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Description
*Note: This was my very first Deviant Art submission (September 2003) - the drawing itself dating back to over 1 1/2 years before I even joined DA (February 2002). Looking back, I fully well realize it's not perfect, and can spot dozens of flaws in it...*

...

This drawing I drew as the front page of a history assignment for school. The history behind it is a very complicated and tragic one.

After a long and tense period lasting from September 1st 1939 to the morning of May 10th 1940, all hopes on peace for (untill then) neutral Belgium were shattered when the German army invaded its territory.

In a desperate move to stop them, the Allied forces decided to bomb the bridges of Vroenhoven, Veltwezelt and Briegden (also referred to as the 'Maastricht Bridges') which had fallen intact into the hands of the Germans.

The first raids were executed on the morning of the eleventh of May by the Belgian Military Aviation, which dispensed three Fairey Battle light bombers to each bridge, each of them equipped with totally inadequate 50 kg bombs, and escorted by 6 Gloster Gladiator fighter biplanes.

In short, the raid was doomed to fail from the start.

Arriving at their assigned bridge, Battles T-70 and T-61 were riddled by anti-aircraft fire. T-70 was hit on its first run in, killing its pilot, Kpt André Glorie. It's gunner, OLt Jean VandenBosch, managed to bail out but was severely injured. Some of its bombs did hit the bridge, but failed to destroy it.

Having flown alongside T-70 on its first run but having experienced a failure of its bomb release system, T-61 was to attempt a second run on the bridge. During this the plane was hit and exploded in mid air, killing both its pilot, Adj Franz Delvigne, and its gunner, Sgt Alexandre Moens.

T-64 succeeded in executing its run, but its bombs narrowly missed the bridge. After that, it managed to regain its home base.

The other two flights failed to destroy their targets too, and at the end of the raid, six of the nine Battles involved had been shot down, with a loss of five of the eighteen crewmembers. Their fighter escort was intercepted and lost four out of six planes, and two of its pilots (one of them remains missing to this very day) , without ever having contacted the bombers.

The subsequent allied raids did manage to destroy one of the three bridges, but at a very high cost.

Description
*Note: This was my very first Deviant Art submission (September 2003) - the drawing itself dating back to over 1 1/2 years before I even joined DA (February 2002). Looking back, I fully well realize it's not perfect, and can spot dozens of flaws in it...*

...

This drawing I drew as the front page of a history assignment for school. The history behind it is a very complicated and tragic one.

After a long and tense period lasting from September 1st 1939 to the morning of May 10th 1940, all hopes on peace for (untill then) neutral Belgium were shattered when the German army invaded its territory.

In a desperate move to stop them, the Allied forces decided to bomb the bridges of Vroenhoven, Veltwezelt and Briegden (also referred to as the 'Maastricht Bridges') which had fallen intact into the hands of the Germans.

The first raids were executed on the morning of the eleventh of May by the Belgian Military Aviation, which dispensed three Fairey Battle light bombers to each bridge, each of them equipped with totally inadequate 50 kg bombs, and escorted by 6 Gloster Gladiator fighter biplanes.

In short, the raid was doomed to fail from the start.

Arriving at their assigned bridge, Battles T-70 and T-61 were riddled by anti-aircraft fire. T-70 was hit on its first run in, killing its pilot, Kpt André Glorie. It's gunner, OLt Jean VandenBosch, managed to bail out but was severely injured. Some of its bombs did hit the bridge, but failed to destroy it.

Having flown alongside T-70 on its first run but having experienced a failure of its bomb release system, T-61 was to attempt a second run on the bridge. During this the plane was hit and exploded in mid air, killing both its pilot, Adj Franz Delvigne, and its gunner, Sgt Alexandre Moens.

T-64 succeeded in executing its run, but its bombs narrowly missed the bridge. After that, it managed to regain its home base.

The other two flights failed to destroy their targets too, and at the end of the raid, six of the nine Battles involved had been shot down, with a loss of five of the eighteen crewmembers. Their fighter escort was intercepted and lost four out of six planes, and two of its pilots (one of them remains missing to this very day) , without ever having contacted the bombers.

The subsequent allied raids did manage to destroy one of the three bridges, but at a very high cost.