Word: rotterdamers
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...their commanding generals-von Brauchitsch, Keitel, Milch, Guderian-contemplated their operations map of Western Europe with profound satisfaction. Everything was working according to plan. Attack has always appealed to the German mind. And now they had such an attack! Their first push had already driven straight across Holland to Rotterdam. Before the Allied Armies rushing northward from the French border had time to reach prepared Belgian positions along the Albert Canal from Antwerp to Liége, a swift and fierce German drive cracked the Liége defenses the second day. *Headquarters watched the progress of German columns...
...stood the tank situation last fortnight when one spearhead of the German Army of Attack darted across The Netherlands to Rotterdam. Three more lanced through above and below Liege, two more above and below Sedan. When General Guderian unleashed his Army, all Allied preconceptions of these columns' speed and power went overboard. As did their machines of the air, the Germans' land machines so overwhelmed the Allies that only courage and discipline saved "strategic retreat" from immediately becoming "rout...
...first achievement of the German Air Force was the capture last fortnight of Rotterdam's airport. Thereafter it helped reduce Eben Emael, some of the forts at Liege, flew interference for the German columns which rolled through, strafed the British and French columns advancing to meet them. Low-flying German attack bombers were largely responsible for the break-through at Sedan by strafing the defenders with machine guns and small bombs. Behind the Allied lines high-flying dive bombers hurtled down from the sky to blast away at air fields and communication lines...
...little Dutch boy who saved his country by plugging the dike with his fist was missing last week. His duty this time would have been to blow up the Moerdijk Bridge, longest on the Continent, connecting Rotterdam and the heart of The Netherlands with south Holland across the 1∧ mile wide Hollandsch Diep (joint estuary of the Maas and Waal Rivers). A gallon of well placed nitroglycerin would at least have delayed the German armored column which, having raced 85 miles westward in less than 86 hours (TIME, May 20), clanked across to reinforce Nazi parachute and air ferried...
...north, a French mechanized force which had reached Breda to the southeast, were all too slow, powerless or witless to intervene. Dutch Foreign Minister Elco van Kleffens said German parachutists disguised as Dutch police prevented it. In any case, preceded by one last torrent of air bombs upon Rotterdam, which stubborn Dutch fighters had twice cleared of Nazis, the invaders rolled over the bridge and into the city...