Glider assault on Eben Emael as an archetype for the future

Infantry Magazine, March-April, 2004 by Paul Witkowski

Following World War II, the United States hung onto its glider program until the early 1950s before dropping it completely. Technological advances made in aeronautics drastically improved the capabilities of military transport aircraft to the point where even light tanks could be dropped by parachute. In addition, aircraft were designed that could land on unimproved landing strips. Also, the physical shape of aircraft changed to a wide-body design, which allowed vehicles to roll on and roll off. The most noticeable shift was the development of rotary wing aircraft. The helicopter could place groups of Soldiers almost anywhere with pinpoint accuracy and could extract them--a feat that a glider could not do. By the 1950s, helicopters were inserting and extracting Soldiers in the mountains and rice paddies on the Korean peninsula. The glider's replacement found its beginnings in the Korean War and would come of age in Southeast Asia in the mid 1960s.

However, the mission template established by the German glider seizure of Eben Emael would be echoed throughout the decades. The attempt to free American prisoners of war in November 1970 in North Vietnam is a good example. The plan, under the command of Colonel Arthur 'Bull' Simons, was to take a small group of Special Forces Soldiers via helicopters from Laos into the Son Tay prison site, 23 miles from Hanoi, and rescue the POWs. Colonel Simons used the same detailed level of training and rehearsals for Son Tay that Lieutenant Witzig employed for Eben Emael. In order to train the raiders, an exact replica of the prison was constructed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida where they rehearsed every aspect of the raid. A part of the plan included crash landing a helicopter inside of the prison walls to stun and shock the North Vietnamese soldiers so the raiders could rescue the prisoners before the guards started killing them. However, when the raid was executed on November 21, 1970, the prisoners had unfortunately been moved to a different prison site, but the well-rehearsed plan was executed flawlessly in only 27 minutes.

Not only was the assault on Eben Emael the debut of the combat glider, but it also set a precedent for all glider operations conducted in World War II and in the decades that followed. German military exploitation of the glider, which was caused by the restrictions imposed upon Germany following World War I, ironically provided military leaders with a unique insertion method that capitalized on the silence of the motorless aircraft. Additionally, glider insertion of troops behind enemy lines fit in well with Guderian's concept of Blitzkrieg. The detailed planning based on sound intelligence, months of full scale mission rehearsals, and extreme security measures combined with the revolutionary use of the silent glider and the powerful hollow charge made possible assault force 'Granite's" success in reducing Eben Emael's defenses. Although the United States and Great Britain initially lacked military glider programs, they learned from the German success at Eben Emal and quickly developed programs that dwarfed Germany's pioneering program. The prominence of gliders may have fallen as quickly it rose, but the sound principals in training and execution on the objective demonstrated by Lieutenant Witzig's platoon on Eben Emael established a timeless template for other military units to emulate throughout the ages.