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Joël Stoppels Battlefield Tours

Name: Joël Stoppels Battlefield Tours
Address: Calvijnstraat 4, Groningen, 9746BE, NL
Telephone: +31502803684
Price range: ££
Rating: 4.9

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Nederland
Groningen
Joël Stoppels Battlefield Tours

De tours zijn geschikt voor alle leeftijden. Visiting battlefields from any conflict is both a fascinating and moving experience.
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Battlefield Tours is gespecialiseerd in het geven van rondleidingen over de bevrijding van Nederland en Europa in de Tweede Wereldoorlog en neemt u mee naar de meest indrukwekkende locaties! Soldiers who fought those wars left behind a legacy; their name on a war memorial, an experience passed down to the family or a faded photograph in a frame. How do we understand the significance of that legacy

and how do we understand what the battlefields mean to us now? These are all questions we regularly ask on Battlefield Tours and they are at the heart of what we do: myself and my team of Specialist Battlefield Guides of The International Guild of Battlefield Guides are there to help you decipher that legacy, and understand a past that touched us all; whether it relates to the sandy beaches of Normandy or the concrete walls that once surrounded Berlin.

23/08/2025

It rained on Monday August 21, 1944, but despite the poor flying weather, an effort was made to air-drop ammunition to the Polish force on the ridge of Hill 262. At the positions of the Poles at Mont-Ormel near road D-16, the last German suicidal attacks started in the morning on the southeastern slope. As usual they were decimated by the fire of the Polish weapons. The last attack started from the Chapel at Coudehard and was repelled with 50% losses for the Germans.

But the Poles had also suffered heavy losses after all the German counter-attacks on “Maczuga”, the Polish nickname for Hill 262. At midday the “Canadian Grenadier Guards” had fought their way to the small wood of Cour-du-Bosq. There they saw exhausted soldiers running towards them, crying for joy and relief. Their siege had been lifted; wounded Polish soldiers and prisoners were evacuated and supplies could now reach them. On the Canadian Grenadier Guards' advance to Hill 262 the regiment's diary quoted:

"The road, as were all the roads in the area, was lined and in places practically blocked by destroyed German vehicles of every description. Horses and men lay rotting in every ditch and hedge and the air was rank with the odour of putrefaction. Most of the destruction must have been caused by the air force, but the Poles had done their share

The picture at 262 was the grimmest the regiment has so far come up against. The Poles had had no supplies for three days; they had several hundred wounded who had not been evacuated, about 700 prisoners of war lay loosely guarded in a field, the road was blocked with burnedout vehicles both our own and enemy. Unburied dead and parts of them were strewn about by the score. . . The Poles cried with joy when we arrived and from what they said I doubt if they will ever forget this day and the help we gave them"

The attacks on the morning of the 21st had been the last important effort of the Germans in and about the Pocket. That night, for the first time in weeks, the words "nothing to report" appeared prominently in a situation report prepared at Headquarters First Canadian Army.

Source:
- War Diary Canadian Grenadier Guards, August 1944.
- First Canadian Army sitreps nos. 57 and 58, 21 and 22 Aug. 44
- Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second Word War Volume III: The Victory Campaign the Operations in North-West Europe 1944-1945 by Colonel C. P. Stacey.

📸 Picture: Helmets and papers strew the ground in a field that was used in the area of the Falaise Pocket to collect German POW's before being taken onto to POW camps.

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23/08/2025

📅 Zaterdag 30 augustus 2025
📍 Pauluskerk, Raalte
🕙 10.00 – 16.00 uur
🎟️ Gratis toegang
✨ Unieke WO2-contactdag tijdens Stöppelhaene ✨
Beleef een dag vol geschiedenis, verhalen en bijzondere ontmoetingen!

Tijdens deze speciale publieksdag komen presentaties, filmfragmenten, boekpresentaties, signeersessies, tentoonstellingen én een uitgebreide WO2-markt samen.

🔹 Ontdek verhalen over het Dutch National Battalion
🔹 Zie filmbeelden over Henk Brinkgreve en de Halifax-crash bij Luttenberg
🔹 Woon de boekpresentatie bij van “1944 – Noodlanding bij Wijk bij Duurstede”
🔹 Struin langs de WO2-markt met boeken, documentatie en militaria
🔹 Bezoek unieke tentoonstellingen zoals Trails of Hope, Oorlog in Salland, de geschiedenis van Market Garden in poststukken en Raalte in oorlogstijd

💡 Aanmelden = gratis koffie/thee voucher →
https://www.documentatiegroep40-45.nl/product/inschrijven-contactdag-raalte/

📌 Tussen 10.00 en 12.00 uur zijn de presentaties en films —vrije inloop mogelijk.
🍽️ Optionele lunch: €15,00.
📷 Mis deze kans om unieke verhalen rondom de Tweede Wereldoorlog te horen en in contact te komen met verzamelaars, historici en andere geïnteresseerden!

23/08/2025

When the mist cleared up on Sunday morning August 20, 1944, the Polish soldiers couldn't believe what they saw below. All the valley, all the slopes were congested with long German columns advancing along the lanes and across the orchards towards them. They were mown down by the Polish artillery. Repeated attacks by the Germans to break through were repelled with frightful losses, as men resorted to bayonets and knives.

On the slopes of hill 262, corpses were piling up and the Poles were soon protected by a human rampart. At around 7 pm at Coudehard, General Meindl, commander of the 2nd Corps of Paratroopers obtained a truce from the Poles and the Canadians for 20 minutes to evacuate the casualties in open ambulances driving in a convoy under the Allied guns which remained silent.

Then shelling was resumed and the rush towards “Meindl Crossroads” continued as before. At 7:30 PM a last assault of the SS-grenadiers against the northern slope of Hill 262 impressed the Poles so much that they stopped shooting for a while at those young men who sang “Deutschland über Alles’ at the top of their voices and then fell to the last bullets of the Poles who had each 50 rounds left and 5 shells per gun.

One Polish eyewitness recorded: We let them approach to fifty metres, then we mowed them down, then we ran out of ammunition… one wounded German soldier, very near me, looked like a mere child: I read his date of birth in his paybook: April 1931! He was thirteen years old…we took some prisoners. A few members of the Wehrmacht were Polish origin. We asked them if they wanted to join up with us. When they said yes, they were gevin a gun and the uniform of a dead colleague. These unexpected reinforcements were invaluable to us.

Source 👉 Falaise: The Flawed Victory - the Destruction of Panzergruppe West, August 1944 by Anthony Tucker-Jones

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22/08/2025

The Dives Valley between Falaise and Chambois, north of the road from Argentan to Paris, was the scene of fierce fighting from 19 to 21th August 1944. 100.000 Germans and 150.000 Allied soldiers clashed over a few square kilometres. As the Allies drew closer, German troops evacuated the sector by forced march. As of 15th August, the “cauldron” was subjected to a deluge of fire by Allied artillery and bombardments and counterattacks by the Germans, eager to keep their escape route clear. The “corridor of death”, an escape route branching into numerous paths, was closing up day by day.

On 19th August, Polish soldiers from the 1st Armoured Division took possession of Mont-Ormel in Coudehand. On the same day, joining up with the Americans who had come from the south, they closed the circle in Chambois.

The encircled German army counter-attacked to break through in the Montormel sector. The Polish forces, caught in a vice by a German attack from the rear, put up a heroic resistance often in hand-to-hand combat. The fighting was still continuing on 21th August. At noon, Canadian and Polish forces joined up in Coudehand, sealing the final closure of the pocket. The encircled German troops surrendered to the Allies in Tournai-sur-Dive. After this the battle of Normandy was over. This then and now photo shows a destroyed German Panzer IV and halftrack for the crossing of the River Dives in Chambois. In the background, the church continues to watch over the bridge...

21/08/2025

During August 20, 1944 the Germans fought furiously to hold the bridges of Saint-Lambert in spite of the heavy Canadian artillery fire. Everything was converging towards those three bridges and the fighting in that area was the bloodiest of the battle. Carrying out the orders received from the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) the day before by the 7th Army (Wehrmacht), General Hausser, who was the commander in chief of the troops caught in the Falaise trap, organized the evacuation during the night of the majority of the troops and equipment still coming from the west, but with the exit from the pocket in imminent danger of being closed by Allied pincers at Trun and Chambois, Hausser, came to the conclusion that he would have to fight his way out of the pocket.

Before dawn, General Meindl, commander of the II Parachute Corps, infiltrated the Canadian lines at Saint-Lambert, using a compass with his men following him in total silence. In Indian file under cover of fog and darkness his German paratroopers reached Coudehard around 09:30 am. They made several assaults uncoordinated without support on the ridges held by the Poles. The paratroopers were decimated by machine-gun fire. But a gap had been created by Meindl from Saint-Lambert to Coudehard, and from Moissy – to Mont-Ormel by Mahlmann, the commander of the 353th Infantry Division. This gap was later given the dismal name of “Death Corridor”.

On the Canadian side Major David Currie’s group could see waves of infantrymen at about 8 am advancing towards their positions on Hill 117 and the nearby areas. “One could not really say that it was really an attack there was no support fire: it was rather a rush of infantrymen who were mowed down by the Browning machine guns of the tanks of the Regimental Headquarters. “In Saint-Lambert the report was just the same, but the Canadian soldiers, overwhelmed by the number of Germans were saved by a A Squadron of the “South Alberta” reinforced by a company of the Canadian “Lincoln and Welland regiment” who were most welcome.

📸Picture: By the 19th of August 1944, along with the Saint-Lambert bridges, this ford was the only remaining crossing point over the natural anti-tank ditch formed by the River Dives. Under incessant Allied artillery fire and bombing, thousands of German soldiers surged forth into this narrow ford.

The destruction can be seen in the top left photo. Just like the 1914 - 1918 battlefields, the disfigured trees bear witness to the violence of the bombardments; the wash house is miraculously intact. But time has taken its toll; only the base remains visible today.

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20/08/2025

On August 19, 1944, the Polish 10th Dragoon Regiment reinforced its reconnaissance regiment outside Trun in Normandy and encountered the American 90th Division. Americans and Polish soldiers greeted each other. "They were fine fighters and they were very cold-blooded," an American lieutenant later recalled. Chambois, soon known as "Shambles" (massacre), was on fire from the bombing and was littered with dead Germans and burned-out vehicles. In any case, reports of the extent of the destruction seem to have increased the complacency of the Allied commanders.

The situation within the salient, according to German sources, defied all imagination: you had to see it with your own eyes to believe it. "Two or three burnt-out vehicles had blocked the streets," wrote an officer of the 21st Panzer Division. "Ambulances full of wounded were charred. Ammunition exploded, tanks burned, and horses were kicking their legs in agony on their backs. The same chaos reigned in the fields in the wider area. Artillery and armor piercing ammunition was fired at the German troops in the pocket from all sides.

During the day, the soldiers and vehicles hide for Allied planes in the woods and orchards. At night, exhausted and starving German soldiers stumble on, cursing their leaders who they lost in the dark. The night of August 19/20 was full with the noise of the German traffic going towards Coudehard and Vimoutiers. The Poles were fighting non-stop with their weapons, their guns became red hot. But the "Falaise pocket" was sealed, and the battle of the pocket could begin.

📸Picture: This photograph of the congested road is often used to symbolize the corridor of death in the Falaise Pocket. The same road (below), clear this time, with the farm behind the hedge in the background. © IWM catalogue reference B 9668.

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20/08/2025

During the night of 17-18 August 1944, the 1st Polish Armoured Division had captured Champeaux in Normandy bij ‘mistake’, its civilian guide not understanding the Polish accent had mistaken this place for Chambois. But this was used as an excuse to cover the fact that the battlegroup commander disobeyed orders and moved on a column of the ** 2 Panzer Division to seek revenge instead of capturing Hill 262 as ordered. A furious fight followed where according to General Maczek commander of the Polish Division "God thus gave us the chance to take revenge on that unit which fought in Poland in 1939, but this time the roles were reversed".

The Polish armored column reached Coudehard at daybreak where retreating Germans crowded together. To deal with this force, the 2nd Polish Armoured Regiment, the 8th Rifles and anti-tank batteries regrouped on Hill 262, north of Mont-Ormel where they could control the whole valley of the River Dives and the roads which carried a continuous flow of Germans going due east towards Vimoutiers and the River Seine, but also heading straight towards the Poles. A mixed column, of both horse-drawn and motorized vehicles was struggling up the hill of road D 16 (Chambois-Vimoutiers): the horses slowing down the march. In less than 15 minutes it was cut to pieces by the intensive fire of the Poles. The Germans then discovered with terror that their retreat route was henceforth cut off. They began to fire mortars at Hill 262 in the morning and continued for two days to try to drive off or annihilate the Polish force occupying this strategic hill.

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19/08/2025

Recently, I came into contact with Brooke Webber from Canada. His father, Lieutenant D.C. Webber from British Columbia, was stationed in Groningen during the Second World War. He carried wonderful memories of the city and its people.

During our conversation, it turned out that an impressive keepsake still existed: his father’s original army trunk. A trunk that for many years held his personal belongings and memories. D.C. Webber enlisted in the Canadian Forestry Corps in December 1940 and spent several years in Scotland. Later, he was deployed to Northwest Europe, where his path also led him to Groningen.

And now, more than 80 years later, the trunk has once again made the journey—this time not with war, but as a tangible memory. After a journey of a week and a half, the trunk arrived here in Groningen. At the end of September, his son Brooke will personally visit Groningen.

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19/08/2025

On August 17, 1944, the Polish 1st Armored Division was ordered to advance to Chambois in Normandy. But because the Poles were 7 kilometers ahead of the Canadian 4th Armored Division, they knew that heavy fighting lay ahead before they could get support. They quickly regrouped. General Maczek sent the 24th Lancers and the 10th Dragoons to Chambois, while the rest of the division moved into positions around Mont Ormel. This was one of the dominant landscape features on the steep wooded wall that overlooks the River Dives, closing the northeastern tip of the plain at Falaise. The American 90th Division at Bourg-Saint-Léonard, south of Chambois, was shocked that day when the Das-Reich division and the remnants of the 17th ** Panzergrenadier Division attacked unexpectedly, forcing them to hastily retreat. General Leonard Gerow sent them back that evening to capture the essential height.

📸 Picture: Column of Cromwell and Sherman tanks of the 1st Polish Armoured Division moving towards enemy positions during the Battle of Falaise Pocket.

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17/08/2025

The Battle of Normandy was nearing its peak. On August 14, 1944, German General Von Kluge decided that his troops should break out in a northeasterly direction, "otherwise they must fear the loss of all their troops." Artillery units lined up their guns and fired all the remaining shells before retreating. Von Kluge ordered an immediate withdrawal behind the line of the Orne on 16 August 1944; the crossing began that night. Anti-aircraft units were brought in to defend the bridges, but the Allied activity in the air seems to have been a lot less the next two crucial days. No soldier was allowed to halt or rest in the area. Broken down vehicles were pushed off the road, and the Feldgendarmerie enforced strict rules on the road. Nothing should slow the withdrawal.

German armoured forces provoked anger among the infantry soldiers for the way they simply drove over the corpses and crushed them with their caterpillar tracks. On August 16, 1944, the Canadians struggled to capture the destroyed city of Falaise, where William the Conqueror had once been born in the great castle. Again, they faced their fanatical opponents of the ** Youth. Sixty of these battle-hardened teens held out against the Canadians for three days. The only two captured alive were wounded. From the landings during D-Day up to the fighting around Falaise there were 18,444 casualties among the Canadians, of which 5,021 were killed.

📸 Picture: Canadian troops with armour support advance cautiously through the streets of Falaise.

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17/08/2025

🎥 The Battle of the Falaise Pocket was the final hammer blow in clearing out German forces in Normandy and effectively ended the campaign in the region.

17/08/2025

Amazing then and now photo of Canadian troops from Major David V. Currie of the South Alberta Regiment accepting the surrender of German troops at St. Lambert-sur-Dive in Normandy on 19 August 1944. This photo captures the very moment and actions that would lead to Major Currie being awarded the Victoria Cross.

During the last stages of August 1944, the allies were encircling the German armies in Normandy. The Germans were desperately attempting to escape the ‘Falaise pocket’ through the village of St. Lambert-Sur-Dive. Major D.V. Currie, officer commanding “C” Squadron of the South Alberta Regiment (SAR), 29th Canadian Reconnaissance Regiment with under command detachments from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, The Lincoln and Welland Regiment and A Troop of the 5th Anti-tank regiment, was charged with the closing of the Falaise gap in this area. After suffering heavy casualties during three days and nights, with no officers left except Major Currie, the gap was finally closed.

Throughout it all, Currie remained calm and firm, overcoming overwhelming odds to beat the Germans. When the counterattacks finally ended, Currie’s troops emerged victorious with 300 of the enemy killed, 500 wounded, and 2,100 taken as prisoners of war. They also destroyed seven tanks and 40 vehicles in total. For gallant leadership throughout this battle, Major Currie was awarded the Victoria Cross. This was the only Victoria Cross awarded to the Canadian Armoured Corps during World War II.

Source: Citation Major D.V. Currie

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Our Story

Visiting World War 2 battlefields around Europe is a fascinating and moving experience. Soldiers who fought the war left behind a legacy; their name on a war memorial, an experience is passed down to the family or a faded photograph in a frame. How do we understand the significance of that legacy and how do we understand what the battlefields mean to us now? These are all questions we regularly ask on Battlefield Tours and they are at the heart of what we do: myself and the team of Battlefield Guides of The International Guild of Battlefield Guides are there to help you decipher that legacy, and understand a past that touched us all; whether it relates to the sandy beaches of Normandy or the concrete walls that once surrounded Berlin. Battlefield Tours tells you the story behind the liberation of Europe.

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