suffered severe losses, its third battalion was out of action entirely. Overnight the Dutch planned a major counterattack by four infantry battalions, which operation was poorly executed and moreover collided with an SS assault along the northern perimeter of the Grebbeberg defences mid-day on the fourth day of the invasion. German dive bombers sealed the fate of both the Dutch counterattack and the local defences period. The 207th division assaults over the Grebbeberg itself had been successful too, although severe losses were absorbed. By the end of the day the German infantry stood in the village of Rhenen. Around night fall the Germans realized that the Dutch defences had moved back. A quick reaction force from SS motorized units was formed, but would not manage to overtake the Dutch forces, that had also left one or two blocking parties behind to slow potential enemies down. The battle of the Grebbeberg had demanded 420 Dutch and around 250 German KIA. The number of WIA was about quadruple those numbers. The Dutch had lost thousands of POWs too as well as a great deal of material and artillery pieces. The second major battle during the German invasion was seen near the city of Scherpenzeel. The 227th Infantry Division had been slowed down by continuing Dutch cavalry efforts to counter their approach. Moreover, the SS Leibstandarte had been called off on the third day and been instructed to redeploy to the south of the Netherlands, where it had to push along the 9th Panzer Division. The 227th were on their own from then on and had decided to attack the Grebbeline near Scherpenzeel. That had been a poor selection of battlefield by the German division commander. The defences made a funny curve at this point, creating a right-angled shape with a steep corner in it. It was exactly at this point that two German infantry regiments had decided to assault the defences. By doing so they positioned themselves such that they got exposed to defensive fire from fixed and trench defences as well as artillery along two-thirds of their front and flank side. A basic offensive failure, hence a costly German defeat followed. Overnight the most forward pinned down German attackers managed to crawl back into their own lines. The 227th had lost 70 KIA during this effort, of which most of the 412th Regiment. Overnight Dutch artillery unleashed a heavy barrage on