Belgian Resistance IED attacks

I continue to trawl through some fascinating WW2 stuff – and I am amazed at the prevalence of IED attacks and the development of IED technology during the war- this is something I and perhaps others, have never been aware of.

Here’s just a glimpse, and an interesting example.  The Belgian Resistance to Nazi occupation is very interesting – at times many of the 43 resistance groups in the country received virtually no support from the allies, and reverted to manufacturing their own home made explosives, or obtaining it from other sources. Some examples:

1. “Group G” a resistance group based around the University of Brussels co-opted students with technical skills. Another group involved a chemist to create a complex underground Nitroglycerine/Dynamite manufacturing facility in the cellars under a school.
2. Another group recovered unexploded ordnance from World War One battlefields and removed the explosives to then use as explosive charges in IEDs.

More German troops were killed in Belgium in 1941 by the resistance then in the whole of France that year. One Belgian group developed small tablets containing abrasive grit which when added to the oil tank on an aircraft engine caused catastrophic damage. On the night of 15th January 1944, Group G sabotaged the entire national electricity pylon infrastructure, effectively cutting electricity to the whole country by using explosives on power pylons in a series of coordinated attacks.

I think the Belgian sabotage campaign in the summer of 1944 is particularly remarkable because it is almost unheard of in the history books. It pretty much matches Russian partisan IED campaign of 1943 against railways that I mentioned in my earlier post on Ilya Starinov.   In 1944, as the Allies invaded France, Belgium’s strategic position for the movement of German resources into Northern France became crucial. Between June 1944 and September 1944, 95 railway bridges, and 285 locomotives were attacked with explosive devices. Over a thousand railway wagons and 17 railway tunnels were attacked. Power lines, telephone lines and canals ere also attacked in this period.  In one single incident 600 German troops were killed as they train they were in was blown up as it crossed a bridge over the Ambleve river.  As the Allies approached the Belgian Resistance took 20,000 German troops prisoner.