Ockenburg During May 10 to May 12 , 1940 , Ockenburg , a small Dutch auxiliary airfield near The Hague , was the scene of bitter fighting between German airborne forces and Dutch defenders during World War II . A German formation of one airborne company of Fallschirmjaeger Regiment 2 and a battalion of Air landing troops of IR . 65 ( 22 . ID ) was envisaged to take the small Air Force Base ( AFB ) by surprise attack . The strike was part of the grand strategy to seize the Dutch city of the Hague , where the Dutch Royal Family , Cabinet ( government ) and Military headquarters were situated . The German battle - plan incorporated large combined airborne and airlanding elements to land at the large Dutch AFB ' s at Valkenburg ( South Holland ) and Ypenburg and a smaller party at Ockenburg . These three AFB ' s were situated east , south and west of the Hague . Around 8 , 000 Germans were scheduled to land and march onto the Hague , snatching the Dutch Royal Family and beheading the Dutch military by capturing their command - centres . The German air - operation against the Hague failed utterly . At Ypenburg AFB the German airborne battalion and follow - up air landing units initially gained some successes , but they were rapidly pushed into defence . Many were captured or killed . Some hundreds managed to sustain Dutch counter - attacks isolating themselves in the hamlet Overschie . At Valkenburg the Germans first managed to seize the airfield running the Dutch defenders off . But after re - grouping the Dutch countered the German pocket and pushed the about 1 , 000 men strong German presence into a tight defence in the village Valkenburg itself . The Dutch wouldn ' t manage to force the surviving Germans into surrender though . The landing at Ockenburg too resulted into initial German seizure of the AFB during which 25 Dutch defenders were KIA . But within short the German landing party - no more than around 400 men - were driven off of the pitch and pushed into the dune area between the AFB and the North sea . In a daring attempt to break out during the following days , the German force ( led by the commander of 22 . ID , Lieutenant General Hans Graf von Sponeck himself ) managed to outmanoeuvre quite substantial Dutch formations and eventually reach the German held pocket at the hamlet Overschie . At that position a combined remnant force of around 1 , 000 German invaders managed to hold out until being relieved by German ground - forces in the evening of May 14 , 1940 , after the Rotterdam Blitz . Outcome . The German offensive against the Hague constituted a considerable tactical loss to the Germans . The operational goal was not achieved , notwithstanding the fact that large Dutch formations had been tied around the German pockets for quite some time . Formations that thus could not be assigned other tasks . The Dutch lost 29 men KIA during the AFB defensive battle and the following skirmishes . Another 41 men were lost in counter - offensive actions that saw the Dutch regain the airfield , but that failed to mop - up the German main force who on their turn managed to rebuff Dutch attempts to overrun their elevated dune positions . As such a total toll of 70 men KIA . Besides a material loss of a handful of modern airplanes that had been destroyed on the airfield during the siege . The Germans lost 52 men in the battle for Ockenburg , including 8 men Luftwaffe personnel . An unknown number was taken prisoner and shipped to Scheveningen and from there on to Ymuiden , from where on 13 and 14 May 1940 ships managed to reach the UK . The Luftwaffe lost around 250 airplanes in the area of the Hague , 500 men KIA and about 1 , 250 airbornes , air - landing troops and Luftwaffe personnel being evacuated as POW ' s to the UK on 14 May 1940 . Those were lost to the German cause for the duration of the war . That event outraged Hermann Göring when he got word of it . He had several Dutch officers arrested and interrogated on the matter . In the end , on the scale of things , the German losses were obviously painful but not much more than that .