Subterfuge and Sabotage During Hitler’s Blitzkrieg: Secret British Operations during the German Advance in Holland and Belgium, 1939-40

In September 1939 Britain was once again at war with Germany.In Whitehall, Prime Minister Chamberlain handed a senior cabinet minister the delicate task of co-ordinating plans for the denial to Germany of the vital economic assets of neutral Holland and Belgium should Hitler invade those countries. Prominent among these important assets were those countries’ oil stocks, which would have to be destroyed to prevent them falling into German hands.This task would eventually fall to a group of former cement workers who had been formed into a Territorial unit of the Royal Engineers.Little did they know then, that in just nine months some of them would find themselves across the North Sea conducting dangerous demolition operations in the face of the enemy. Preparations for these operations, continued through the remaining months of 1939 into 1940 involving intelligence gathering, undercover reconnaissance missions, and weeks of intensive training for the naval and military demolition teams.Th