DigitalBattlefieldTours unlocks military tactics to a wide audience

[TRANSLATED BY: Simon van der Meulen] Ivo van der Spoel is the creator of documentaries covering the military history of World War II. His YouTube channel is called DigitalBattlefieldTours. In his videos, viewers are taken to locations where actual battlefield events took place, such as Operation Market Garden. Having 65,000 subscribers and attracting up to a million viewers per video, he caters for a broad public. TracesofWar.com interviewed him through e-mail to find out more about his channel and what motivates him.

Ivo van der Spoel, creator of DigitalBattlefieldTourss, next to a British Challenger tank at the Overloon Warmuseum.

At an early age you took an interest in war history and graduated with a master’s degree in military history at the University of Amsterdam. What interests you about military history in general and in what specific aspects have you taken a particular interest?

My interest in military history is wide, but the period I am currently focusing on is the final phase of World War II in Western Europe. During my studies, I was mainly concerned with the decolonization of the Dutch East Indies and this is a subject I would like to address again in the future, but then in video form. In addition to my work as a historian, current affairs obviously also attract my attention, especially in recent years. For my videos on DigitalBattlefieldTours, I mainly focus on World War II in Europe or discuss military history in a broader context. The detailed tactical level appeals to me the most and many of my videos are about the development of military tactics, armament and their deployment based on historical actions. My recent videos cover the operational area of the American 101st Airborne Division in Market Garden and this will also be addressed in future projects. My latest video covers the world of tanks and takes an in-depth view on the development of the rare British Challenger tank and its role in the tank battle near the village of Son on September 20, 1944.

When and why did you decide to start creating documentaries on YouTube? Did you expect that much interest?

It started in 2020 when I completed my master's degree during the corona period. I had started my master's thesis and an internship at the Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH) at the beginning of that year when the lockdown started. It was chaotic at the beginning, but in the end I really enjoyed working independently and I wanted to continue this after my studies. Initially, the plan was to write books, but the lockdown provided me the idea to do something online for a wide audience. There were already several successful YouTube channels focused on military history at the time and many museums and institutions also made the leap to the digital world during the lockdown. So, I wanted to do something similar with a focus on battlefield tours because I live close to the battlefields of Operation Market Garden and am familiar with the combat events that took place. Furthermore, during my studies I had focused on the historical development of military tactics, and this is a subject for which video is well suited. The only thing lacking in 2020 was the skill to make videos. In recent years I acquired the necessary expertise by starting small and making increasingly larger videos. Some of my first experimental videos were only four minutes long, whereas my most recent video is four hours.

This implies my work is more than a hobby and the videos must attract a significant audience to account for the time investment required. Fortunately, some of my videos suddenly went viral and generated a lot of interest on the channel. The fact that these videos are doing so well came as a surprise and the subsequent weeks were remarkable as the views came in by the hundreds of thousands. The fact that tens of thousands of people are subscribed to the channel is a huge motivation to keep working and always raise the bar further.

You made a trilogy in which Operation Market Garden is shown to viewers through the eyes of private Webster of the American 101st Airborne division. He is obviously familiar to those who’ve watched the miniseries ‘Band of Brothers’ but why did you choose him as the starting point for these videos?

The choice to follow David Webster as a connecting thread throughout Operation Market Garden was separate from ‘Band of Brothers’. Obviously, the TV series generated a keen interest by myself and many others in the Second World War, but what I mainly wanted to achieve with my Webster’s War trilogy was to focus on Webster’s experiences using his excellent Parachute Infantry memoirs. The unpublished manuscript of this was used decades after Webster’s death by Stephen Ambrose for his book ‘Band of Brothers’ on which the later TV series was based. Although Ambrose also interviewed many Easy Company veterans for ‘Band of Brothers’, I thought Webster’s original story gave a more authentic picture. Webster was a highly educated and observant writer who meticulously noted the events around him with the objective of creating a book out of them. That makes it a different source of information than the memories of his comrades who were only interviewed by Ambrose decades later.

So, it was clear that I was going to do something with Webster’s ‘Parachute Infantry’, but the decisive factor to make it a large trilogy originated during the preliminary research when it became clear how accurately his descriptions matched the historical facts. Where Ambrose sometimes notes the date of an action incorrectly in ‘Band of Brothers’, Webster was able to describe the times, locations and units with accuracy. He even refers to ditches and bushes that can be seen on maps, historical aerial photographs and sometimes even in the present landscape.

Furthermore, Webster evokes a raw and uncensored picture of the life of a front-line soldier. ‘Band of Brothers’ is a lot more balanced in that respect than older war films, but still certain affairs are left out or toned down whereas Webster does address these in full. He was a complex person and that is reflected in his book that changes in tone and was probably not finished prior to his death. For my Market Garden series, I was only able to use a small part of it and I would recommend anyone with an interest in ‘Band of Brothers’ to read his entire book

The most popular feature on your channel is Teaching Tactics, where you provide detailed explanations of military tactics. How do you come up with the topics for this feature and where do you get the information from? How do you explain that this rather specialized feature scores so well?

It is difficult to explain why some videos suddenly get views and others hardly any or none. My first three Teaching Tactics episodes were created when the channel still had a small audience, and I still had to gain experience with producing videos. The idea was to make theoretical videos to supplement the practice-based battlefield tours that I had yet to start. The Teaching Tactics were well received but did not immediately get many views. In the meantime, I focused my attention to making my first battlefield tour, the Webster’s War trilogy, and it was during this project that the Teaching Tactics suddenly got a lot of views. That was great of course, and these videos continue to generate most of my daily views. It was remarkable that Webster’s War did not enjoy the same popularity, but of course I could not abandon this large project halfway to make more Teaching Tactics episodes.

The fact that Teaching Tactics is so popular, I think, has to do with the various perspectives I apply. In popular history, tactics often boils down to weapons and the theory behind their use is not discussed in much detail. Within academic historiography, tactics and weaponry are somewhat neglected and subordinate to the bigger picture that many historians look at. On the other hand, tactics are extensively applied and studied in the military world, but that is often a closed circuit and many sources are difficult to understand if one is not familiar with the terminology, especially if these pertain to 80-year-old sources. What I want to achieve with Teaching Tactics is to treat tactics as a serious academic subject, but also make it accessible to a wide audience. This can be done by discussing one specific source and placing it in a broader context, as my video about the German Sturmzug does, or by clarifying an abstract concept using multiple sources, as in Fire & Manoeuvre. My recent video Challenger vs. Panther further expands the Teaching Tactics format by also adding a battlefield tour reconstruction.

Your videos are in English. Do you receive many questions and reactions from viewers abroad? Can you give an impression of the backgrounds of the people who follow your videos?

The special thing about YouTube is that the videos can be viewed worldwide free of charge and people can easily respond by means of likes/dislikes or comments. As a result, I receive several new messages to videos each day, including those that are already relatively old. I receive new responses each day to videos that are already relatively old. This keeps the videos dynamic and ensures my projects are never ‘finished’, because I can expect questions about the smallest details years later. This also keeps me alert because I know that many interested people watch them closely. This includes viewers with a military or academic background, but also many people who have become interested in military history due to movies or games on the subject and search via YouTube to gain more in-depth understanding.

YouTube has extensive tools to analyse the viewing data. For example, I know that most of my viewers live in the US, followed by those in other English-speaking countries and in Germany. Based on these statistics I could streamline my work to suit the largest audience possible, but I started DigitalBattlefieldTours on purpose to make a specific type of video and I want to keep doing that. The fact that these passion projects are well viewed and appreciated makes it even better.

What exactly motivates you to start a new video time and again?

The best part of this job is to collect complex information and then present it in a form that enables the viewer to gain a more profound understanding of the subject. Of course, that is what all historians do, but it is precisely the video form that lends itself particularly well to do this. Military history in particular is sometimes difficult to capture in the written word and enclosed photos or maps only provide a snapshot. With video however you can present a dynamic visualisation on a map of the course of a battle, display a relevant photo at exactly the right moment or direct very specifically the attention to a certain detail.

This always makes the initiation of a new project the most enjoyable phase because you start with a blank space and have complete freedom to select the subject, highlight a central theme and consider what visual aids to use. Once you have demarcated the project, the systematic work begins, such as doing research, checking the facts and incorporating all this into a script that matches the visual elements you have in mind. Then follows the production process to edit the images and sound effects of the video and by that time I often look forward to the creative initial phase of the next project.

If readers of this interview are not yet familiar with your videos, which one is best as a first introduction?

All episodes of Teaching Tactics and the Webster’s War trilogy are typical of the type of video I have in mind for DigitalBattlefieldTours. Amongst these essential videos, Challenger vs. Panther is not only my most recent and largest production but also a compilation of styles from previous projects, making it a good introductory video. The popular format of Teaching Tactics is applied in this video to a real case in which not only a tank battle is reconstructed in detail using primary sources, but the battle actions are also placed in the present actual landscape as a real ‘digital battlefield tour’. Also, the video covers an extremely rare British tank, the A30 Challenger, of which the last complete vehicle is on display in the Overloon War Museum. After watching Challenger vs. Panther, interested parties can visit the Overloon War Museum to see the Challenger and other tanks from the video up close.

What subject or subjects can we expect in the near future to be featured in your videos? Do the commemorations about 80 years of freedom still influence your choice of subject?

In the near future I intend to elaborate further on the development and deployment of British tanks in the final phase of the Second World War because I already spent a large part of last year doing research on this subject for the benefit of the A30 Challenger video.

There are many more British tanks and American combat vehicles in British service that are worth a thorough discussion and there are enough interesting case studies to explore. In addition, Market Garden will be a recurring theme.

For me, the 80th anniversary of this operation was dominated by the Battle of Son which is extensively reconstructed in Challenger vs. Panther. Although this was not my original plan, the production of this video coincided with the 80th anniversary and after a race against the clock I managed to publish the video in time for the commemoration of the Battle of Son on September 20, 2024. With my video I hope to introduce this tank battle on Dutch soil, as well as the role of the rare Challenger, to a wider audience. The former battlefield between Son and Nederwetten has been largely preserved, so those interested can visit the locations themselves after watching my video.