As we see from Vranken’s report, at the moment that bunker N was eliminated, Café Nicolaes was blown up. The paratroopers knew that the Belgians used it as a command post and had planned to destroy it some time previous. It collapsed completely as did “three private houses in the vicinity” (according to the official German report, although there were considerably more).

After bunker N was wiped out the Belgian trenches came under a devastating German attack. 6.Company of Carabiniers came off worst: the platoon protecting the right flank of the bridge lost twenty-three men and their commander Lt Bossaert. Seven others were wounded. This is a high toll, considering that the platoon consisted of forty-four men. The platoon guarding the left flank lost its officer, Lt Lombaers and eleven men; another seven were wounded. In total, of the eighty-eight Belgians near the bridge, thirty-six were killed and fourteen wounded, an appalling casualty list.

Glider pilot Heinz Schubert described the surprise attack as he saw it:

“Our orders were to destroy the bunker near the bridge and to hold the position until relieved (it was estimated we would have to wait two hours). I had nine paratroopers flying with me. A hundred metres from the bunker, still flying but just above the ground, I could see the pale faces of the Belgian soldiers looking up at us from their trenches. I landed only a few metres from the bunker¹⁴, south-west of the bridge. Thirty seconds later the bunker was out of action…ten minutes after the attack began, at 0525 hrs, I placed a German flag on the bridge to show our aircraft that the target was in our hands.”

Susdorf of Squad 8 recalled details of the by no means easy elimination of the Belgian bunker at the bridge:

“A group of paratroopers landed near the bunker guarding the bridge. They attacked it at once using the hollow charges they had with them. A couple of paratroopers who were on a small elevation near the bunker received fire from the surrounding houses.”

After his squad had reached its primary objective, Susdorf went down to the Canal. The next objective for his squad was to control all Belgian troop activities: