The Antwerp-Amsterdam railroad attack (2 September 1941) was a sabotage operation carried out by a small squad of Dutch Resistance and British SAS operatives against the main railroad bridge connecting Antwerp, Belgium and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The squad of resistance fighters, led by SAS Major Gerald Ingram, rescued downed Royal Air Force operative James Doyle from some German troops before enlisting his aid in destroying the railroad bridge. They first fought to secure a farmhouse used by the Germans as a machine-gun position, as they were to escape the same way that they came in, and they did not want to leave behind an obstacle. After doing so, they ambushed a German convoy exiting a tunnel, killing all of the German troops. They proceeded to go through the tunnel and fight their way down the railroad tracks, locating the bridge. After resistance member Mechiel Van Dyke was killed, Doyle took his explosives charges, rigged the bridge to blow, and detonated the explosives as a train passed over it. The explosion alerted all German forces in the area, and the British soldiers and resistance fighters fought their way through the woods and to a jeep at the old farmhouse, escaping from the area.
Advertisement
326,767
pages
Antwerp-Amsterdam railroad attack
Advertisement