Battle for The Hague The Battle for The Hague was the first opposed paratroop assault in history . ( Unopposed assaults took place on April 9 , 1940 against Masnedøfortet and Aalborg airport , Denmark . ) It took place on 10 May 1940 as part of the Battle of the Netherlands between the Royal Netherlands Army and " Luftwaffe " " Fallschirmjäger " ( paratroops ) . German paratroopers dropped in and around The Hague in order to capture Dutch airfields and the city . After taking the city , the plan was to force the Dutch queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands to surrender and to thus defeat the Kingdom of the Netherlands within a single day . The operation failed to capture the Queen , and the German forces failed to hold on to the airfields after Dutch counter attacks . The main body of surviving troops under Von Sponeck retreated towards the nearby dunes where they were continually pursued and harassed by Dutch troops until the Dutch supreme command , due to major setbacks on other fronts , surrendered five days later . Plan . The Germans planned to surprise the Dutch and so catch them off guard , allowing them to isolate the head of the Dutch Army . It was their intention to fly over the Netherlands in order to lull the Dutch into thinking that England was their target . This was to be followed by approaching the country from the direction of the North Sea , attacking the airfields Ypenburg , Ockenburg and Valkenburg to weaken potential Dutch defenses before taking The Hague . It was expected that the queen and the commander in chief of the Dutch forces , Henri Winkelman , might agree at this point to surrender . However , if the Dutch did not surrender , the Germans planned to cut off all roads leading to the Hague in order to quell any subsequent Dutch counter - attack . The German attack . According to plan , the Germans flew over The Netherlands in the early hours of the morning on 10 May , but rather than lulling the citizens of The Hague , their passage alarmed them . The Germans circled back and , at approximately 06 : 00 , bombed the airfield at Ypenburg . Immediately thereafter , their transport planes dropped paratroopers in several waves into the field and its surroundings , though Dutch machine gun fire inflicted casualties on these arrivals and scattered their landings . Many planes landed and were damaged or destroyed by the defenders , blocking further arrivals . The paratroopers attacked and occupied the base ' s main building , raising the German flag to signal their victory . In spite of this , the Dutch managed to prevent the Germans from advancing beyond Ypenburg to enter The Hague . At around the same time , German paratroopers were dropped at the airstrip in Ockenburg . The defenders of Ockenburg were unable to prevent the Germans taking the airfield , but they were able to delay them long enough to ensure that the Dutch infantry units arrived to prevent the paratroopers from advancing into the Hague . As the Germans were using the Ockenburg airfield to strengthen their numbers , the Dutch bombed it themselves to prevent the landing strip being used further . The Valkenburg airfield was only partially constructed . As with Ypenburg , the Germans troops bombed the airfield prior to dropping paratroopers , causing heavy casualties among the defenders . Though the subsequent waves of paratroops also sustained heavy losses , the defenders were unable to prevent the Germans taking the field . However , as the airfield remained under construction , the Germans could not fly their transport aircraft from it and further transports were unable to land . Many landed on the nearby beaches and were destroyed there by Dutch planes and fire from a Dutch Navy destroyer . Following several ground skirmishes , the German troops occupied the village of Valkenburg as well as some of the bridges and buildings at Katwijk , along the Old Rhine river . The Dutch counter - attack . Although the German troops managed to capture the three airfields , they failed in their primary objective of taking the city of Hague and forcing the Dutch to surrender . Accordingly , the Dutch Army launched a counter - attack several hours later . The counter - attack was started from Ypenburg . Though outnumbered and relying on ammunition that they had captured from the Germans , the Dutch Grenadier Guards fought their way into position to launch artillery attacks against their own airfield , causing heavy damage to it . Following the attacks , the German troops were forced to evacuate the airfield ' s burning buildings , losing their strong defensive position . The Dutch troops were able to advance into the airfield , and in the skirmishes that followed , many of the German soldiers were forced to surrender . Those who did not were eventually defeated . The airfield of Ockenburg was bombed by the Dutch forces . The Dutch troops followed up their own bombing of Ockenburg by storming the airfield . The Germans were forced into retreat , and several were captured . However , some of the German troops withdrew to the woods near the field and successfully defended themselves from the Dutch . The Dutch forces were later ordered to disengage and turn instead to Loosduinen , the Germans headed toward Rotterdam . Having sealed off Leiden and the village of Wassenaar , the Dutch retook a strategic bridge near Valkenburg . When reinforcements arrived , the Dutch began attacking the Germans on the ground at the same time that Dutch bombers arrived to destroy the grounded transport planes . While the Germans put up a defence at the outskirts of the airfield , they were forced under heavy fire to evacuate . Several skirmishes to liberate occupied positions in the village of Valkenburg nearby were fought between small groups of men on both sides , the Dutch with artillery support from nearby Oegstgeest , the village being heavily damaged in the process . By the end of 10 May , Dutch forces had retaken the captured airfields , but this tactical victory would be short lived as German Rotterdam Blitz on the 14th of May ensured the surrender of the Dutch armed forces . Casualties . The Dutch suffered 515 killed . The German casualty numbers are given as 134 killed by German sources , while Dutch sources estimate that 400 Germans were killed . Numbers of wounded , missing and captured are not known with certainty , but Dutch sources estimate that 700 Germans were wounded . 1 , 745 were captured according to Dutch sources ( German source quoted below does not confirm such a high number of captured , but it might be simply incomplete , as about half of the POWs were recaptured by German forces soon after the Dutch surrender . They also lost 182 transport aircraft , including 47 damaged . Most of the aircraft were of the Ju - 52 model . Aftermath . The main effect of the battle was unforeseen : the large loss of German transport aircraft . According to military historian Lt . Col . E . H . Brongers ( ret . ) , the loss of the transport aircraft had a direct effect on the planning for the proposed German cross channel invasion of Britain . Also , Brongers mentions the impact of the loss of transport aircraft during the invasion of Crete . Since the Germans did not have sufficient aircraft to land troops in force , they had to drop them instead in groups , which resulted in heavy casualties . Brongers ' conclusions are supported by military historian Col . Adriaan Hakkert ( ret . ) . The remaining German forces who had escaped from the airfields were scattered over the dunes in the area . Von Sponeck was ordered to go and aid the attack on Rotterdam . Of his force , 1 , 600 were captured of which 1 , 200 were shipped to England as POWs . On his way to Rotterdam , Von Sponeck ' s isolated group twice avoided Dutch traps but eventually had to dig in for all - around defense with as many as 1 , 100 men , only avoiding humiliating capture by the strategic bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940 , according to some sources , especially ordered by " Reichmarschall " Hermann Göring to save his protégé Von Sponeck and force a solution in Holland . Because of the failure of this campaign , Hitler lost interest in this " new weapon " and only used it again in the attack on Crete in 1941 , that made airborne assault necessary . A pocket of German paratroops managed to ward off enemy attacks at the village of Valkenburg until the Dutch surrendered on the 14th .