So on our last day we needed a break spot for the drive from Trier to the ferry terminal and Thibault suggested a World War II fort in Belgium that I had never heard of - Fort Eben-Emael. It was supposed to defend Belgium from German invasion, by guarding the bridges across the Albert Canal which would form a barrier to German tanks crossing from Holland.
Thibault got a guided tour for us, in French. And he translated for me as we went along. We were the only ones on the tour.
Now mostly one thinks of forts as overground structures. This one was built into a solid sandstone hill. It apparently was the size of 150 football pitches, and there were 5000metres of tunnels
Some of the rooms have waxworks and are laid out as they wold have been in the Forties
As you can see, a lot of tunnels
While one can wander around the general tunnels on your own visit, only with a guided tour can you go up the lift shafts to where there were the guns and observation points. And so where one can see the evidence for what happened to the fort. They must have felt they were pretty much impregnable, with everything underground and guns trained on the critical bridges across the canal. But unfortunately they were very quickly undone by a clever bit of manoeuvring . Specifically they were undone by paratroopers arriving by glider at night. They were looking out for aircraft, but not silent gliders landing on top of their hill. The paratroopers got out and laid high explosives on one of the look out turrets and this blew a hole right through, which followed by a further charge essentially took out one of the guns. One can see the blasted remnants of the lifts and the guns. The men there were simply blasted to smithereens.
The fort's guns did manage to nock out one of the three strategic bridges, but not the other two before the men below surrendered, and so the Germans drove across with little hindrance and the invasion proceeded. The massive effort put into building this fortress were in vain. It was as impregnable as the Titanic was unsinkable. Massive amount of work in building it in the Thirties undone in hours. No one had launched an attack by gliders before so they were just not prepared for it.
Half a glider
Brief stop in Liege for lunch (and catherdal)
And onto the ferry to Hull
And back to Hull station for for train back to London. This by the way is a bronze statue of Hull's most famous son, Philip Larkin
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