At 0300 on May 10, 1940, specially modified DFS 230 gliders were pulled aloft by Ju 52 aircraft from a darkened airfield in Germany to loudspeakers blaring Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” and began their flight towards the most heavily fortified installation in Belgium, and possibly the world: Fort Eben Emael. The fortress dominated terrain and protected bridges essential to the German advance. Fortified with underground tunnels, reinforced-concrete walls, antitank moats, minefields, barbed wire, artillery pieces, antitank guns, antiaircraft batteries, and heavy machine guns with overlapping fields of fire, Eben Emael was viewed as impenetrable by the Belgians, but they were assessing its defenses through the conventional lens of an infantry and armored attack; it was built specifically to repel ground forces. The mission to take Eben Emael was the first documented use of gliders in battle, but it would not be the last. It would also see one of the first uses of an explosive we know today as a “shaped charge.” To defenses specifically designed to withstand artillery and aerial bombing the new technology would be a deciding factor in the battle. Within 20 minutes of landing, the special operations unit armed with 9mm MP 38 submachine guns, 7.9mm MG 34 light machine guns, 7.9mm Kar 98k rifles, and M35 flamethrowers had defeated an entrenched numerically superior force and accomplished their mission. For more information I recommend reading SPEC OPS: CASE STUDIES IN SPECIAL OPERATIONS THEORY AND PRACTICE by Admiral William H. McRaven. #History #StudyThePast #SpecialOperations #WWII #WorldWar2 #WorldWarII #Study #Learn #SOF #MilitaryHistory