Dawn on Friday 10 May 1940 and hundreds of thousands of British, French, and Belgian soldiers in Northern Europe had no reason to suspect that this day would be any different from any other since Sunday 3 September 1939. They were in for a terrible shock.
Join Tony Bray in the Museum to hear about the catastrophic defeat of the fortress of Eben Emael. This huge fortress, with numerous heavy guns and machine guns, had a garrison of 1,000 Belgian soldiers, secure in an underground barracks, some 65 metres below the upper surface.
It had taken 2,500 workers three years to construct – yet 70 German engineers neutralised it in less than 30 minutes, using two new secret weapons.
Find out how the attack unfolded, and how quickly the fortress was disabled. The gliders were the first secret weapon deployed that day, but then the second was then used with devastating effects, combat engineers were put into the fortress to disable the huge, thick concrete cupolas.
Within 30 minutes the battle was effectively over. The fortress was unable to fire on the German forces attacking over the Albert Canal and so the allied defence line was overwhelmed.
Soon the British Expeditionary Force would be pushed back to Dunkirk and evacuated to Britain. France would quickly fall and mainland Europe would be under Nazi rule until June 1944.
The raid on Eben Emael motivated the allies to develop assault gliders of their own.
Join Tony in the Museum at 7pm on Monday 21st September to find out more.
If you are unable to attend in person, then you can buy an online pass to watch live and join in the Q&A, or watch on catch up at your convenience afterwards. Click on the Online Pass option below - you will be asked to select a session which is a requirement of our online booking system - please be aware, it doesn't matter which session you select because you will be able to view the talk at anytime after it has gone live from 7pm on Monday 21st September. You will be sent a link to view the lecture after booking.
The content of talks are based on the research and views of the guest speakers.
The Museum is an independent charity and all proceeds from this event go towards supporting the work we do in preserving the history of British Army aviation.
Our evening lecture programme is kindly sponsored by
