As some of the German airborne forces assaulted the fortress and disabled the garrison and the artillery pieces inside it, others simultaneously captured three bridges over the canal.

Having disabled the fortress, the airborne troops were then ordered to protect the bridges against Belgian counter-attacks until they linked up with ground forces from the German 18th Army.

German forces were then able to use two bridges over the canal to bypass Belgian defensive positions and advance into Belgium to aid in the invasion of the country.

The Grebbe and Peel Lines in the Netherlands, which stretched from the southern shore of the Zuiderzee to the Belgian border near Weert, had many fortifications combined with natural obstacles, such as marsh-lands and the Geld Valley, which could easily be flooded to impede an attack.

[8] The Belgian 7th Infantry Division was assigned to guard the three bridges over the canal, supplementing the troops who garrisoned Fort Ében-Émael at the time of the battle.

It possessed walls and roofs composed of 5 feet (1.5 m) thick reinforced concrete, as well as four retractable casemates and sixty-four strongpoints.

[9] Belgian plans did not call for the garrison of the fort and the attached defending forces to fight a sustained battle against an attacking force; it was assumed that sufficient warning of an attack would be given so that the detachment on the eastern side of the canal could be withdrawn, the bridges destroyed and the garrison ready to fight a delaying action.

[8] The 22nd Airlanding Division, which was composed of two infantry regiments and a reinforced parachute battalion, was tasked with capturing airfields in the vicinity of The Hague at Valkenburg, Ockenburg and Ypenburg.

The intention of the German OKW was to use the two airborne divisions to create a corridor, along which the 18th Army could advance into the Netherlands without being impeded by destroyed bridges.

[8] General Kurt Student, who proposed the deployment of the two airborne divisions, argued that their presence would hold open the southern approaches to Rotterdam, prevent the movement of Dutch reserves based in north-west Holland and any French Army forces sent to aid the Dutch defenders, and deny the use of airfields to Allied aircraft, all of which would aid a rapid advance by the 18th Army.

[13] The force, which had been assembled in November 1939, was primarily composed of parachutists from the 1st Parachute Regiment and engineers from the 7th Air Division, as well as a small group of Luftwaffe pilots.

[14] Joint exercises between the parachutists and the glider pilots were carried out in early 1940, and refinements were made to the equipment and tactics to be used, such as barbed wire being added to the nose-skids of the gliders to reduce their landing run, and the airborne troops trained with flamethrowers and specialized shaped charge explosives, the latter of which were so secret that they were only used on fortifications in Gleiwitz, Germany and not on fortifications in Czechoslovakia similar to Fort Ében-Émael.

It was believed that the combination of a noiseless approach by the gliders used by the assault force, and the lack of a declaration of war by the German government, would give the attackers the element of surprise.

[9] The German plan, therefore, was to eliminate within those sixty minutes as many anti-aircraft positions and individual cupolas and casemates as was possible, and at all costs to put out of action the long-range artillery pieces which covered the three bridges.

[9] The finalized plan for the assault called for between nine and eleven gliders to land on the western bank of the Albert Canal by each of the three bridges just prior to 05:30 on 10 May, the time scheduled for Fall Gelb to begin.

Forty minutes later, three Ju 52 transport aircraft would fly over each position, dropping a further twenty-four airborne troops as reinforcements as well as machine-guns and significant amounts of ammunition.

[17] Having achieved their initial objectives of seizing the bridges and eliminating the long-range artillery pieces possessed by the Fort, the airborne troops would then defend their positions until the arrival of German ground forces.

[17] For reasons of security, Sturmabteilung Koch was dispersed around several locations in the Rhineland until it received orders for the operation against Fort Ében-Émael and the three bridges to begin.

By 05:50 the airborne troops had secured the area as well as the nearby village of Kanne, but they were then subjected to a strong counter-attack which was only repulsed with the aid of air support from Stuka divebombers.

[22] The nine remaining gliders transporting the airborne troops assigned to Group Granite successfully landed on the roof of Fort Ében-Émael, using arrester-parachutes to slow their descent and rapidly bring them to a halt.

[23] The airborne troops rapidly emerged from the gliders, Oberfeldwebel Helmut Wenzel assuming command in the absence of Witzig, and began attaching explosive charges to those emplacements on the top of the Fort which housed the artillery pieces that could target the three captured bridges.

[24] In the northern section of the fort, similar actions were taking place, as the airborne troops raced to destroy or otherwise disable the fortifications housing artillery pieces.

Once the airborne troops had broken down fences and hedges obstructing the aircraft, they boarded the new glider and were towed through anti-aircraft fire to the fort.

[16][26] Having achieved their primary objectives of disabling the artillery pieces possessed by the fort, the airborne troops then held it against Belgian counter-attacks, which began almost immediately.

[27] Any attempt by the garrison to launch a counter-attack would have been stymied by the fact that the only possible route for such an attack was up a single, spiral staircase, and any embrasures looking out onto the Fort had either been captured or disabled.

[3] Once the airborne troops had been relieved, the battalion, in conjunction with an infantry regiment that arrived shortly after the engineers, mounted an attack on the main entrance to the fort.

Faced with this attack, the garrison (which had only numbered 750 present out of a regular force of 1,200)[30] surrendered at 12:30, suffering 23 men killed and 59 wounded.

[21][27] The capture of the bridges, and the neutralization of the artillery pieces in the Fort allowed infantry and armour from the 18th Army to bypass other Belgian defences and enter the heart of Belgium.

[32] In a post-war publication, General Kurt Student wrote of the operation, and the efforts of Group Granite in particular, that "It was a deed of exemplary daring and decisive significance [...] I have studied the history of the last war and the battles on all fronts.

"[33] The successful completion of the attack despite the designated commander not present in the first and crucial hours is seen as one of the finest examples of Auftragstaktik even in publications of the 21st century.