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A special place for team member Eugenie Brooks
Eugenie’s Gt Uncle was killed on the Somme but never found, so his name is on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. She decided to adopt an unknown grave at Ovillers Cemetery, close to where Arthur Fredrick Whitrod was killed on 8th July 1916 #WeWillRememberThem
6th December – Post 6 – WN60, Normandy
A visit to WN60 is one of those truly “wow” moments. Make sure to visit when the tide is out and you’ll be guaranteed breathtaking views of Omaha Beach. Directly below is Fox Red Sector. This strongpoint was attacked by men of L Company, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division, Led by 26-year-old Lt Jimmy Monteith of Virginia.
For his leadership and bravery that day, Jimmy Monteith was awarded the Medal of Honour. His citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, near Colleville-sur-Mer, France. 1st Lt. Monteith landed with the initial assault waves on the coast of France under heavy enemy fire. Without regard to his own personal safety he continually moved up and down the beach reorganizing men for further assault. He then led the assault over a narrow protective ledge and across the flat, exposed terrain to the comparative safety of a cliff. Retracing his steps across the field to the beach, he moved over to where 2 tanks were buttoned up and blind under violent enemy artillery and machinegun fire. Completely exposed to the intense fire, 1st Lt. Monteith led the tanks on foot through a minefield and into firing positions. Under his direction several enemy positions were destroyed. He then rejoined his company and under his leadership his men captured an advantageous position on the hill. Supervising the defense of his newly won position against repeated vicious counterattacks, he continued to ignore his own personal safety, repeatedly crossing the 200 or 300 yards of open terrain under heavy fire to strengthen links in his defensive chain. When the enemy succeeded in completely surrounding 1st Lt. Monteith and his unit and while leading the fight out of the situation, 1st Lt. Monteith was killed by enemy fire. The courage, gallantry, and intrepid leadership displayed by 1st Lt. Monteith is worthy of emulation.
Section I, Row 20, Grave 12.
Whenever I am in Prague, I make a point of visiting St Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. Inside the crypt in 1942 hid Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, the two Czech parachutists that carried out the assassination of Heydrich.
After After their hide out was discovered, they and fellow resistance fighters fought gallantly, holding off more than 700 German soldiers. There was only so long this resistance could continue, however. A truly moving place to visit.
“He is not missing: he is here!”
The Menin Gate is home to the names of 54,588 servicemen who died in this sector (up to Aug 1917) and have no known grave.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing that just outside Cambridge UK, in the beautiful quaint village of Madingley, is the Cambridge American Cemetery & Memorial. Like all American Battle Monuments Commission sites, it is beautiful!
The symmetry of the headstones, the grandeur of the masonry work is staggering. After a hard day, it is the perfect place to sit quietly, reflect and give thanks.
Caterpillar Valley Cemetery the final resting place for over 5,500 casualties. On the same site there is Caterpillar Valley (New Zealand) Memorial, listing 1205 New Zealand casualties who have no known grave.
I often have the place to myself at sunset, peaceful and quiet with just the sound of birdsong for company.
By Paul Colbourne, SGWT Battlefield Guide
On 6 Oct 1918, the 15th Durham Light Infantry would attack across this ground to take the fortified Ferme de Montecouves, seen in the distance. A number of Durhams would die that day, amongst them was Corporal Thomas Marshall Iley, my wife’s great uncle.
An insignificant piece of farmland today but back in 1918 it formed part of the Beaurevoir Line which was well wired and strong in concrete machine-gun emplacements. The Durhams took and held their objectives without artillery support but not without cost.
By Paul Colbourne, SGWT Battlefield Guide
Last December, each day we posted an object from either #WW1 or #WW2 - my style of advent calendar! This year I will be posting images and stories from a specific battlefield location.
I hope this will give you some insight into personal stories from history why so many of us find these locations so special. Posts will come from myself, but also my lovely team of guides. If you'd like to share also, please feel free to contact team@sophiesgreatwartours.com
Last December, each day we posted an object from either #WW1 or #WW2 - our style of advent calendar!
This year we will be posting images and stories from a specific battlefield location. I hope this will give you some insight into personal stories from history and why so many of us find these locations so special.
Posts will come from Sophie and the team of battlefield guides. If you'd like to share your special locations and memories, please feel free to contact team@sophiesgreatwartours.com
On this day, 3rd September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. Listening to this solemn announcement from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain still sends shivers down my spine. We know that six years of bloody war were to come, millions would lose their lives and the world would change forever.
Listen to the recording of Chamberlain via this BBC link.
At Sophie’s Great War Tours, we tell the stories of the ordinary men and women that often did extraordinary things to help defeat a tyrannical dictator and his destructive ideology.
All over by Christmas, that was the fervent hope of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) as it made its way across the channel in the heady, humid days of August 1914. The BEF has a strong claim to have been the most professional fighting force to have ever left these shores. However, the BEF was small in comparison to its allies and enemies – prompting the Kaiser to dismiss them as a “contemptible little army.”
As the Kaiser’s men made their way across Belgium seeking a swing down to Paris as part of the Schieffelin Plan, the BEF had to meet their foe and stop this advance.
Sophie’s Great War Tours offers bespoke tours of the sites of the early engagements of the First World War. See where the BEF first encountered the oncoming Germans at Mons on 23rd August and Le Cateau three days later.
Following the early battles of the BEF also allows you an opportunity to see, by an ironic twist of fate, the sites of where four long years later the British Army would finish the war.
I am incredibly proud to be able to say that today marks Sophie’s Great War Tours’ 10th Birthday!
When I started this business is 2013, my mission was to help connect people with the past. To tell amazing stories and keep alive the memories of those that gave so much.
I couldn’t have dared to dream that a decade later, this one-woman show (plus a big dose of help from my awesome Dad) -would have run so many tours for 700+ guests from across the world.
The team has grown to 12 incredible guides for whom I will be forever thankful. They are not only great historians, but just the loveliest of people that go above and beyond as standard for our guests.
Our commitment to our guests includes saying yes to any request we can possibly make work. We take note of the small things because of course, they are often the big things that really matter.
The fact that so many of our guests over the course of the last ten years are still friends is I think testament to the way the team work.
A big thank you to every single person that has supported Sophie’s Great War Tours in even the smallest of ways. I am and always will be very grateful indeed.
No birthday should go without a celebration. As an extra thank you, I would like to offer one free place on one of my Rugby World Cup Tours this autumn. To enter this draw, please send a birthday message via either an email, a tweet or Facebook comment by 11pm tonight.
Thanks all - here’s to another 10 years!
Sophie
In the summer of 1940 the German Wehrmacht appeared unstoppable, driving into the West and conquering France by 10th May. The Germans success seemed to have almost surprised themselves, perhaps in part explaining Hitler’s order to halt the channel bound spearhead on 23 May. This decision would create an opportunity for one of history’s great escapes – operation Dynamo the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk which began on this day in history.
The British decision to head for the channel port was a highly controversial one with Sir Anthony Eden telling the BEF’s commander Lord Gort that he may have ‘fight back to the west’ without informing Britain’s French and Belgium allies.
At the time the British Expeditionary Force, along with three French field armies and allies were in disarray, falling back on Dunkirk to await an uncertain fate.
The time gifted the allies by the halt order allowed them the opportunity to formulate a more orderly fighting retreat while in England the Royal Navy and the famous flotilla of small boats could start to be organised to save as many of the allied troops. Men would have to leave without their precious tanks and other military vehicles, this was a problem for another day.
We must never overlook those crucial engagements, that fighting retreat through the Flemish and French countryside which allowed Operation Dynamo to be so successful.
Those troops knew that every moment they held up the Germans would increase the chances of their comrades getting home, even if they would not.
Operation Dynamo would close on 4th June 1940, with a staggering 338,226 men aboard 861 lifted from the beaches.
We will commemorate some of those key moments in the next few blogs.
#WeWillRememberThem
On this day in history, the tyrannical dictator and leader of Nazi Germany committed suicide in his bunker beneath the Reichstag in Berlin as Soviet troops began to overwhelm the devastated city.
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria. After leaving school with limited education, Hitler wished to study Art in Vienna and twice applied to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and failing to secure a place leading to a life of isolation for some years, eking out a living as a postcard and advertisement painter.
In Vienna, as a young man, he demonstrated a number of the traits that would characterise his later life: secretiveness and solitariness, a bohemian and unconventional lifestyle and most ominously a hatred of the cosmopolitan and multinational Vienna.
After moving to Munich in 1913, Hitler was rejected by the Austrian army, petitioning King Louis III of Bavaria to be allowed to serve. One day after submitting his request, he was notified that he would be able to join the Bavarian Infantry Reserve regiment.
Hitler was sent to Belgium after 8 weeks of training where he fought in the first Battle of Ypres. His military service as a runner spanned the entire First World War where he was wounded in 1916 and gassed near Ypres in 1918. He received both the Iron Cross Second Class and the First Class, which was unusual for a lowly Corporal. Hitler left hospital in the midst of the political chaos raging throughout Germany after its defeat and the army sent him as a political agent to Munich to join the small German Workers' Party.
In 1920 he left the army to lead the party's propaganda wing and devoted more time to improving his position within the party which had renamed itself the National-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi party). Hitler was astute at building his power within the Nazi party and became its leader in 1921 where he set out to build a mass movement surrounded by mysticism which would bind members' loyalty entirely to him.
His early political ambition would culminate in the failed 1923 Munich Putsch where the Nazi Party and its military arm the SA (Sturmabteilung) attempted to seize power in Munich to take advantage of the prevailing political confusion and failings of the Weimar Republic. Hitler, not missing the propaganda opportunity of his trial, was sentenced to 5 years in Landsburg prison for treason, of which he served just 9 months. While in Landsberg, he dictated the first edition of his political autobiography, Mein Kampf or My Struggle in which he outlined his complex and meandering political beliefs; the most prominent and foreboding of which was his implacable belief in the inequality of races, nations and individuals, and the natural order which exalted the "Aryan race". He saw the Jewish race and Marxism as the most significant enemies of Nazism rather than liberal democracy, which was already unstable in Germany by this time.
After his release, Hitler realised that gaining the power he craved would have to be achieved through legal, or semi-legal, means, although while in prison the Weimar republic had regained some much needed stability and Hitler found the German public less receptive to his racist and antagonistic message ... until the 1929 Wall Street crash and Great Depression ushered in a new period of instability across Germany and the world. The Nazi Party subsequently became the second largest party in Germany and by 1932 Hitler was challenging for the chancellorship after securing 36.8% of the vote. President Hindenberg's position was becoming precarious and he made Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933.
Hitler wasted no time in moving to become absolute dictator by forcing new elections, removing freedoms and intensifying violence against opponents in the wake of the Reichstag fire, which was blamed on a Dutch Communist called Marinus van de Lubbe. On March 23, 1933 the Enabling Bill was passed giving full powers to Hitler and less than 3 months later, all opposition parties, organisations and labour unions ceased to exist. Once dictator of Germany, Hitler set about a campaign of economic recovery, alliance building with fascist Italy and Japan, overturning the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles which limited Germany's military capabilities, and expansion to secure living space or lebensraum for the German people.
Hitler launched the Second World War by invading Poland on September 1, 1939 in a joint attack with the Soviet Union. Germany's war strategy was assumed by Hitler from the very beginning to the end of World War Two and by 1942 saw Nazi occupation of much of Western Europe and vast swathes of the Soviet Union.
From 1933 to the early years of catastrophic destruction caused by Hitler's war of aggression and occupation was the Nazi policy of expulsion of European Jews, Roma Gypsies and numerous other people the Nazis considered undesirable. In 1941, "Total War' was declared after America's entry in the war, and the Nazi policy of expulsion changed to the insidious systematic genocide epitomised by the gas chambers of death camps like Auschwitz. From the end of 1942, the tide of war began to turn with German defeats in North Africa and at Stalingrad. In early 1943, Musolini was arrested and Italy sued for peace, necessitating German occupation of Italy taking valuable military resources away from the life and death struggle being fought inch by bloody inch in the East.
With defeats on the battlefield came increased tensions with the military and a string of assassination attempts ensued, the most famous was led by Colonel Claus von Staffenburg in July 1944. By January 1945, with the US led Western allies closing in from the West and the Soviet Red Armies advancing on the shattered shell of Berlin from the East, Hitler, exhausted and increasingly ill due to stress and regular use of amphetamines, abandoned a plan to lead a last ditch resistance from the South, never again left his bunker underneath the chancellery. Before he shot himself, he married Eva Braun and appointed Admiral Karl Donitz Head of State and Joseph Goebbels Chancellor.
Adolf Hitler's reign of terror was not inevitable, nor could he have caused such damage and destruction alone. His ability to take advantage, for his own ends, of the instability in Germany after the First World War was unequalled, as was his ideology of hate which was sadly shared by too many.
Today, there is nothing left of Hitler's bunker and his burned remains were never found. It is possible to stand on the site above the chancellery bunker in Berlin as well as visit the numerous battlefields and significant sites of the Second World War from the beaches of Normandy to the Ardennes forest and the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem, where the battles were fought and sacrifices made to bring Hitler's reign of tyranny, death and destruction to its end.
Sophie’s Great War tours would be glad to accompany and guide you to help foster a greater understanding of the events and roles individuals played during these dark and dangerous years.
On this day in history, the Second Battle of Ypres began in 1915.
Following just a few days after the heavy fighting at Hill 60, the second of three costly battles on the Ypres salient was intended to mask German troop transportation to the East for a push at Galicia and to shorten the line around Ypres by reducing the salient.
The plan was to deploy the asphyxiating chlorine gas on or around the 14th of April when the winds were favourable and for infantry to follow behind to punch a giant hole in the British line and push them back West of Ypres. At 5pm on the sunny breezy spring afternoon of April 22, 1915, an ominous sickly haze of greenish yellow chlorine gas floated silently towards the French and British lines. Some 200 tons of chlorine gas had been deployed with particular effect on the left flank of the salient defended by French colonial troops.
Those troops flooded back creating a large gap in the allied line but the severity of the unfolding crisis was not fully realised by the Germans despite ground being taken around the Pilkem Ridge, just two and half miles from Ypres.
Canadian troops were thrown into the line around St. Juliaan to desperately close this gap.
Some 200 gassed Algerians reinforced by Canadian machine gun platoons on the exposed and precarious Canadian left flank near the village of Poelkapelle fighting a desperate and gallant battle, managed to secure, despite heavy losses, a shortened left flank and keep from being overrun and rolled up from behind. The Canadian 3rd Infantry Brigade's successful counter-attack on Bois des Cuisinièrs, the old oak forest translated as “Kitcheners’ Wood” by the British and Canadian troops, marked the initial stabilisation of the situation, but the battle was still fraught and desperate with gaps in the line being exploited by German troops and German machine gun fire raking the rear of the allies' old front line.
By the morning of the 23rd of April, further British and Canadian reinforcements had arrived and had begun to work their way towards the French remnants at the Yser canal.
Over the coming weeks the battle bogged down and the toll of wounded and dead mounted without much territorial gain from either side and the battle would eventually peter out on the 25th of May.
During the Second Battle of Ypres, Canadian officer John McCrae penned one of the most famous poems of the war, "In Flanders Fields" in tribute to a friend who had died in the fighting.
Today, Ypres remains a benchmark destination to visit and walk in the footsteps of those who sacrificed and endured the horrors of the Western Front from 1914 to the very end of the war.
Sophie's Great War Tours would be delighted to walk with you and share these stories on location.
On this day in history in 1915, Hill 60 on the Ypres salient, held by the Germans since November 1914, was retaken.
Hill 60 and its neighbours The Caterpillar and The Dump were in fact piles of spoil created by the excavation of earth when building the railway connecting Ypres and Comines which opened in 1854.
Hill 60 was in German hands when the British took over this part of the line in February 1915.
Holding the high ground around Ypres was an enormous advantage for the Germans as their artillery observers could see for miles and direct fire down onto the French and then British dug in around Ypres.
The British decision to take Hill 60 was made in part because of upcoming offensives which were expected to be 'war winning', therefore possession of Hill 60 was considered necessary in order to gain the advantage of the high ground on the Ypres salient.
The unenviable task of taking the hill fell to the 13th Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division. But, the British had a surprise in store for the German defenders which could well turn the tide of the attack in their favour. In the months preceding the assault on the dreaded Hill 60, French and British miners tunnelled under No Man's Land and dug out chambers large enough to hold several thousand kilos of explosives.
At 7pm on the 17th April, 1915, all 6 mines were detonated at 10 second intervals and the 1st Battalion Royal West Kents assaulted the hill, reaching the massive mine craters and the German positions in very quick order.
The war diaries of the time tell us that “severe fighting ensued all night. The enemy kept up a constant and heavy artillery fire and attacked incessantly, using hand grenades freely and with great effect”.
Over the course of the next few hours and into the 18th April 1915, units were relieved and fresh men sent in to hold the newly captured crest of the hill. German forces however, continued to engage in savage close quarter combat, slowly inching British troops back down.
The fighting for Hill 60 would presage the opening of the Second Battle of Ypres which would commence 5 days later. Hill 60 would once again be lost to the Germans by early May and the dawn of a new era of chemical warfare had begun.
Today, Hill 60 still bears many scars of this fighting in 1915 and the mining activity of that year and 1917 too.
There are so many stories to tell and Sophie’s Great War Tours would be delighted to share them with you on location.
On this day in 1945, President Franklin Deleno Roosevelt collapsed and died of a cerebral haemorrhage while sitting for a portrait. Harry Truman would be sworn in as the 33rd President.
Nicknamed FDR, Roosevelt's presidency spanned 12 years. It was marked by the most significant domestic crisis for the United States since the civil war, the Great Depression, and it's most momentous foreign one, the Second World War.
FDR's optimism, hope and political capability culminated in the 'New Deal' series of economic experiments to get the U.S moving again from the quagmire of the depression.
Despite partial paralysis of the legs resulting from contracting polio, Roosevelt's tenacity in his own recovery enabled him to set about reform and recovery for the U.S economy, declaring that Americans "had nothing to fear but fear itself".
One man alone could not put at end to economic depression, it was war that helped turn the tide for a new American future.
Roosevelt led the U.S to the brink of victory over fascism and cemented its position by emerging from those dark years of war as the world's foremost economic, political and military power.
On this day in 1945, lead elements of the U.S Third Army’s 6th Armoured Division liberated Buchenwald Concentration Camp, near Weimar, Germany.
Buchenwald was one of the first Nazi camps to be liberated by the Western allies who on their arrival found 21,000 prisoners clinging to life.
Buchenwald Survivor taken after liberation by the US 3rd Army
On the day of liberation as American troops neared the camp, the SS were ordered to abandon Buchenwald. As senior SS commanders fled, the International Camp Committee mobilised its fighters, distributed hidden arms, and took over the camp overpowering the remaining SS guards.
From 1937 when Buchenwald opened to its liberation in 1945, over a quarter of a million men, women and children from over 50 countries passed through its gates or the gates of its numerous satellite camps.
Nearly 60,000 people died at Buchenwald while thousands more were sent on death marches to other camps or on death transports to Auschwitz.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, allied supreme commander, visited Buchenwald where the experience clearly left an indelible mark; he stated, “I have never felt able to describe my emotional reaction when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency.”
For more information on visiting Buchenwald to keep the memory of those that perished alive, please see their website: Buchenwald Homepage - Buchenwald Memorial
For more information on the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, please see their website: Holocaust Educational Trust - Latest News (het.org.uk)
#NeverForget
On this day in 1917, the battle of Arras began, the beginning of the allied offensive operations in 1917.
The opening phases of the battle were successful, with the British achieving the furthest advance into German lines of the war to date. This gave allied commanders hope that the significant breakthrough they desired was now on the cards.
This initial optimism soon died away however, and the allied armies were drawn back into a slogging match for ground.
The battle continued with a number of operations until 16th May 1917 where it closed with a casualty list estimated at 300,000 men across both sides.
Today there are some key sites that can be visited and areas traditionally ‘off the beaten track’ where you can follow the movements of specific battalions or even an individual soldier that you may wish to follow in the footsteps of.
Vimy Ridge is a must visit for any Canadian pilgrim to the battlefields of the Western Front. Here your guides will not only be able to talk about the critical mission Canadian troops had here in 1917, but they shall also be able to put into context what the attack meant politically and socially to a future Canada.
Take a brief trip underground in the preserved Grange tunnel, look at how close the trench lines ran here and see how the scars of war still show vividly upon the land.
Walk up to the beautiful memorial which bears the names of more than 11,000 Canadians who lost their lives along the Western Front and who have no known grave.
It was unveiled by King Edward VIII on 26 July 1936, his only official overseas engagement before abdication.
Arras is a battlefield best explored on foot, particularly as many of the roads really are unsuitable for cars. If you a following a specific battalion or soldier, with the aid of a guide, trench maps and today’s technology, begin at that unit’s jump off position and follow their advance. This method of touring allows you to understand not only the terrain, but all the elements soldiers had to face when going into battle.
The dominant position of Notre Dame de Lorette gives you a view of the battlefields below. After the Great War, it was established as a place to commemorate the sacrifice of thousands of soldiers. More than 42,000 soldiers remains are here, making it the largest French necropolis in the world. It is a truly staggering site. In the centre of the necropolis is a beautiful lantern tower and basilica.
Much has been added nearby in recent months for visitors, including a visitor centre, excellent museum and reconstructed trenches.
Descend 20 metres underground into the chalk quarries of Arras that were dug out by New Zealand soldiers - a network that could house 24,000 soldiers! Walk this underground city with a guide and see carvings on the walls from soldiers in the Great War.
This beautiful Lutyens memorial bears the names of almost 35,000 servicemen from the UK, South Africa and New Zealand who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918 and whom have no known grave. Indeed, Sophie’s Great Uncle, Private Hough, is remembered here. Notably too is the name of 2nd Lt Walter Tull, an exceptionally talented British footballer of Afro-Caribbean decent. Clearly a brave officer, he saw action on the Somme, went to Italy but was sadly killed in the German Spring Offensive.
There is also the Flying Services Memorial which commemorates almost 1,000 airmen of the Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps, and the Royal Air Force, either by attachment from other arms of the forces of the Commonwealth or by original enlistment, who were killed across the Western Front and who have no known grave.
Step down from the memorial and into the cemetery which contains the graves of over 2,650 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and a further eight from the Second World War.
On this day in 1945, lead elements of the US 9th and 1st armies linked up and secured the most successful US encirclement of World War II.
By early Spring 1945, it was clear the war was coming to its inevitable end and the defeat of Hitler's reich was beyond doubt. That said, the formidable forces of Model's Army Group B supported by the 5th Panzer Army guarding the Ruhr and the 15th Army watching over the bridgehead at Remagen stood in their way. Field Marshal Walter Model, 'Hitler's Fireman' to his troops, was known for his tenacity and willingness to fight to the bitter end. Army Group B's 400,000 troops could cause mass casualties and hamper allied efforts to end the war quickly if confronted head on.
Ike needed a plan ...
🪖Germany's industrial heartland in the West, the Rhur, had always been on the allied operational 'to do' list.
🪖It's vast array of cities, factories and millions of civilians had the potential to become a supercolossal Stalingrad style blood bath.
🪖Eisenhower, often criticised for being a dull 'broad-front' strategist, had always planned to encircle the Rhur.
🪖The lucky break at Remagen provided the opportunity for a classic pincer movement.
🪖The 1st Army would cross the Rhine at Wesel as part of Monty's multi-army operation Varsity-Plunder while the 9th would break out of the Remagen bridgehead on March 25.. Luck was on the allies side with perfect conditions for air support for the Rhine crossing and the breakout.
Progress was initially slow for the 9th army because of dogged German resistance and tough terrain, but the 1st army achieved its textbook breakout by noon on the first day of operations. On April 1, Easter Sunday, the pincers snapped shut around Model's forces, trapping them all in an ironically egg-shaped pocket, 30 by 75 miles in diameter.
Over the next 7 days, the pocket would be squeezed tighter and tighter and then sliced in half at Hagen. On April 14, with mass surrenders in full swing, over 317,000 prisoners were taken. Field Marshall Model however could not surrender and shot himself in Duisburg on April 21, one day after the Fuhrer's last ever birthday.
The battle of the Rhur marked a decisive victory for the allies and demonstrated the hard won maturity of US forces and their ability to wage effective manoeuvre combined arms warfare.