| German Pioneers (Engineers) use a makeshift ferry to convey an infantry unit with a 10.5 centimeter leFH 18 leichte Feldhaubitze (“light field howitzer”) across the Albert Canal. The bridge was blown by Allied forces to prevent the Nazis from crossing. Note the use of 2 rubber boats with logs. A powered motor would be in the back of each rubber boat, not visible to the camera. A Vierendeel-type bridge is in the background. After fallschirmjäger (“paratroopers”) dropped on Fort Eban Emael and took 2 of the 3 targeted bridges – Veldwezelt and Vroenhoven. The Nazis advanced to relieve their airborne forces. Infanterie-Regiment 151 and Pionier-Bataillon 51 arrived at Kanne, the 3rd targeted bridge, in the afternoon. When they reached the town, they immediately came under fire from the Belgians. The fallschirmjäger were so weakened by their losses that they were unable to extend their bridgehead so as to push back the Belgians who still held the heights, beyond firing range of the canal. This made a quick crossing impossible, and it became apparent that only a properly prepared attack had any chance of success. This crossing of the Albert Canal was undertaken by Heer soldaten (“Nazi German soldiers”) of Generaloberst Erich Hoepner’s (September 14, 1886 – August 8, 1944) Sxiteenth Army Corps. Soldaten formed a battle line on the east bank of the Albert Canal while pioneers brought up 6-man schlauchboot (“rubber dinghies”) in trucks. Then the Pioneers, the Heer’s combat engineers, crossed the Albert Canal to establish a beachhead. These makeshift ferries brought over artillery and regular infantry until pontoon bridges could be established. Between 1933 and 1938, some 50 welded road bridges of the type designed by Arthur Vierendeel (April 10, 1852 – November 8, 1940) were erected in Belgium to provide crossings over the Albert Canal or the Campine canals. They were the 1st significant applications of electric arc welding in Belgium and constitute the majority of the large welded bridges built at that time in Belgium. It was the heyday of the Vierendeel bridge, which had been invented in 1895 but which had found only limited applications before 1930, with less than 40 built in Belgium and Congo in 30 years. But this rapid application of welding to structural steelwork encountered many problems that were probably overlooked in the climate of euphoria surrounding bridge-building. In March 1938, the Vierendeel-type bridge in the town of Hasselt suffered a brittle failure and collapsed. This is generally regarded as the 1st brittle failure of a large all-welded structure and received much attention at that time. But by 1940, at least 3 other bridges of this series were also badly fractured and there are indications that some others also were experiencing serious cracking problems by then. All bridges were destroyed during the May 1940 invasion, blown up by Belgian troops in a hopeless attempt to slow the progress of the Germans. Purely from the point of view of structural safety, most of them were doomed to experience severe cracking problems, had they not been destroyed. But, due to the war, the announcement of the new bridge failures that had occurred in the winter 1940 did not immediately stir any efforts to research deeper into the understanding of these brittle failures. German engineers seized fragments of the Hasselt Bridge that were kept at Liège University and tested fragments from the Herentals-Oolen Bridge to further their own metallurgical research. Scenes from this bridge crossing using schlauchboot appeared in Sieg im Westen (“Victory in the West”), a 1941 Nazi propaganda film, produced by the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH; “German Army High Command”). | |
| Image Filename | wwii2100.jpg |
| Image Size | 670.92 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2927 x 1835 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Kriegsberichter |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | May 11, 1940 |
| Location | |
| City | Albert Canal |
| State or Province | |
| Country | Belgium |
| Archive | Oberkommando des Heeres |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database