of 22nd
Luftlande, escaped capture and retreated into nearby woods where another 360
troops eventually rallied, out of action for the time being.
To the north of The Hague, where the German landing at Valkenburg airfield had
been somewhat more successful and the troops had fanned out and captured
additional territory, the fighting raged over a wider area in an even more
confused manner, but the airfield was retaken later in the day - again with
the help of artillery and support by a few Dutch biplanes based nearby at a
strip untouched by the enemy. Once more, this victory seemed to result from
the inability of the Germans to reinforce their assault troops while the Dutch
promptly committed every uniformed man from miles around.
Meanwhile, roving groups of Dutch troops began dealing with isolated pockets
of Germans who had been scattered over the terrain by off-target airdrops and
emergency landings.
Here's how Brongers wraps up the situation as it stood at the end of 10 May:
The 10th May passed. Although the fighting around The Hague would continue
till the capitulation, the outcome of the battle had been decided. The most
extensive and surprising airlanding operation, ever seen in the world, had
resulted in a catastrophic failure. Up to 200 transport planes lay in the
polders around The Hague, either extensively damaged or burnt out. After a
short initial success, the enemy had had to relinquish the airfields they
captured and were partly destroyed, captured, or confined in a number of
places. Except for the road between Delft and Rotterdam, these places were of
no military value. General Graf von Sponeck, surrounded in the woods of
Ockenburg, was not in contact with the other units of his division and was
confronted with a hopeless task.
This result is in fact very remarkable. Especially as the first
countermeasures were carried out in an atmosphere of great confusion, with
complete German air superiority and in a situation in which countless false
rumours greatly hampered the operations. Remarkable too, because the troops,
that actually carried out the counterattacks were numerically even or hardly
stronger than their opponents who mainly consisted of regulars and volunteers.
Among the Dutch, there were many recruits who were firing a rifle for the very
first time. An explanation can be found in their fast, immediate reaction,
their courage, fighting spirit and often amazing resourcefulness. The
following quote from a report by 1st Lieutenant Dr. T.J. Hillebrands is
typical:
Those, who at all other times had been the laziest and most unmanageable
soldiers, were now advancing, running ahead of the main infantry force, while
the bullets were whistling around their ears, full of enthusiasm and with true
contempt of death. This phenomenon occurred in nearly all units. Also amongst
my anti-tank gunners, who certainly didn't belong to the worst. I couldn't
believe my eyes. Those, who under other circumstances always tried to go slow
or criticised every order, were now spontaneously ready for anything and
volunteered for difficult or unpleasant jobs. No, whatever may have been wrong
with the Royal Netherlands Army in those days, it was neither the morale, nor
the unifying spirit of comradeship.
The Dutch troops made many hundreds of Germans, prisoners. Their number would
finally add up to about 1,745. In The Hague they were quartered in the huts of
the penal prison, in Scheveningen, the old Alexander barracks and the KLM
building, while the wounded were cared for in the military and civilian
hospitals.
...
With the failure of the surprise strategic attack, noted in the order of the
day, the battles around The Hague were however not finished. Many mopping-up
operations still had to be carried out. The conspicuous [Dutch] successes of
the 10th May, did not recur in the same measure in the following days. For
this there are different reasons. In the first place the enemy now had had
time to consolidate the positions that were left to them and to reorganise the
units that were initially mixed up. Furthermore, the areas where the remaining
Germans were entrenched were difficult to approach as these were usually areas
surrounded by flat open country that afforded them open and free fields of
fire. Even for the best troops, an attack without support of armour over such
terrain is a hazardous matter and especially against a well-trained and armed
enemy, who also had excellent camouflaged uniforms. The Dutch troops did not
have these and were thus visible from a long distance. Finally, the soldiers
had never been able to train for attacks on a large scale. The army had always
lacked the time, space and training. Consequently, the staffs lacked the
necessary experience with such operations. On the first day of the war this
didn't show much, as a result of the laudable initiative of all sorts of small
units, so that the enemy didn't get the chance to organize or were bluffed
into surrender by daring action.
After two long chapters covering the German landings and the Dutch recapture
of the airfields on 10 May, the next four shorter chapters each cover one day
of action as the Dutch attempted to locate and mop up all pockets of Germans
in the vicinity of The Hague. Most air-dropped containers of ammunition and
supplies fell into Dutch hands. Some small groups of hungry paratroopers, low
on ammunition, quickly surrendered. The force of stragglers coalescing around
General von Sponeck, on the other hand, proved a tougher nut to crack. When
von Sponeck made radio contact with higher headquarters, instead of receiving
assistance, the general was ordered to move his isolated troops south and
attack Rotterdam from the north in order to aid the beleaguered German troops
in that sector. Moving sometimes on foot and sometimes in commandeered
civilian automobiles and buses, von Sponeck's group twice avoided Dutch traps
but eventually had to dig in for all-around defense with as many as 1100 men,
holding out against attacks until the end of hostilities. On the 12th, the
British destroyers Verity and Venomous landed 200 marines to augment Dutch
troops around the Hook of Holland, and on the next day the 2nd Battalion of
the Irish Guards landed for a brief excursion. Brongers writes scathingly of
the uselessness of the British battalion and takes issue with a number of
points in the short chapter about the Hook of Holland in Fitzgerald's History
of the Irish Guards in the Second World War.
Elsewhere in the Netherlands, the news was much worse for the Dutch as the
German attackers penetrated the main defensive line. The French mechanized
force that dashed toward Rotterdam proved unable or unwilling to make itself
felt in the face of heavy Luftwaffe attacks. The Queen and her ministers
escaped to London to establish a government in exile. Rotterdam was bombed
without mercy, and soon afterwards General Winkelman ordered a ceasefire.
While those events are mostly treated only in passing, they serve as
background to Brongers' history of the fighting around The Hague, and of
course the Dutch surrender brought to an end the operations designed to mop up
von Sponeck and the remainder of the 7th Flieger and 22nd Luftlande outside
the city.
Brongers uses his final chapter to sum up some aspects of the battle. Dutch
casualties are pegged at 515 killed. German losses prove tougher to pin down,
but for the battle of The Hague Brongers estimates total killed, wounded,
missing, and POWs transported to England - paratroopers, airlanding troops,
and aircrew - at about 2735. That number includes about 400 killed and around
1745 POWs in England. Aircraft losses were also heavy, with around 180-220
transports written off. According to Brongers, those losses had several
ramifications:
- Some senior commanders began to question the viability of airborne attacks
- German airborne forces available for Operation Sea Lion were greatly
reduced
- Shortage of transport aircraft hampered later planning and operations
- In particular, the shortage of transports during the invasion of Crete
meant paratroopers had to be landed in waves instead of all at once,
contributing to heavy casualties on the island
The author also takes exception to some accounts which claim the Dutch
defenders had been reinforced and brought to readiness prior to the airdrop
because of advanced knowledge about the operation. He reiterates that the
troops around The Hague were never alerted, and only reacted to the sound of
aircraft passing overhead and the sight of parachutes.
Who won? The outcome of the battle around The Hague tends to be obscured by
Germany's decisive victory in the campaign in the Netherlands as a whole (as
well as the wider campaign in Belgium and France). Despite claims by some
German participants that the battle served to distract the Dutch and prevent
reinforcements from reaching the main front, it's indisputable that von
Sponeck's troops failed in their main goal of capturing the Queen, the
government, and the High Command. Was it worth roughly 2700 casualties and
180-220 shattered and burned out transports to tie down a few light forces? It
seems likely that those Dutch troops stationed in the area of The Hague would
have been frozen in those positions for quite awhile simply by the threat of
an airborne attack. And even if the Dutch units had been transferred to the
main front, they simply could not have turned the tide against German panzers.
It's also worth remembering that the operation was largely Hitler's baby,
which might have made it difficult to produce an honest assessment in the
aftermath of the battle.
Throughout the book Brongers does an excellent job of blending solid
historical fact, thoughtful analysis, and exciting eyewitness accounts of the
battle. He includes a great amount of detail about even the smallest of the
hastily assembled groups of soldiers, and - although the book focuses on the
Dutch - he complements his work with much information about German operations,
including many reports from Fallschirmjaeger veterans. Nor are the British
troops forgotten, although the battalion at the Hook of Holland might have
preferred not to have been remembered, given the author's assessment of their
effectiveness.
Although it's easy to recognize that the text was not originally written in
English, the translation is perfectly serviceable. Information is clearly
presented and easy to follow, the author provides all the right cues to help
the reader remember various characters who reappear throughout the book, and
all the salient events are thoroughly described without being beaten into the
ground. The maps look a little ragged, but they're easy enough to read and
they include all the locations mentioned in the text. Likewise, the book
includes a good assortment of photos that will almost certainly prove new to
readers. Among them, there are some especially nice shots of Dutch troops and
equipment. The book lacks only an index.
In short, it's an exemplary work, and one that should open quite a few eyes
when it comes to German airborne operations, Dutch military capabilities, and
the progress of the battle in 1940. Among other things, Brongers makes it
apparent that the operation at The Hague should be studied alongside the
capture of Fornebu and the landing on Crete. A gem like this really deserves a
wide readership among World War II aficionados, so we hope the American
distributor for the Dutch publisher can place it widely enough to gain a large
audience. Likewise, it would be great if this translation sells well enough to
make it worthwhile for Aspekt to publish English editions of more detailed
works on the Dutch armed forces and the Dutch campaign by Brongers and others.
In any event, it's unlikely anyone who reads this volume will be disappointed.
Highly recommended.
The Battle for the Hague 1940
Author: Lieutenant Colonel E.H. Brongers
ISBN: 90-5911-307-1
Format: Paperback
Pages: 293
Published: Uitgeverij Aspekt BV - February 2004
Received the Stone & Stone Editor's Choice Award for non-fiction books about World War II published in 2004:
"Translated from the Dutch, this arrived here unexpectedly and proved to be one of the most pleasant surprises of the year 2004. "
Source: Stone & Stone Second World War Books - http://www.stonebooks.com.