battlefield tours sicily

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Operation Husky

The allied invasion of sicily.

Military History and Battlefield Tours

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Tour introduction.

The island of Sicily is rich in military history. From classical Greek and Roman sites, to the Napoleonic war and, of course, the Second World War. The north east of the island, where we spend the majority of our time, is dominated by the imposing site of Mount Etna which looms menacingly over the coast line and countryside through which we travel. There is also the famous Strait of Messina, the narrow body of water that separates Sicily from the mainland, and from where the German army orchestrated their almost miraculous escape in 1943.

Whilst travelling through Sicily we will admire its beauty, but also see for ourselves the difficulties the terrain posed for both attacker and defender during the war. We travel along the rock-strewn coastline, visit mountain top villages, scale an active volcano and stay in some of the island’s most historic and picturesque towns. This is a tour that has everything, in a place steeped in history.

1943 was a difficult year for the Allies. America was still not at full capacity industrially and she was still learning on the battlefield. The British Empire, on the other hand, was under assault in the Atlantic and from the air whilst her victory in North Africa had done little to convince the battered Soviets that she was sacrificing enough. With a view both to knock Italy out of the war and to seize a foothold in the Mediterranean, the ambitious plan to grab Sicily was hatched.

However, the campaign there marked the turning point of the Alliance. Patton’s 7th Army arrived in Sicily expecting to play second fiddle to Montgomery’s 8th Army but, after the British offensive stalled at Primosole from 13th July, Patton seized the initiative, driving first for Palermo and then, in tandem with three, daring amphibious landings, racing against the British to liberate Messina.

So the friction and lack of coordination between the Allies helped the Germans to escape with remarkably light casualties to Reggio Calabria. Then, as Mussolini’s Government imploded and his country capitulated, the Allies found themselves having to make some hard decisions about where and how to dominate the Mediterranean. The subsequent invasion of mainland Italy was a strange decision but this tour will reveal why it was taken.

• With retired army Colonel Patrick Mercer OBE
• Monty & Patton's landings and battles inland
• Coast, mountains and cuisine of Sicily
• Visit Syracuse, Palermo and view Mt Etna

"Attack both by day and night to the limit of human endurance and then continue to attack"

Gen George Patton - General order to US 7th Army before Sicily landings 1943

Day 1 – Arrival

Take our late afternoon flight from London to Catania and drive to Syracuse to check-in to our hotel for three nights.

Day 2 – Landings at Gela

The strategy of the US landings will be explained before we drive to the Gela Beachhead. There the first landings by the Rangers will be examined before we look at both 3 Infantry Division’s and 45 Infantry Division’s amphibious assaults. If anyone chooses to dismiss the commitment and bravery of the Italian Forces, they need look no further than the counter-attacks against these landings. The marks of intense fighting in Gela and around Ponte Dirillo, where 82nd Airborne Division took on an Italian bunker complex, can still be seen.

Day 3 - British & Canadian landings

The strategy will be talked through before we go to the ancient site of Castello Eurialo to oversee the beaches where it was put into practice. The Special Raiding Sqn’s attack on Porco di Murro will start an in-depth examination of this extensive and complex area, followed by air landing operations at Ponte Grande. We then turn our attention to Operation Ladbroke. The difficult combination of glider, parachute, commando and amphibious raiding operations will be examined by studying the defences that remain as well as the glider landing sites which proved so difficult to assess before the aircraft were launched.

Day 4 - Exploitation

The British attempt to push forward quickly to capture Catania and exploit northwards will take up the whole of this busy day. Modern developments mean that it has been hard to trace the exact site of the Primosole Bridge but the parachute landings, the first attempt by the British to seize the bridge and the Germans’ counter attack against the ‘Johnny’ hills, are all there to be seen. Similarly, the course of the final actions by the Durham Light Infantry Brigade, and by 10 Bn Royal Berkshire Regiment, will be walked followed by visits to the Durham’s memorial and to that at Berkshire Farm. At the end of another full day we will drive to our hotel near Catania for three nights.

Day 5 - Cracking the Etna Line

Once the Germans had decided to evacuate Sicily they established the Etna Line of defences and fell back behind them. We will visit 51st Highland Div's battles for Gerbini and Sferro, the first part of Montgomery’s ‘left hook’ into the foothills of Etna, and climb to the extraordinary 51st Division’s Memorial. From there we will twist our way upwards towards the 1st Canadian Division’s mountainous assaults on Assoro, Regalbuto and Adrano and marvel at their achievements. Finally, the CWGC Cemetery at Agira will be visited - the only completely Canadian cemetery in this theatre.

Day 6 - The End Run

Our penultimate day will start with a scene-setting lecture in the German evacuation plans and then a visit to Forte Cavali to get a grandstand view of the whole operation. Then the reasons why the Allies failed to stop the evacuation will be discussed at the quayside in Messina before we head back to Catania to visit both the German and Commonwealth Cemeteries, finishing the day at the superb museum of the campaign. Prepare to be impressed: this wonderful collection, although hidden in the town’s suburbs, is one of the finest military museums that you will see including divisional histories, weapons, uniforms and interactive sites.

Day 7 – Aftermath

The aftermath of Operation Husky will be described from the top of Mount Etna to which we will ascend by cable car. From here the full majesty of Sicily can be appreciated as well as the need to dominate it as a stepping stone to the rest of the Mediterranean. The strengths, limitations and faults of the campaign will be discussed from here as well as a frank overview of what came next for the Allies in two more years of gruelling fighting up mainland Italy. Fly Catania to London.

Recommended Reading List

• Sicily 1943: The debut of Allied joint operations
• Sicily and the Surrender of Italy: The Mediterranean Theater of Operations
• The Allied Invasion of Sicily: The History of the Largest Amphibious Campaign of World War II
• The Battle for Sicily: Stepping Stone to Victory

Photo Gallery

• Coastal battery go through their gun drill
• Italian Mortar Crew
• Training with an anti-tank gun
• Captain Boyd Moss' Tank in Sicily
• Caffe Antoniera Mount Etna
• Catania Cemetery

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Special offer

Wwii sicily landing beaches and battlefield tour.

Visit the WWII Sicily landing beaches and the battlefields that marked the beginning of the Husky Operation

Brush up on history and retrace the events of the very first days of the invasion of sicily with an expert.

Since ancient times the area around Licata and Gela has landed a role in world military history. Off its the coast, in 256, the fleets of Rome and Carthage fought one of the largest (perhaps the largest) naval battles in history during the First Punic War (“The War for Sicily”). The same waters, on the night of 10 July 1943, were the scene of the first and largest amphibious operation of WWII: the Landing in Sicily (codenamed “Operation Husky”).

The tour will take you to Licata, Gela , the beaches, and the many significant sites that were the first portions of Axis territory hit by the American army in  WWII. Our expert historian will make you re-live those crucial days in the Second World War. Whilst traveling in a scenery of compelling beauty you’ll see for yourself the difficulties posed by the terrain for both the attackers and the defenders. The visit to bunkers and an air-raid shelter will shed light on the perilous daily life of soldiers and civilians.  With the help of our expert historian/ guide, you’ll learn about the events that preceded and followed the landing and made George Patton win the “Race to Messina” .

WII Sicily Landing Tour Higlighlights

• Licata landing beach and air-shelter
• Gela landing beach and battlefield
• Dirillo bridge and war-memorial

WII Sicily Landing Tour Description

In the morning we drive to Licata , the first town of the “Fortress Europe” that was conquered by the Allied Forces in the morning of 10 July 1943. Along the way, our expert historian will discuss the events that preceded the landing and the strategy of the US landings. Stop at the Mollarella beach and then walk in Licata’s city centre. We’ll see the Town Hall, visit the small Landing Museum and an air-raid shelter from WWII. Lunch in Licata In the afternoon, we continue to Gela to see the beach of Patton’s landing . Here, you’ll learn about the 3 Infantry Division’s and 45 Infantry Division’s amphibious assaults and the Italian and German counterattacks. Our last stop will be at the Italian bunker complex, near Ponte Dirillo and overlooked by the Biazza Ridge, where you can still see the marks of fierce fighting. In this area, Colonel James Gavin and 82nd Airborne Division held their position against the overwhelming forces of the Hermann Goering Division.

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Operation Husky Battlefield Tour

Book your 2023 tour.

The invasion of Sicily began on the 10th July 1943; by the 17th August it was all over. In just six weeks the Allies had a firm foothold in Europe, which would pave the way for the invasion of Italy. Famous names like the “Big Red One” and “Darby’s Rangers” would storm ashore and then find themselves on narrow winding roads and high peaks fighting a very determined enemy.

Arrive in Palermo airport. Transfer to our hotel. Dinner at local restaurant. (B D)

After breakfast check out and drive to Agrigento to visit the Valley of the Temples.   Onto Licata to examine the landing beaches where Audie Murphy landed and bridgehead of the 3rd US Infantry Division and the battle of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, making their first combat drop. En- route to Gela we shall stop at the 3rd US Division Memorial and the Lt David Waybur Medal of Honor site. Over-night in Gela. Our hotel is situated on the site of the German counter attack of July 11, 1943 and just a short distance from where Luz Long a 1936 German Olympian and friend of Jesse Owens was killed. (B D)

After breakfast at hotel, check out and head for the U.S. landing beaches at Gela where Darby’s Rangers stormed ashore to capture the Gela Mound and fight off the German counter-attack which was delivered on 11th July 1943. Then onto the Scoglitti landing beaches of the 45th US Division, via Ponte Drillo, the scene of the dramatic and costly action by US paratroopers. Follow the exploits of the US 45th Infantry Division who were operating on the right of the 1st US Division. The 45th would capture the airfield at Comiso and enter Ragusa to link with Canadian forces. Overnight at Syracuse (B D)

After breakfast at hotel, check out and drive to Catania via No3 Commando Bridge and Primosole Bridge, scene of the action involving British Commando and Paratroopers and the Durham Light Infantry. Free afternoon in the centre of Catania or visit to the excellent Catania war museum. Overnight at Catania (B D)

After breakfast at hotel, check out for our day in the mountains with the drive to lofty town of Centuripe captured by the 38th Irish Brigade, Gagliano and the site of Sgt Gerry Kisters Medal of Honor action, Nicosia, the site of Patton’s first slapping incident, Mount Basillio where Pte James Reese was awarded a Posthumous Medal of Honour for his bravery, and Troina, scene of severe fighting and the US “Big Red One” hardest day on Sicily. En-route we visit the Agira Canadian War Cemetery. Over-night at Centuripe. (B D)

After breakfast, check out and drive to the north coast and along the US route to Messina, the target of both Patton and Montgomery, which was finally reached on the night of August 16, 1943 when leading elements of the 3rd US Division entered  the city. Visit the San Fratello Ridge and Brolo, and the Naso Ridge the scene of two amphibious landings. Before reaching Messina we shall cross the “bridge in the sky”. (B D)

Check out of hotel and transfer to Catania airport for those ending their journey today. (B)

Date of Tour – 8 th  – 14 th  July Price of Tour – TBC

Single supplement – TBC

Included in the price –

Transportation to and from the airports. All hotels.

All meals as per itinerary. All land transport.

1 bottle of water per day. Battlefield Guide – Steve Hamilton Battlefield Booklet

Explore History With Us

Guided tours to the battlefields of North Africa, including Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Battlefields visited range from ancient times, Napoleonic, 1880’s Egyptian Campaign, WW1 and WW2.

What do our visitors think ?

I would like to say a big thank you to you for making our tour of the El Alamein battlefields a very memorable experience. It is those extra touches that made a big difference to me personally and given me memories that money cannot buy.

El Alamein October 2019

May I say on behalf of Vicky and myself how much we enjoyed it. Thank you so much for escorting us round. As a gang I thought we all got on fine. As far as Nick and I were concerned, the trip covered all we wanted to see exactly. Cairo to see where we born etc and El Alamein where our father fought. As you can understand, for my parents the years 1938 to 1947 in their late 20s and early 30s was the highlight of their lives. They were forever talking about it and I can quite see why. Their real close friends were from their Cairo days. My main impression was how damn flat and featureless the battlefield was. Ruweisat and Miteiriya Ridges were barely recognisable and one now quite understands how difficult it was to navigate in, there was so much to take in. How appropriate it was getting back in time for Remembrance Sunday with ones thought still filled with all those immaculate cemeteries we had just visited. Anyway, many thanks again. A trip we have been so looking forward to and one will never forget.

EL Alamein October 2018

“Thanks for your expertise and enthusiasm for honouring those who fought for our freedom during the war. You do honour to them for devoting 30 plus years to learning and telling their stories. It was an exciting and very interesting tour. I admire great tour guides like you and benefit enormously.

Kasserine Pass and Sicily July 2018

Your passion for this country and its people, your knowledge of the events that took place here and across North Africa during WWII, and your experience of and feel for the land itself are simply remarkable. The way in which you thought about my Fathers story; his experiences; the locations; and caring about what I was hoping to find here are far more than I ever expected. I am profoundly grateful for being able to share this solitary and personal journey with someone who really understands. Thank you for the invitations to join you and Talal and for sharing your friendship and stories with me. I felt welcomed and included in the respect and warmth that you both have for each other. This is perhaps the greatest gift of all”.

Samantha J.

I want to thank you sincerely for a tremendous tour - one of the highlights of my life........ I can hardly remember all where we went or all of what we did - we crammed so much into 10 days. This tour will be fodder for the rest of my cruise dinners at sea - no other guest will possibly have done this! I will tell all my friends (those who will listen!) of my Alamein Tour and 'Aboukir Bay' and my side trip to 'Sinai'. I will recommend you to all my friends and acquaintances.

El Alamein October 2017 75th Anniversary

David and I just want to say again how pleased we were with everything on the tour. The accommodations, food, the sites themselves, your explanations and expertise and comradery were all wonderful. We are considering taking another tour with you because of this positive experience.

I am now back after an amazing 10 days in Egypt on an El Alamein battlefield tour. Steve Hamilton and his team looked after us all superbly and I have increased my knowledge of the Battle of El Alamein hugely. Nothing can replace the experience of actually standing there amongst the shell fragments and seeing the positions that were fought so hard for with your own eyes. The high point was the 75th Anniversary Ceremony at the Commonwealth cemetery. So many young men buried there after fighting over virtually featureless desert thousands of miles from their home, Very moving. A tot of 8th army rum was taken with the remembrance oath. My father's photograph now lies buried under a tree in the Allied Cemetery with his fallen comrades. He is forever 'Up the blue' with his mates.

We had a wonderful two weeks with you. Thank you so much.

Bill and Dru Vodra.

Operation Torch and Operation Dragoon 2017

Thanks for a great trip with many interesting and varied sites visited.

We made it home safe and sound and want to thank you for a wonderful trip. It was a pleasure traveling with you as always. What an opportunity to learn about WWII and see the beautiful French countryside close up. As you Brits would say..."Brilliant!!". Thanks again, and happy travels! I toured North Africa three times in the last two years with an outstanding guide, Steve Hamilton. I got to meet veterans on both sides of the conflict at the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein in El Alamein, Egypt. I have been to many of the battle sites in Tunisia fought by the GIs and the Commonwealth Forces. I have been to Tobruk and outlaying battle sites. Being in situ really brings to life the events which went on over 70 years ago. I have found that Steve Hamilton is more versed in the history and location of the various battle sites in North Africa than most that write the books and have not even been there. He has the local contacts and travels with Talal Bariun, a former Libyan judge and current lawyer for the Libya stock exchange. It amazes me how few Americans are interested in visiting the North Africa battle sites. It may be the "terrorist" threats, but Steve has taken extra steps to make sure his guests are safe and secure. The tours have enlightened me.

Operation Dragoon 2016

Our annual October tour to El Alamein went ahead as usual with everyone enjoying themselves. Before leaving Cairo, we arranged for our guests to sit at Churchill’s and Montgomery’s desks, a real treat with very few getting the opportunity. We only had three special requests for this tour from a RAF enthusiast – to visit the old airfields of Sidi Haniesh and Fuka, and on the way back to Cairo one of the El Daba airfields. The first two were both attacked by the Special Air Service. Our guests were lucky enough to find bullets at both sites. “Thanks for the photo! Yes, we arrived home safe and sound. What a wonderful time we had! The tour was everything we hoped for and more. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and carting us about on the north coast of Egypt . . . an adventure we will always remember.

Bob and Nan R.

El Alamein October 2015

We had a really lovely time on the tour - it was certainly a very thoughtprovoking and moving experience in many different respects e.g., seeing the actual sites of the battles, the cemeteries, the environmental factors (the rubbish), the traffic, the hospital for all those poor horses (I'd thought beforehand it was a museum displaying treatment given during the various wars). Finishing with the meal & trip on the Nile was a good idea as we went out on a high. The hotels certainly exceeded our expectations as we never stay anywhere so grand - usually B&B or Travelodge’s! We enjoyed the company of the other travellers & felt we gelled well together. We are now reading your booklet which gives an excellent guide to the background & details of the battles. Anyway, thanks for making the whole tour a very meaningful, well-coordinated & varied experience. We will be thinking about it for a long time to come. Let us hope some effort is made to preserve the battle zones

John and Alyson

Just want to say thanks very much for an excellent tour as well. Well organised and very enjoyable

It was great Steve, thanks for putting it together.

“Want to thank you again for a great trip. Enjoyed hearing about the history of the war in Tunisia, along with seeing the actual sites. Your crew did a great job as well. My best to everyone

Kasserine September 2014

It was a great trip largely because of your expertise and the team you have put together. So, thanks

"Steve was a wonderful guide. We loved getting out on the back roads of Tunisia, meeting locals, eating lunch at roadside cafes, and learning history while immersed in Tunisian culture. We enjoyed visits to ancient history sites, along with the WWII itinerary. A bonus!

Mr and Mrs Rudd

Kasserine May 2014

“Thank you for a most memorable battlefield tour. I found it to be extremely informative and enormous fun. The museum hopefully will re-open next week (which is why I am still up to my eyeballs in work and have not written earlier) and what you showed us will have given me much greater authority and confidence to talk about the Hampshire Regiment in Tunisia. The organisation of your tour was excellent, the arrangements were impeccable, and it was just a brilliant, relaxed atmosphere that did everything that we asked and more.

Lt-Col Colin B the Royal Hampshire Regiment Trust

Tigers in Tunisia

I just wanted to say a huge “Thank You” to you for all your hard work in making our trip so informative and so personal. I must admit to feeling quite proud when I see the front cover of the booklet you prepared for us, with the monument to Hunts Gap. I have been showing the photos I took to the family and friends, and I must say I still get quite emotional looking at the ones of the Beja cemetery. Despite the emotion, I also feel more settled in myself – it is very strange to be able to visualise the reality now of what has so far been pure imagination. Seeing all those gravestones I just thank God I have never had to go through anything like that. When I look at my children and grandchildren, it is sad to think of the generations lost through the deaths of all those young men - I had the most amazing time and have a whole new perspective on Tunisia as a country as well as a better understanding of the events there in 1942/43. As you can imagine, there were many emotional moments and I feel particularly privileged to have been asked to lay the commemorative wreath at Beja War Cemetery.

Since I got back many people have asked about the tour to Tunisia and what we did and what I enjoyed about it, I found myself waxing lyrical about it, without even trying! I had a fantastic time and really enjoyed myself, I learnt a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a real treat to meet you, someone so enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the battles throughout the whole of North Africa, it really helped bring it all together and to put some flesh on the written histories, which is what I suppose it is all about!

Both Dad and I had a great trip thanks to all your organisation. He loved it and when I spoke to him yesterday was full of it. Cannot thank you enough for that, and for your patience in putting up with the slow pace of things! Big, big thanks

El Alamein 70th Anniversary

could have hoped for and it has left me with a lot greater understanding of the key part of my father's war, the El Alamein battle and Egypt generally. I am so glad we made the trip

I found the entire trip to Tunisia exciting, challenging, adventurous, eye opening, and educational, in no small part due to your involvement. For that I thank you and wish you the best in your future endeavours.

Don W., Orange County, California.

Once again, my heartfelt thanks for including me on the trip, I would not have missed it for the earth.

I trust all is well at your end and your tours are continuing to do well with plenty of interesting people. We had a fantastic time and largely thanks to you and Talal – they will be memories treasured for ever.

Thanks also for a great trip, and I really appreciated your overall effort and talks about the battlefields.

All the best and thanks once again to both of you for your help and friendship on the tour. Well remembered and much appreciated.

I had a wonderful time. It was really interesting, and I learnt a lot.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip with the veterans to Egypt and I know my father and his partner did too. I thought your input made the trip; your knowledge and the way that you presented it to us was wonderful.

Just wanted to send you an e mail to thank you again for giving me the trip of a lifetime - no make that a trip in a thousand lifetimes! I had a fantastic time and enjoyed every single second of everything that we did! You really did make a dream come true; it was EVEN better than I even dared to dream. Rest assured that I am now making every effort to save up the cash for another tour and as soon as I can be going back! Please send my warmest wishes and deepest gratitude too, to Talal for his part in making the tour so fantastic. I have never felt on such a high and in such GOOD company as in this last week. I will be writing to Manfred very soon to thank him for the special gift and to tell him what a great time I had, in fact I think I will be telling EVERYBODY, whether they are interested or not!!Thank you again, for such a marvellous time I don't think you will ever know how much I really enjoyed myself, CANNOT WAIT TIL THE NEXT TIME!!!!!

Thank you for the most exceptional tour (following in the footsteps of my Father Major General Roy Urquhart). It answered many questions and provided unforgettable sights and experiences not to be forgotten. You were a great and inexhaustible guide and continuous fund of information. I felt incredibly lucky to have found your tour and cannot imagine a better leader. We were a good group aided by the Mohammed's and the trusty minibus - with five-star hotels appearing out of nowhere. Altogether an amazing week.

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Impavidus.it Day Tours

Tour leader in the battlefields of the Second World War

The famous Operation Husky

For over 20 years, it has organized tours on Sicilian battlefields in areas of considerable historical interest

TOUR IN THE BATTLE FIELDS

All our tours are accompanied by a team of highly experienced historians and guides

No Presumption, Only Passion

We plan, design and build private tours for you on the battlefields of the Second World War

IMPAVIDUS ORGANIZES TOURS IN THE BATTLEFIELDS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Tour leader in the battlefields of the Second World War and of historical tours of Sicily. For more than 20 years, it has been organizing the famous Husky Operation on Sicilian battlefields in areas of considerable historical and cultural interest. All our tours are accompanied by a team of historians and guides from the battlefields, extremely expert, who with enthusiasm, passion, attention to detail, will be able to revive participants the “memory of the past”.

We think, design and build for you. Impavidus has no presumption, he has only passion

“ Don’t be sure to learn the past from the lips of the present. Don’t trust even the most honest broker. Remember that what is said to you always has a triple aspect: it receives a certain form from the narrator, it is remodeled by the listener and is concealed from both by the dead whose story is told “.

Vladimir Vladimirovič Nabokov

Private tours in the battlefields of the Second World War

The Association organizes guided tours for Syracuse and all of Sicily. For individuals and for groups with authorized guides. Archaeological and naturalistic tours. Also available a car rental service with and without driver, bus service and minibuses. Preparation of complete packages and the possibility of seeing the landing areas from above, by plane.

American Landind Sector

Gela and Licata

British Landing Sector

Siracusa AREA

Guided Tours

Day Tours Video

Inside the church of san filippo, italian station opposite the landing beaches of licata, the military cemetery of syracuse, gela, dirillo bridge, battlefields tour, interview to ian blackwell about his book presentation, the sicilian coasts are still full of traces of battle dating back to the landing. great credit to our men of the navy for their work, roberto piccione.

Tourist Guide, expert in the history of the Second World War in Sicily and speaker for conferences on the Operation Husky. At the moment I am the only one to tour the battlefields of the Second World War in Sicily.

Specialized in WW2 History

Militaria Collector

Even as a child, having my father (who died in 2017 at the age of 96) war veteran and eye witness of the Landing in AVOLA (SR), I am passionate about history. First, I became a militaria collector and then I specialized in the history of the Second World War in Sicily.

In 1997 , I publish an announcement in the local newspapers of some English cities, asking for information and contacts with veterans. I quickly receive hundreds of: letters, diaries, unpublished photos, etc., etc.

In the same year I decided to found the Impavidus Cultural Association . With the idea of remembering this part of History, very important and often forgotten, and above all remembering all men, regardless of their nationality or political faith, who fought and often died in that conflict.

Tour & Story

In 2003 I have the good fortune to meet and accompany a group of British and American glider pilots. From that moment I was contacted by the British Army and started to organize tours for the young Army Officers, who study the difference between modern warfare techniques and those of the 40s. In the meantime, he began a acquaintance with the former British Army Officer and writer (for Pen & Sword) Ian Blackwell , with whom a friendship was born and a collaboration that will lead to his Book (presented in Syracuse) Battle for Sicily Stepping Stone to Victory, and Mussolini Island. Beginning to promote tours also for schools.

In 2004 begin a collaboration with the English WW2 Historian Ian Murray who made a Film and publications about the landing in Syracuse.

Tourist guide

I am contacted by Rai , the Italian State television, and I participate, as an expert, in the broadcast “L’italiana” for Rai International, with Pietrangelo Buttafuoco. In the meantime I become a Tour Guide and I immediately become the referent for the Boscolo Tour for Syracuse, but being already employed by the Municipality of Syracuse, I have little time available but I specialize in custom tours for VIP clients, specifically: ww2 tour, food Tour, food & Wine tour. I begin to study the western part of Sicily and I also specialize in the American landing sector (Gela, Licata) by starting collaborations with important local companies. In 2014 I began several collaborations with the most important World Companies that deal with World War II Tour: Beyond Band of Brothers Tour (based in Hungary and the USA), The Cultural Experience (UK), Battleground Tours (USA), Grand Circle etc .

“Nazi Magastructures” TV Series

National Geografic

In October 2019 I inaugurate my B&B Sciala which I manage together with my wife (and I am lucky enough to inaugurate it by hosting the owner of Dominos Pizza America). This year a broadcast that talks about the trip to Sicily of British actor Ray Windstone should be released in England, and in one episode there will be a special about our meeting and the British landing. In May 2019, I worked as a local expert and guide, with National Geographic to make an episode about the landing in Sicily, of the television series Nazi Megastructures , with James Holland. Frequently I am invited to be a speaker at lectures on Operation Husky and at the moment I am the only one (however, the only title) to make this type of tour in Sicily (anyone can do or can improvise as a guide, but still I, after more than twenty years, I continue to study and document). Among my future projects, I would like to write a book on Operation Husky, telling the stories of some men involved.

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Tripadvisor Impavidus Day Tours

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My name is Roberto, I was born and raised in Syracuse, where I still live with my family. I have always loved my Sicily, its secrets, its history, its beauty, its traditions. This is the reason why I chose to graduate and specialize in the field of fine arts.

I love my profession, I live as a true blessing the fact of being able to work and spend my time immersed in this real “Book of Art and History” which is Sicily!

My constant attempt is to provide not only a beautiful lesson in art and history, but to make visitors penetrate the depths, the secrets, the traditions of Sicily, with the intention of making you fall in love with this immense heritage.

Tour leader in the battlefields of the Second World War and of historical tours of Sicily.

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THE WORLD WAR II TOUR

The museum is a place for the transmission of historical memory, a key element for the individual and collective identity. The Museum is not just a collection of ancient artifacts, but it is a nactive site that interacts with visitors from the museum itinerary can be drawn, not only the enjoyment of the exhibits but be stimulated injudgments and evaluations.

The Museum of the Landing in Sicily -1943dedicated to the historical event, during the Second World War, which began in Sicily and Italy all the way tot he liberation from German occupation. On 10th July 1943, the Americans and the British , following the conclusion of the campaign in North Africa , landed in the eastern part of Sicily near Gela , respectively, and between Portopalo and Siracusa.

The invasion , defined by the Angle – Americans ‘ Operation Husky ‘ would taken Sicily and Italy all the way to the liberation from German occupation . The campaign in Sicily ended August 17th , when the two allied forces met in Messina. Many deaths of the British Cemetery Catania have fallen in heavy fighting in Catania (the city was taken August 5 ) and in the battle for the bridgehead Simeto . The War Cemetery contains 2,135 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War , 113 of them unidentified .

In this tragic page of contemporary history written in Sicily , hundreds of thousands of fighters from different parts of the world has been dedicated to the museum of the landing located in Catania at the trade fair complex called “LeCiminiere”. It is , therefore , an act of homage to all the fallen of the Battle of Sicily and proposes the new generations as cultural and historical trail in order to jealously guard the peace as well essential priority for mankind.

Instead Bicocca in the English cemetery located on the outskirts of Catania towards Siracusa , lie the remains of the fallen who are about to 21.30. Around British Military Cemetery Bicocca was carried out on the Memorial Park proposal Lions Lighthouse Biscari Catania . The whole area has been reclaimed by removing illegal dumps , and made more welcoming, pleasant and safe with operations of the Provincial Ecology.

In 1954 an agreement was signed between the German and the Italian government under which it was chosen an area where all the dead bury the dead Germans during the Second World War in Sicily. The cemetery was inaugurated on September 25, 1965. After extensive renovations has been re-opened officially on 29 April 2011.

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Battleground italy tour (south).

Palermo, Licata, Gela, Taormina, Sicily; Salerno, Monte Lungo, San Pietro, Cassino, Gran Sasso, and Anzio to Rome, Italy . . . Tour Highlights: • Overnight in amazing Hotels throughout our Tour (mostly 4-Star with Sea View) • Overnight in an 18th Century Italian Villa near Pollino National Park in Calabria • Enjoy an evening in medieval Ortigia, the charming old town of Siracusa in Sicily • Private Tour of Montecassino Abbey including the original rooms of St. Benedict • Overnight in former wartime headquarters of the German forces in San Pietro • Stand on the mountain where Mussolini was rescued by German Commandos • Take an optional an visit to Troina, site of the bloodiest American battle on Sicily • Experience counts! We have operated WWII Tours in Italy / Sicily for over 20 years

Tour Bookings

Tour Dates: Sep. 29 - Oct. 11, 2024 - 4 spots open * Tour is a Guaranteed Departure

Tour Rates: USD 4,590 pp in Double Room USD 5,390 pp in Single Room Tour Rates do not include Airfare.

Battleground Italy Tour Overview

Alpventures Battleground Italy Tour (South) heads directly from Rome airport by flight to Palermo, Sicily. We spend our first night in Palermo then continue south through Patton's 7th Army area at Caltanissetta to the beaches at Gela.

Discover the historic city of Siracusa on the island's eastern shores, and visit the impressive War Museum in Catania. You will also see the infamous Mount Etna during our two nights in the enchanting resort of Taormina, before we head north across the Strait of Messina. From southern Italy we continue north through beautiful Calabria, to the medieval village of Morano. Spend a night in a restored 18th Century merchant's villa, before we continue north to Salerno. Enjoy the beauty of the majestic Amalfi Coast as we take in the Salerno Battlefield and Beachhead and visit the ancient ruins of Paestum.

We'll make a short photo stop at the palace in Caserta before continuing our journey north to Cassino and the Gustav Line. Enjoy a full Cassino Battlefield Tour, including stops at Mignano Pass / Monte Lungo, San Pietro Infine, San Angelo in Theodice, the city of Cassino, and finishing up at the famous mountaintop Abbey of Montecassino. Next, we head to the top of the Apennines Mountains and visit the place where Benito Mussolini was rescued by German Commandos in September 1943. Take an exciting cable-car ride ( weather permitting ) to the top of the Gran Sasso and see the locations where the most daring raid of World War II happened. Overnight near the base of the cable-car in village of Fonte Cerreto. We continue the trip with stops in Anzio and Nettuno. The Tour concludes with a visit to the Sicily - Rome American Cemetery near Anzio. Our last night is near the Rome FCO Airport.

What's Included

Tour videos.

Tour Photos

Battleground Italy Tour (South) Itinerary

SEPTEMBER 29: IN FLIGHT - to Rome Fiu mici no Airport (FCO)

SEPTEMBER 30: ROME - PALERMO Join us today as our Tour group meets at Rome Leonardo da Vinci (Fiumicino) Airport and we take our afternoon 1-hour flight from Rome to Palermo, Sicily. Afternoon sightseeing in Palermo as we transfer to our hotel for check-in and dinner. Special Welcome Dinner and orientation tonight. Overnight Palermo. (D)

OCTOBER 1: GELA - SIRACUSA Breakfast. This morning we check out of our hotel and head south through Patton's Seventh Army area to the southern coast of the island. Lunch en route. Afternoon Tour the American landing beaches at Licata and Gela. Late afternoon transfer to Siracusa (Syracuse) for check-in. Dinner on your own. Overnight Siracusa. (B)

OCTOBER 2: CATANIA - TROINA Breakfast. Hotel check out. Today we continue along the eastern coast of Sicily to Catania to visit the Historical War Museum of the landings in Sicily. Lunch. Afternoon transfer to Savoca, one of the Sicilian mountain villages where Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" was filmed. Continue to beautiful Taormina for hotel check in and dinner. Overnight Taormina. (B, D)

OCTOBER 3: TAORMINA Breakfast Full Day at leisure in Taormina, for optional sightseeing, shopping, or just relaxing in our wonderful hotel with great views of the sea and Mt. Etna. Optional full day excursion to Troina, the "highest town in Sicily," to see where American forces encountered their worst battle on the island. Other options might include a visit to the impressive Greek Theatre ruins overlooking the town and beautiful landscape. Dinner on your own. Overnight Taormina. (B)

OCTOBER 4: MESSINA - CALABRIA Breakfast and hotel check out. Morning transfer north to Messina for lunch and some stops before the ferry ride to Villa san Giovanni. Continue north to the Pollino National Park for hotel check-in and dinner. Overnight Morano Calabro. (B, D)

OCTOBER 5: PAESTUM - SALERNO Breakfast. Hotel Check out. We continue our journey north toward the Bay of Salerno with lunch en route. Visit Salerno Battlefield sites such as the "Tobacco Factory" in Fiocce, and the "Burned Bridge," where the 36th Division held the line against heavy German counter-attacks. Visit the Greek/Roman ruins of Paestum and break for lunch. See the American landing beaches at Paestum and see the military memorials in the area. Overnight Paestum. (B, D)

OCTOBER 6: MONTE CASSINO Breakfast. This morning we check out of our Salerno Hotel and continue north to Cassino for a Battlefield Tour of Gustav Line sites. Here we will learn about the drive to the Gustav Line and battle for Cassino. Tour the Mignano Pass with stops in Monte Lungo and San Pietro Infine. Lunch. Afternoon visit to the Abbey of Monte Cassino (includes short walk to the Polish War Cemetery). Late afternoon transfer to our hotel for check-in and dinner. Overnight Cassino. (B, D)

OCTOBER 7: CASSINO / POMPEI Breakfast. Full day at leisure with the option of visiting nearby Pompei OR Herculaneum. Afternoon return to our hotel near Cassino. Overnight Cassino. (B)

OCTOBER 8: GRAN SASSO Breakfast and hotel check out this morning. Morning stop at the Rapido River (36th Infantry Division crossings) and visit the Cassino War Cemetery (Commonwealth Cemetery). We continue north with a scenic drive through the Abruzzo National Park into the remote Apennines Mountains. Lunch en route. Continue by cable-car to Gran Sasso d'Italia. See Campo Imperatore, where Mussolini was rescued by commandoes. Return to valley, check in and dinner. Overnight L'Aquila. (B, D)

OCTOBER 9: LATINA - ANZIO Breakfast. Hotel check out and transfer south to Latina for lunch. Afternoon visit to the impressive Piana delle Orme Museum. Continue to our sea-side hotel near Anzio for check-in. Dinner on your own tonight. Overnight Nettuno. (B)

OCTOBER 10: ANZIO / NETTUNO Breakfast. Explore the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno. Visit the Anzio Beachhead Museum, followed by some free time in Anzio for lunch. Afternoon visit to the site of the Ardeatine Massacre near Rome. Late afternoon transfer to Fiumicino for hotel check-in and Farewell Dinner tonight. Overnight Fiumicino. (B, D)

OCTOBER 11: IN FLIGHT - from Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO) Combine this Tour with our Battleground Italy Tour (North)  for a complete Italian Campaign experience, and receive a USD $1000 Combo Discount off your total!

More Details

How to Book: It's easy to book and safely pay your refundable $400 Tour deposit with PayPal. You can also book by phone with a credit card, or print the form, send a check, and book by mail.

What to Know: This Tour begins and ends at Rome (FCO) Airport. The Tour rate does not include roundtrip airfare. You can plan to arrive in Rome a few days early, and/or you can also add time at the end of your Tour.

The Fine Print

Reservation Policy: A completed and signed Tour Reservation Form and a refundable $400 deposit (per person) are required to book our Tours. To book online: scroll to the top of this page and click the "Book Tour" button. You can adjust the quantity of people on our secure payment pages with PayPal. Payments are made to: ALPVENTURES. Payment in full is due 90 days prior to departure, and must be paid in USD by check or card. Cancellation Policy: Although Tour cancellations are not anticipated, Alpventures® reserves the right to cancel Tours for any reason, prior to Tour departure date, in which case the entire payment will be refunded without further obligation on Alpventures® part. In the case of Tour Participant cancellation, a full refund will be granted up to 30 days prior to Tour departure. A cancellation fee of 20% of the Tour price will be charged for cancellations between 30 and 20 days prior to departure date and 40% between 20 and 10 days prior to departure. No refunds will be honored within 10 days of Tour.

"The Tour was FABULOUS! I loved every minute of it! Getting to some of those places on one's own would be a tough proposition, but with your help and expertise, it was a breeze. I would have to say that Gran Sasso was the high point, but everything was just super!" - Hugh H.

   T ELLING THE H ISTORY OF H EROES.

ITALIAN BATTLEFIELD  TOURS

Borghetti associates offer individually tailored tours to the first and second world battlefields of italy..

Borghetti Associates offer individually tailored guided visits to the First and Second World War battlefields of Italy. You may wish to take a group to learn about the British involvement in the Italian First World Campaign in the North of Italy. Alternatively, you may want to follow a relative’s involvement in the Allied Second World Campaign on Sicily, at Salerno/Monte Cassino/Anzio, or against the Gothic Line. If your interest in battlefields is matched by your enjoyment of wine, it is also possible to combine an exploration of the war with an appreciation of the wines of the particular regions. Our experienced guides will provide a personal package to meet your specific needs. The most successful tours last approximately 5 days.

Battlefield Tours

Testimonials

"David has a very good knowledge of the Italian Campaign during WW1, which is something of a forgotten front from the British perspective.  His enthusiasm for the subject is matched by his easy going manner, which made us feel like we’d known him for years. Indeed the whole experience was like a conversation between old friends, as we drove around the plains and mountains of northern Italy stopping of at various points of interest. David created the tour around our specific interests and adapted it as we went along in response to local conditions, like opening times and the weather. The result was a hugely enjoyable and memorable tour. "

Phil and Di

"I recently had the immense pleasure of enjoying a Battlefield Study in Sicily hosted by David. We were a very mixed bag of experience and ages yet David managed to deliver a whole series of thoughtful and well-researched stands that appealed to all of us. Overlooking the ground that our forefathers covered with such enormous courage whilst hearing the details of their actions really brought home the realities that they faced. David had clearly worked very hard to tailor his presentations to suit us and it was a superb experience."

"David organised and guided me on a tour of my father’s WW2 campaign with the Canadian Cape Breton Highlanders in Italy in May of 2023 . His thorough preparation gave me a wonderful insight into the campaign. He took me to the key battle sites and, most importantly, he gave me a strategic perspective.   David was able to draw on a range of sources, that also gave context to the campaign and my father’s role in it. My understanding was enhanced by his willingness to answer questions relating to military matters and discuss what it must have been like for the soldiers at the time. I would have no hesitation in recommending David’s services. Incidentally he is also a tremendous chap with whom to spend a week traipsing around Italy.

Tour Questions

We use our knowledge of the First and Second World War campaigns in Italy to propose a personal tour that meets the requirements of each group, family or individual. The tour itineraries are illustrations of what can be arranged. This approach normally results in a more satisfactory experience for the client and for the guide than prescribed programmes. ‍

As a break from the battlefield and reward for a day’s study, nothing beats a nice glass of local wine. With this in mind, we are delighted to offer tours that encompass an appreciation of wine alongside military history. There will be impromptu tastings and visits to some of the finest producers in the region hosted by our wine expert. We believe that war & wine make for natural bed fellows.

Individually tailoring tours means arrangements can be made to suit the majority of budgets. Transportation, accommodation and meals can be provided to meet your particular needs, and it is perfectly possible to combine other Italian holiday plans with one of our tours. Following discussion we quote to meet your specifications. ‍

Borghetti Associates provides expert guided tours of the Italian battlefields of the First and Second World Wars.

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Reveille Battlefield Tours

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Tours : Sicily

Five days, four nights £1075

About this tour

After the military victories in North Africa and the routing of Rommel's North Afrika Corps, the Allies were faced with a dilemma. The Americans favoured an invasion in North West Europe, but Churchill and others felt this was premature and unachievable. On the other hand it was important to maintain the momentum and especially to convince the Russians that they were not the only ones fighting. As a result the Italian Campaign was conceived, not so much the result of a strategy, but rather force majeure - it was the only place on mainland Europe that could be invaded!

July 10th 1943 Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily was launched. It was the first amphibious operation and it was larger than Normandy. Many mistakes were made and many valuable lessons learned, but by September the Allies were poised to invade Italy and knock Mussolini's forces out of the war.

On this Reveille tour we fly to Catania and from our delightful base at Lentini, we shall trace the Allies advance from the Bay of Noto, through Syracuse and Ortygia, over the Primasole Bridge to Catania and upwards to Messina. We shall visit ancient sites and scenes of battles; we shall pause at cemeteries and become engrossed in a spectacular museum of the invasion in Catania. We shall pay our respects to a German and a Canadian cemetery as well as spending time in what has been described as the most spectacular Roman Villa in Europe, in Piazza Armesnia.

This tour will not only introduce you to the wonders of Sicily, but also further your understanding of the steps that led to final Allied victory.

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Anzio landing battlefield tour.

The Anzio landing Battlefield Tour: HISTORICA BACKGROUD

“your aunt is ill and about to die”.

The  landings at Anzio   took place on 22 January, two Divisions landed at Anzio and Nettuno, and they were unopposed. On the left 2nd Brigade of British 1st Division came ashore to the north of Anzio on  Peter Beach , together with 2nd Special Service Brigade, the 24th Gards Brigade landed behind the assault waves, while 615 Ranger Regiment supported by Us 509th Parachute Battalion landed straight into the town. On  X-Ray Beach  US 3rd Division landed without meeting major resistance.  The landings were a great success.  

Operation Shingle: X-Ray Beach Anzio and Peter Beach Anzio

The landings were so easy that British and American units gained their First objectives by noon and were four miles inland by sunshine. The location of the landings surprised local German forcas who were totally unprepared. After a week, when the Allied had consolidating their position,the Germans were ready to Attack. After the British landing at Termoli on 2-3 October 1943 behind German positions on the Adriatica coasts, It was clear that something similari could be done also on the Tyrrenean coast on 8th November.

The Anzio landing Battlefield Tour

General Alexander, Commander of the 15th Army group asked to Mark Clark to plan a landing of a single Division at Anzio. General Clark designer Maj. General Lucas to leaf an invasioni and the contingente was planned to be larger than before. the Anzio invasion started at 02.00 on 22nd January 1944, taking the German by Surprise, because they had sent their regional reserves souther on the Gustav Line. The British norther and in the centre and the Americans in the south were sucessful.

By midnight over 36.000 men and 3200 vehicles were inland and 227 Germans were captured. On 24th January the British 1st Division moved to the Anzio-Albano Road in the direction of Campoleone and captured the Town of Aprilia called “The Factory”. After all these succesfull assaults Maj. General Scruscott, 3rd Division Commander, asked for a pause in order to consolidate the Beachhead Forces between 26 and 29 January. In the meanwhile Kesselring had sent all the Divisions he had, in the direction of Anzio and in few days 14 Army numbered about 70.000 men.

Operation Shingle:

Major General Lucas now started to receive congratulations from all commanders. He wasn’t worried about the counterattacks. On 24 January the lodgement was seven miles deep and 10 miles wide. Kesselring was not surprised by the landings and he decided to use the 4th Parachute Division and some units of the Hermann Goering Fallschirm Panzer Division to block the route from Anzio to the Alban hills. Then Kesselring changed his mind and ordered Gen. Mackensen  to send about eight Divisions to stop the landings.

Kesselring had reacted very well to confine the Americans and British within their small beachhead as a first move to throwing them back to the sea. The main purpose of the landings was to induce the Germans to withdraw their Army from the Gustav Line, but the Anzio assault was contained mainly by units from elsewhere in Italy.

The Anzio landing Battlefield Tour: WHAT TO EXPECT

The “Anzio Landing Gran Tour” (about 6 hours) includes:

1) pickup from your arrival at the railway station in Anzio everyday at 10.00am

2) about 6h guided tour of the most meaningful sites of Anzio, Nettuno and the area:

• Anzio Landing sites: X-Ray Beach and Peter Beach
• Commonwealth War Cemeteries
• Sicily Rome American Cemetery and Memorial
• Campo di Carne
• the Factory (Aprilia)
• The Beachhead Museum
• The failed assault on Campoleone.
• Ranger Forces Plaque – Anzio
• 3th Division Markers Anzio
• FSSF plaque Anzio
• 488th Port Battalion Plaque Anzio
• The Flyover
• Isolabella memorials

3) return to the railway station in Anzio at 05.30pm

The Anzio landing Battlefield Tour: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT THIS TOUR

WHEN AND WHERE: At the railway station in Cassino every day at 10.00am or 02.00pm (Main Square, near the Green Kiosk)

WHAT IS INCLUDED: Minivan and ww2 tour guide

WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED: Lunch and dinner are not included but I can suggest…

PRICE PER PERSON: 200 euros (minimum 2 people lunch and dinner not included)

GUIDES/LOCAL EXPERTS: Massimo Carducci, a local guide, will held this tour

“The Anzio landing” Battlefield Tour: MORE TOURS IN THIS AREA

3rd Division Battlefield Tour on the Winter Line ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ranger Battalion Battlefield tour on the Winter Line ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

504th and 509th division battlefield tour on the Winter Line ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Operation Husky. The Allied landing in Siracusa

The tusk is difficult but your skill, courage and devotion to duty will be successful in driving our enemies closer to disaster and leading us towards victory and the liberation of Europe and Asia

Dwight D. Eisenhover, Soldier's guide to Sicily

July 1943 is known for the landing of the Allied troops in Sicily during “Operation Husky”.

The British Eighth army, led by General Montgomery, headed into Syracuse and the city became the theatre of some of the most memorable battles.

This private guided tour will take you to the landmarks of the battles that took place in that area - the most representative battlefields of World War II .

We will start from the beautiful beaches in the south of Syracuse, the site of the landing and then we will arrive at the cliffs of the Plemmiro Nature reserve where we will see the remains of the Italian coastal artillery .

A stop along the Ponte Grande bridge over the Anapo river will help us to remember the hard-fought battle to conquer Syracuse and the visit of the Commonwealth Cemetery will demonstrate the tragic consequences of the fighting of July, 1943.

In Ortygia, the heart of the city, we will focus our attention on the evidence of WWII : the buildings that were damaged during the bombing and the Church of St. Philip which served as a shelter during World War II.

• Also available in French
• Duration 6 hours
• Price per group from € 340.00
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Find a Guide

Explore the world’s most trusted directory of battlefield guides.

The guide directory details all those Accredited Members who have chosen to advertise their expertise and services as guides on the Guild website.  Each of these has passed our Accreditation Programme in which they have demonstrated the skills needed for us to say that they are high-quality guides who will give you a great tour.

You can filter by battle/campaign or country and then click on the name of an Accredited Guide to read their biography. Most Accredited Guides have contact details by which you can contact them directly. If not, or if you want to pass a message to them, please contact them via the Guild Secretary  via our Contacts Page .

Many Guides can develop bespoke personalised tours and can research where particular ancestors might have fought or died. If you want to advice on following a particular ancestor and you have not identified a particular Accredited Guide, please contact the Guild Secretary. We guarantee we’ll have somebody that can help you!

Please note, the Guild does not recommend or endorse any of the commercial products or companies of the members listed below. We are not responsible for checking that those listed below have complied with the relevant legislation or regulations in the jurisdictions they are based or guide in. Many are members of ETOA or other local guiding associations and some have a local permit to work with children or vulnerable adults. But it is your responsibility to ensure they meet all the criteria you need for them to work with your group.

Finally, this list shows only our Accredited Guides. Our Ordinary Members are not listed here and if you would like to check whether a particular individual is a member of the Guild, or for any other further help, please contact the Guild Secretary via our Contacts Page .

Some of our Accredited Guides have experience of researching military aspects of family history, and may be able to assist with your genealogical enquiries.  A list of those members is here ; if you would like to seek their assistance, contact details can be found by selecting their profile from those shown on this page.

Frank Baldwin

Accredited guide number: 8.

I am a freelance guide, historian and heritage professional. After retiring following ten years in the army as a Royal Artillery Officer, I became increasingly involved in interpreting and presenting battlefield heritage for the Battlefields Trust and The Royal British Legion. My interest in battlefield touring was triggered by noticing that the part of Germany in which we were training in the 1980s had been a battlefield in 1757. I had always been interested in military history and both my father and grandfather had fought in the world wars.

As a guide, my clients include  small and large groups, businesses as well as educational and military groups. I was an early supporter of the Guild of Battlefield Guides and been part of its validation team, responsible for assessing guides’ competence, since 2008. I instruct on courses teaching battlefield guides and have been Guide Co-ordinator for the Liberation Route Europe.

In 2012 I was elected to the British Commission for Military History. My published work includes two books on D Day and Normandy, chapters in British Army Guide to the Western Front, and articles in military history journals. I write a military history blog https://theobservationpost.com

My interest and knowledge of military history stretches from Caesar to the Cold War and my guiding experience covers much of Europe. Besides the world wars and the Napoleonic era, I am also interested in the mid C19th wars between Prussia, Austria and France and the Severn Years War.

Two of my books are on artillery in Normandy and I am currently writing a battlefield guide to artillery on the First Day of the Somme in publication. The artillery story of both world wars is a little neglected and I offer battlefield tours to tell the artillery story under the brand www.gunnertours.com

One speciality is providing military background for people researching their ancestry. I have been a researcher for a company that makes a popular ancestry-based TV programme and have appeared on television myself.

I have been privileged to support some of the British Army centenary staff rides as a subject matter expert alongside academic historians. My clients include many military units and headquarters. I run a website offering advice to military units planning staff rides, battlefield studies or realities of war tours. www.staffrideservices.com

The links between military and business strategy fascinate me. I offer a service to help organisations to learn from other people’s mistakes using examples from statecraft and military history. www.businessbattlefields.com

I chaired the Battlefields Trust from 2008-2015 and was involved in many projects to preserve, interpret and present many of the Battlefields of Britain, including the re-discovery of the battlefields of Bosworth.

Battles 30 Corps 7 Years ANZACS on the Western Front ... Aachen Advance to Victory Agincourt Almaraz Anglo/Zulu War Antiquity Anzio Ardennes Arnhem Arras Arras Aspern – Essling & Wagram Aubers Ridge Austerlitz Austerlitz Campaign Badajoz Band of Brothers Bapaume Bastogne Battle of Amiens Battle of Anzio Battle of Britain Battle of Calais Battle of Halbe Battle of Lewes Battle of Lys & Op Blucher Battle of Minden Battle of Overloon Battle of Sicily Battle of Teutoberger Forest Battle of The Aisne Battle of the Bulge Battle of the Somme Belleau Wood Blenheim Boer War Bosworth British Civil Wars Bruneval Raid Bullecourt Cambrai Canadians on the Western Front Cassino Ciudad Rodrigo Combined Bomber Offensive Crecy Culloden D-Day Delville Wood Dieppe Dunkirk Edward I’s conquest of North Wales Eindhoven & Nijmegen English Civil War Eshowe Fall of Berlin Fall of France Festubert Fromelles Fuentes de Onoro Fulford German Airborne Invasion of Crete Gingindlovu Gothic Line Gustav Line Hastings Hastings Campaign Hindenburg Line Hlobane Hürtgen Forest Isandlwana Lansdown Le Hamel Liberation of the Netherlands Ligny London Blitz Loos Lorraine Campaign Ludendorff Offensives Marlborough's campaigns Marston Moor Messines Meuse-Argonne Middle Ages Minden Monmouth Rebellion Mons Monte Cassino Napoleon Neuve Chappelle Norman Conquest of England Normandy Campaign Normandy Landings Normandy Preparations in UK Operation Aintree Operation Amherst Operation Berlin Operation Blockbuster Operation Frankton Operation Husky Operation Infatuate Operation Jubilee Operation Market Garden Operation Michel Operation Overlord Operation Plunder Operation Shingle Operation Veritable Ortona Passage of the Alps and Marengo Passchendaele Polygon Wood Quatre Bras Reichswald Forest Retreat to the Marne Rhine Crossing Roman Invasion of Britain Rorke's Drift Roundway Salamanca Salerno Sambre Crossing Scheldt Estuary - Breskens Pocket & Walcheren Sedan Sedgemoor St. Mihiel Stanford Bridge Talavera The 100 Years War The Jacobite Rebellions The Last 100 Days The Somme 1918 Towton UK Home Front US Soldiers on the Western Front 1917 - 1918 Ulundi Verdun Viking battles in Yorkshire Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Vimy Ridge Vitoria WWI WWII Wars of the Roses Waterloo Waterloo Campaign Wavre Wellington's campaigns Wellington’s Peninsular battles Wellington’s Pyrenees battles Ypres

Countries Austria Belgium Crete ... Czech Republic France Germany Hungary Italy Netherlands United Kingdom

Caters For Bespoke Group College Groups Families ... Individuals Leadership & Management Training Management Development Pilgrimage Groups Small Groups

Simon Bendry

Accredited guide number: 104.

Simon has been interested in military history since he was a child. He first visited the battlefields on family holidays and soon became fascinated with D Day and the Normandy campaign. In his teens he developed an interest in the First World War and led his first guided tours to the former battlefields of the Western Front while still at university. After graduating with a history degree, he went on to train as a teacher and for 15 years ran annual school tours to the Western Front.

From 2014, Simon ran the prestigious and multi award-winning First World War Centenary Battlefield Tours Programme – a UK government funded initiative which saw 8,500 students and teachers visit the former battlefields of the Western Front. Simon led more than 90 of these tours and as the programme’s lead for on-site education became an internationally recognised expert in leading students and teachers on the battlefields. He has also led tours for adult organisations including universities. Simon also has a passion for historical research and is able to bring the battlefields to life with personal stories, while also placing these stories in the immediate and wider historical context.

Simon is a member of the British Commission for Military History and the Western Front Association.

Countries Europe United Kingdom

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Walks Bespoke Group ... Clubs and Societies College Groups Families Individuals Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups School Groups Small Groups

Wybo Boersma

Accredited guide number: 30.

I was born just before the Second World War and still have some memories of that time; Jewish people being hidden by my parents, my father coming back from a concentration camp and the fighting and liberation in April 1945 of my native town, Groningen, in the Northern part of The Netherlands by the Canadian Army.

I joined the Dutch Army in 1960 as a member of the Royal Signals and retired in 1991 as a Warrant Officer. In 1974 I became a member of the Board of the Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek and was responsible for the organisation of the museum and its dioramas following the move from its original location at Doorwerth Castle, to the Hartenstein Hotel in 1978. After 1991 I spent the next 14 years as a Volunteer Director of the Airborne Museum Hartenstein at Oosterbeek and was responsible for its establishment in 1978 and the renovation of the museum in time for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem.

I organise and conduct battlefield tours for military and civilian groups on Market Garden, (specialising on the 1st British Airborne division, the1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, and the 101st and 82nd US Airborne Divisions), Normandy, Ardennes, Hürtgenwald, Dieppe, the French SAS participation in Operation Amherst in April 1945 and the Airborne Operations during the Rhine Crossing in March 1945.

I have been a guide for 30 years and guide in collaboration with the Liberation Route Europe, Battlefield tours of the city of Groningen and the Society of Friends of the Airborne Museum. From the start I have been a member of the Battlefields Trust and the Dutch Documentation Group 1940 – 1945.

Battles Ardennes Arnhem Bastogne ... D-Day Dieppe Eindhoven & Nijmegen Liberation of the Netherlands Normandy Landings Operation Amherst Operation Berlin Operation Market Garden Scheldt Estuary - Breskens Pocket & Walcheren WWII

Countries Belgium France Germany ... Holland Netherlands Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Families Individuals ... Military & Veteran

Simon Browne

Accredited guide number: 116.

Simon was an infantry officer for over 30 years.  A member of the Royal Anglian Regiment, he served on operations in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.  He has a Bachelor’s Degree in History, Master’s Degree in Military Studies and is a Graduate of the Advanced Command and Staff Course.

His fascination with touring battlefields began in 1977, when living in Germany he went to see the film a Bridge Too Far.  Then persuaded his father, a Royal Air Force officer, to take him to Arnhem to try and bring to life what he had just seen.  This interest further developed as student, studying for a History Degree at Portsmouth Polytechnic, where he organised his first Battlefield Tour, a trip with student friends to Normandy.  He was very lucky in that his military career really allowed him to indulge this passion, taking him on numerous Battlefield Tours and Staff Rides, In Europe, America, and as far afield as Vietnam and the Falkland Islands.

Currently Simon focuses on three main campaigns;  the Blitzkrieg of 1940, D-Day and the Normandy Campaign and the Ardennes Offensive, the ‘Battle of the Bulge’.

Battles Ardennes Battle of the Bulge D-Day ... Fall of France Normandy Campaign Normandy Landings Operation Overlord

Simon Burgess

Accredited guide number: 108.

Simon retired from the British Army in November 2022, and qualified as a badged guide (Badge 108) in May 2020.

He originally served in the Royal Air Force before leaving to pursue a career in the oil industry, and also serving as a reserve officer. Rather to his surprise he ended up joining the Regular Army 9 years ago.

Simon has served on operations in Gulf War 1, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq (where he ran Basrah Fire Brigade) and twice as an aviation planner in Afghanistan (including with the US Marine Corps) and has worked at battlegroup, brigade and divisional level .

He has served as the Operations Officer in the Attack Helicopter Force HQ, and as the aviation specialist in the Collective Training Group at the Land Warfare Centre. He delivered training to brigade and division HQs, particularly in the use of aviation and air land integration.

Simon has recently guided tours to Normandy, Sicily and the Western Front battlefields of World War 1.

He is particularly interested in Normandy in WW2 (particularly the British 6 th  Airborne Division) and in all aspects of air power in WW1 and WW2.

He is also passionate about the American Civil War, particularly Gettysburg and the Eastern theatre battles.

Battles American Civil War Battle of the Somme Normandy Campaign ... Normandy Landings Normandy Preparations in UK Operation Overlord WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium France United Kingdom ... United States of America

Caters For Battlefield Studies Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies ... Families Individuals Military & Veteran School Groups Small Groups Staff Rides

Robin Burrows-Ellis

Accredited guide number: 78.

I have always been passionate about history, archaeology, geography and travel. So naturally, being a battlefield guide is absolutely my ideal job. I began guiding whilst I was studying archaeology in the 1980s, conducting tours around various British archaeological sites of all periods. In 2009, I progressed onto guided town walks, fundraising for charity. Since 2012, I have operated Robin’s Red Ramble Tours. I now specialise in leading battlefield tours in Normandy.

I firmly believe that a guide must only conduct tours in areas for which they have a deep local knowledge of the history, archaeology and topography. For this reason I spend a considerable amount of my time investigating the archives, studying the primary sources and researching all of my tours. This may involve translating documents and carrying out additional archaeological fieldwork myself. I thoroughly enjoy the thrill of uncovering new or forgotten pieces of the jigsaw, especially if there is a new or interesting personal story to tell. I have been specifically researching the Battle of Normandy and the ‘Atlantic Wall’ fortifications since 1999. I have now accumulated a wealth of material both published and unpublished which has now filled my home!

As I am constantly researching new material, all of my tours are unique. I endeavour to make my tours as personal and tailored to the individual clients as possible. Whilst this can be a challenge at times, I do believe the individual’s personal story must be told. It is always worth the extra effort to tell ‘His Story’ both accurately and completely, fitting it into the overall context of the battle or campaign.

I hold a full UK class D coach driving licence. I have experience with groups both large and small. I actually enjoy driving minibuses, coaches and double-deck buses. I try to ensure my passengers have the best possible experience on their journey. I like to give them the smoothest and most enjoyable ride that I can and I always go that extra mile.

Battles WWII

Countries Europe France Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Individuals ... School Groups Small Groups

Ewan Carmichael

Accredited guide number: 84.

Ewan’s particular interests are Leadership, the Realities of War and Close Combat, through the ages, but particularly the ‘horse and musket’ era. On tour, he believes in balancing depth of research with enjoyment.

He is a direct successor to Wellington’s McGrigor as Director General Army Medical Services. He set up and led the British Army’s Air Assault Medical Regiment and then commanded all of the Army’s Field Hospitals operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was awarded an MBE for Squadron leadership in the First Gulf War and CBE for his direction of the Army Medical Services (AMS), at a time when the AMS achieved its highest battle casualty survival rate in history (halving the death rate).

A graduate of the Army Staff College and member of the Royal College of Defence Studies, his MA was on whether it is possible to create a strategy which endures. A Fellow of one of the Medical Royal Colleges, he is also an Apothecary and Freeman of the City of London.

Gregarious rather than combative by nature, he was surprised to be elected as President of the Combined Services Martial Arts Society by its members, and even more pleasantly surprised to win the first Worldwide Open tournament for renaissance sword & buckler at Hanover in 2010.

Battles 7 Years American War of Independence Arnhem ... Austerlitz Austerlitz Campaign Austro-Prussian War Battle of Minden Blenheim Bosworth British Civil Wars British Colonial Conflicts Culloden D-Day English Civil War Koniggratz London in the Civil War Marston Moor Middle Ages Minden Napoleon Normandy Landings Sedgemoor The 100 Years War The Boyne The Jacobite Rebellions Towton Wars of the Roses Waterloo Campaign

Countries Austria Belgium Canada ... Czech Republic Eastern Europe England Europe France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Malta Netherlands North America Poland Portugal Scotland Slovakia Spain United Kingdom United States of America Wales Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies ... College Groups Corporate Tours Group Types Individuals Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups Reenactors School Groups Small Groups

Stephen Chambers

Accredited guide number: 75.

Steve is one of the leading military historians on the Gallipoli campaign. Even though this is his prime passion, he also has in-depth knowledge of many British military campaigns and battles that include Waterloo to the end of the Second World War. Stephen is a freelance battlefield guide, author and researcher specialising in British military history, from the redcoats to khaki.

He has written several books; his first book in the Battleground Europe series, Gallipoli – Gully Ravine (Pen & Sword 2002) had high acclaim, along with its follow-on volumes; Anzac The Landing (Pen & Sword 2008), Suvla: August Offensive (Pen & Sword 2011) and Anzac: Sari Bair (Pen & Sword 2014). British and commonwealth military history has continued to have been a successful theme, with Uniforms & Equipment of the British Army in World War One (Schiffer Books, 2005), the first serious work on the subject. Recently Stephen co-authored Gallipoli: The Dardanelles Disaster in Soldiers’ Words and Photographs (Bloomsbury 2015) with Richard van Emden and is working on Walking Gallipoli, to be published in 2018. Stephen’s Battleground Europe guidebooks have all been translated in to Turkish.

When not writing, Stephen is on the Battlefield, continuing his research and guiding groups. The best way to study a campaign is to walk in the footsteps of those involved, whether in the grasslands of Zululand, the mud of Flanders or the beaches of Gallipoli.

Stephen is a Trustee of the Gallipoli Association and a member of the Western Front Association and Orders and Medals Research Society. He is also a director of Great War Digital Ltd (http://www.greatwardigital.com/), home of the WW1 mapping Linesman GPS product.

Battles 20 C. Anglo/Zulu War Arnhem ... Battle of the Somme Boer War D-Day Dieppe Dunkirk Eindhoven & Nijmegen Fall of Berlin Gallipoli Loos Mons Normandy Campaign Normandy Landings Operation Berlin Operation Overlord Passchendaele Rorke's Drift Vimy Vimy Ridge WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium France Germany ... Holland Netherlands South Africa Turkey United Kingdom Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups College Groups Families ... Military & Veteran School Groups Small Groups

Paul Colbourne

Accredited guide number: 113.

Battles ANZACS on the Western Front Battle of the Somme Bullecourt ... Fromelles Messines Neuve Chappelle Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Vimy Ridge WWI Ypres

Countries Belgium France Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Walks Bespoke Group ... Clubs and Societies College Groups Evening Presentations Families Individuals Pilgrimage Groups School Groups Small Groups

Graeme Cooper

Accredited guide number: 7.

Graeme has been battlefield guiding since 1995. He operates ‘Cooper’s Waterloo Tours’, a family run Essex based business specialising in tailored tours to the Napoleonic Campaign battlefields of the Peninsular War and Waterloo. A Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society (FINS), Graeme qualified as a Waterloo Campaign Guide with Les Guides 1815 in 1998.

Graeme’s interest in the Napoleonic Campaigns was sparked during his time as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst by his tutors, the late and renowned military historians and authors, Professor Richard Holmes and Dr David Chandler. His Great Great grandfather John Cooper fought at Waterloo in the 7th Hussars. In WW2 Graeme’s father Johnny Cooper was David Stirling’s navigator in ‘L’ Detachment SAS.

Graeme was the driving force behind the creation of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides in November 2002. Since his original idea, the Guild has grown to International status and has set the benchmark for many who have passed its quality validation programme. Graeme was the Guild Secretary until November 2009 when he became the first member to be elected to the Guild’s Roll of Honour for his services to the Guild and the craft. He is currently the Guild’s historian and organizes the Guild’s annual ‘Badged Guides Dinner’ and ‘Annual Guild Golf Championships’.

In May 2006 he established Corporate Battlefields Ltd, a leadership training company for corporate management and has since delivered to senior global management teams from eBay, Boeing UK, London Fire Brigade, Lilly, Brother UK, HSBC, Parliamentarians, the NATO Secretary General and others on the battlefields of Waterloo, Salamanca, Isandlwana, Normandy D-Day Beaches and Naseby.

Graeme is a recognised Great War and WW2 Guide, member of the Battlefields Trust and former Chairman of the British Army of the Rhine Branch of the Western Front Association. He and his wife live in Essex and have a son and daughter who both commissioned through Sandhurst. Graeme enjoys golf, photography, chess and telemark skiing.

Graeme’s testimonials declare his standards.

“Graeme Cooper is the master story-teller. You stand with him in a green field, but when he speaks you see a battlefield before you.” – Adam Holloway MP

Battles Almaraz Almeida Aspern – Essling & Wagram ... Austerlitz Austerlitz Campaign Badajoz Bussaco Ciudad Rodrigo Coa D-Day Fuentes de Onoro Ligny Lines of Tores Vedras Napoleon Norway 1940 Campaign Passage of the Alps and Marengo Porto - Crossing of the Douro Quatre Bras Rolica Salamanca Talavera Vimiero Vitoria WWI WWII War of the 7th Coalition Waterloo Waterloo Campaign Wavre Wellington’s Peninsular battles Wellington’s Pyrenees battles

Countries Africa Austria Belgium ... Czech Republic Eastern Europe England Europe France Germany Ireland Italy Netherlands Norway Portugal Scotland South Africa Spain United Kingdom Wales Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Studies Bespoke Group ... Clubs and Societies College Groups Corporate Tours Families Leadership & Management Training Long Tours Military & Veteran Short Tours Small Groups Staff Rides

John Cotterill

Accredited guide number: 10.

John Cotterill is a self employed battlefield guide for military groups, veterans, civilian clubs, families, individuals and schools. He was a founder member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides in 2003, was badged in 2004 (Badge 10) and was a Guild validator for 15 years. John served as a regular officer in the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment and their successors the Mercian Regiment for 37 years. He saw active service in Ulster, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and inactive service on four continents. He lives in Nottingham and is an active member of the Western Front Association, the Soldiers,Sailors and Airmans Families Association (SSAFA) and his Regimental Association. John’s particular speciality is writing and delivering problem solving exercises that allow participants to “re-fight” battles of the past. He has guided groups on battlefields from Tanzania to Tunisia and from Stalingrad to Singapore

Battles American War of Independence Crimean War Napoleon ... Spanish Civil War WWI WWII

Countries Africa Asia Belgium ... Denmark East Africa Eastern Europe Egypt England Europe France Germany Greece Holland Ireland Italy Malta Netherlands North Africa Norway Portugal Russia Scotland Singapore South-East Asia Spain Tunisia Ukraine United Kingdom Wales Western Europe

Caters For Families Individuals Military & Veteran ... School Groups

Anthony Coutts-Britton

Accredited guide number: 20.

Anthony Coutts-Britton had the good fortune to have been tutored by some of the famous names in military history, most notably, David Chandler, Anthony Brett-James and John Keegan. His specialities are the European battlefields of the World Wars and the Napoleonic period. Tony served in the British Army and later had a second career with NATO in Belgium. Far East tours of duty were in Hong Kong and then in Korea with the UN. He served in Germany, Northern Ireland and twice in Berlin. He is an Independent Battlefield Guide. He is also a speaker, presenting to audiences on military, political and social history. Since 2010, he has been a cruise ship speaker.

He graduated in History at the University of Maryland. He is an accredited Badged Guide of the Guild of Battlefield Guides of which he is a Past Chairman and a senior examiner. In November 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Guild of Battlefield Guides.

Battles Ardennes Arnhem Napoleon ... Normandy Landings WWI WWII Waterloo

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Netherlands Western Europe

Accredited Guide Number: 29

I have been guiding on the battlefields of the world for some 20 years. After military service with the Parachute Regiment I followed this with over 6 years spent in the service of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos of Oman. My military experience included service during Op Corporate, the recovery of the Falkland Islands with 3 rd Bn The Parachute Regiment as well as service in Northern Ireland. After retiring from a successful Financial Services company in 2005 I have pursued a further career as a Battlefield Guide/Historian.

My guiding experience has taken me on tours to Italy including Sicily, Crete, Germany, France, Belgium India, Singapore, Oman and the Falkland Islands. I have worked with and toured at Higher Command level with the British Army as well as leading and writing Battle Studies and Tours for Junior Staff.

I have worked with a number of companies on tour for schools looking at European History in places like Berlin and Krakow as well as more traditional tours to France and Belgium to see the Battlefields of both World Wars.

I also carry out public speaking engagements and arrange subject matter/venues for a number of Clubs

Battles 20 C. Falklands War WWI ... WWII

Countries Africa Asia Australasia ... Australia Europe South America United Kingdom Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Military & Veteran School Groups

Accredited Guide Number: 80

Originally commissioned into The Gordon Highlanders, I served for twenty years as an infantry officer in the British Army. This included tours at regimental duty as a rifle platoon and close reconnaissance platoon commander, adjutant and company commander. I have also served as an aide de-camp, infantry tactics adviser to the Kuwaiti Army, close reconnaissance instructor at the Land Warfare Centre and a staff officer at brigade and divisional levels.

As a civilian, I have worked in West Africa as a security sector reform consultant to the UN; then as a humanitarian programme manager and operations director reducing the negative impacts of rogue ex-combatant groups small arms, ammunition and unexploded ordnance in conflict-prone communities.

My military service, including operational tours in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and my time working in Africa has given me a solid grounding in the theory and conduct of military operations and the impact of war. I have a Masters degree in Military Strategic Studies and I am a graduate of the Italian Joint Forces Higher Command and Staff College. I bring this experience with a lifelong interest in military history to my battlefield tours, offering clients a coherent strategic, operational and tactical perspective. I work hard to ensure that the memory of those who fought is properly honoured and respected.

I am a fluent Italian speaker and can get by at colloquial level in German which helps considerably with tour management.

I am accredited with the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and work as a freelance guide for a number of companies, including Staffride, Albatross Tours, Galloway Travel and Battle Honours. This means that I work with adult groups, schools and military units. I also work privately for individuals, families and groups to deliver bespoke tours in Italy, France, Belgium and Berlin.

Battles Arras Battle of Anzio Battle of the Somme ... Cassino Gothic Line Gustav Line Normandy Landings Operation Berlin Salerno WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Germany Italy Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Families Individuals ... Military & Veteran School Groups Small Groups

Roel Dekkers

Accredited guide number: 95.

I have been interested in the stories of the Second World War since I was a child. This interest continued during my career as an officer in the Royal Netherlands Army; I was especially interested in comparing the military actions of now and then. Living in an area where, in September 1944, one of the largest airborne operations took place and where, in February of 1945, the largest land operation started on Dutch soil, I started to study these operations. By giving battlefield tours from 2014 around the Rhineland I introduced people to a relatively unknown battle (Operations Veritable, Blockbuster, Plunder and Varsity) which was the beginning of the Allied advance over the River Rhine and the further advance to the northern Netherlands and towards Berlin.

Other specialisms:

On special request of individual family members of mostly deceased veterans, I provide a special tour where their relative spent their time during the battle for the Rhineland. I also provide tours for specific military units. I also give presentations to schools about the Second World War in general, special presentations about specific battles, and presentations about my efforts in crisis areas during my military career.

Battles Arnhem Eindhoven & Nijmegen Hürtgen Forest ... Liberation of the Netherlands Operation Market Garden Operation Plunder Operation Veritable Reichswald Forest Rhine Crossing Scheldt Estuary - Breskens Pocket & Walcheren WWII

Countries Germany Netherlands

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group College Groups ... Families Individuals Military & Veteran School Groups Small Groups

Andrew Duff

Accredited guide number: 22.

Like most of my generation my family served in both World Wars and my father was a regular officer serving from WW2 to the mid-70s. It was as a child in Cyprus during the EOKA Campaign that my interest in History and Military History was sparked. My interest was further fuelled, at Sandhurst, by listening to John Keegan, David Chaundler and Peter Young. After Sandhurst I became a regular officer in the Army serving in the Infantry for 27 years followed by 10 years’ service in the Reserves with Airborne Forces.

On leaving the military I was able to indulge my love of military history and then utilise it as a guide. My interest has always been in the role played by the fighting soldier, that much derided player in military history. If you take the stories of the soldiers and officers of both sides involved and then analyse any battle using Alfred Burne’s theory of “Inherent Military Probability” you should understand what happened.

I have also, jointly with 2 fellow Accredited Guild Members, been involved in producing and presenting 50 films with Battlefield History TV. In this enterprise we have been assisted by many fellow accredited guides and have I believe added to the objective study of many battles.

I get immense pleasure in researching, planning and delivering battlefield tours to all types of client, from student groups, bespoke adult tours, military units and military headquarters, each has it challenges and rewards.

Battles Agincourt Ardennes Bastogne ... Battle of Anzio Battle of Calais Battle of the Bulge Cassino Crecy Fall of Berlin Fall of France Gallipoli Hastings Hastings Campaign Norman Conquest of England Normandy Preparations in UK Poitiers Sinai and Palestine Campaign Stanford Bridge Verdun Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Ridge WWI Waterloo Wellington’s Peninsular battles Ypres

Countries Belgium France Germany ... Greece Netherlands Portugal Spain Turkey

Peter Edwards

Accredited guide number: 86.

Much of my own family history has been forged by war. My maternal grandparents lived in the Polish lands of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Whilst my mother and grandmother experienced life in occupied Poland at first-hand during the Second World War, my grandfather served with the Polish army and then Polish units of the British Army in Poland, France, North Africa and Italy. Other family members served in Berling’s army and the AK. My interest in battlefields was kindled as a youngster as my grandfather took me to visit his comrades’ resting places in Bolgna, Ancona and Padua.

My interest in History led me to 25 years of teaching and lecturing in institutions as diverse as secondary schools, universities and high security prisons and my teaching has always recognised the importance of either taking the students to the outdoors or, in secure conditions, to bring the outdoors to the students. Even my PhD thesis – a study in contrasting British and Austro-Hungarian interpretations of the problems of late imperial Russia – provided numerous opportunities to walk the ground described by nineteenth century commentators. Nothing compares with experiencing History in its actual environment.

My academic interests and family history have taken me firmly down the line of an inter-disciplinary approach to my craft, and I work from the perspective that military history and the study of battlefields can be hugely enhanced when accompanied by a secure political and socio-economic context. Civil historical sites and concentration camps are integrated into my tours whenever relevant. I gain enormous pleasure from guiding, as it provides the excuse to develop my research, broaden my own perspectives and share my expertise with a broad range of people. Part of my pleasure in studying History is to witness the evolution of my own views – their constant reassessment and refinement is firmly rooted in my translation of academic desk-bound study to bringing the past to life in the field.

Battles Cold War Edward I’s conquest of North Wales English Civil War ... Fulford Stanford Bridge Viking battles in Yorkshire WWI WWII Wars of the Roses

Caters For Adult Coach Groups College Groups Families ... Individuals School Groups Small Groups

Bert Eikelenboom

Accredited guide number: 79.

My family lived in Rotterdam when the war started. They had to hide from the bombs and this story and of course the story about the ‘Hunger winter’ of 1944/45 were often recounted during family get togethers.

In 2008 we moved to Groesbeek and my interest in the actions in Groesbeek was stimulated. I wanted to know everything about the Operation Market Garden and especially the military exploits of the Americans under command of General James Gavin.

I started as a Guide in the Liberation Museum and learned more about the background of the Second World War and the destruction on both side of the borders.

In 2013 I started Liberation Tour. With my DODGE WC51 military vehicle manufactured in the US 1944, I give guests a total battlefield experience combining the smell and the movement of a military vehicle of the period, audio stories, video, maps, pictures and my own storytelling about the battles.

Operation Market Garden in Arnhem is one of my tours. The stories of the British are totally different from the stories of the Americans but they have one thing in common – the fact that they all fought their hearts out to liberate the Dutch.

Battles 20 C. Arnhem Eindhoven & Nijmegen ... Operation Market Garden Operation Veritable WWII

Countries Europe Holland Netherlands ... Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Group Types Individuals ... Small Groups

Christopher Finn

Accredited guide number: 42.

Christopher Finn served in the RAF for 33 years as a navigator, primarily on the Buccaneer, and was a weapons and tactics specialist.  As a Wing Commander he was the UK’s LGB specialist in AHQ Riyadh during Operation GRANBY.  His final flying tour was as OC the Navigator & Airman Aircrew School.  A graduate of the Joint Services’ Defence College, in 2000 he gained an MPhil in International Relations from Cambridge University.  His last 5 years in the RAF were spent at Shrivenham, firstly on the Directing Staff of the Advanced Command and Staff Course and then, on promotion to Group Captain, as the RAF’s Director of Defence Studies.  In this role he lectured extensively on air power to UK and international audiences, published articles on air power and ran the RAF’s staff ride programme.

On leaving the RAF in 2005 he spent ten years as a Senior Lecturer in Air Power Studies with Kings College London, later Portsmouth University, based at the RAF College Cranwell.

Since 2003 Chris has developed and led over 30 staff rides and battlefield tours covering the subjects and battles listed below.  These have predominantly covered the influence of air power on the battlefield but also areas such as joint fires, logistics, command and control, intelligence, campaign planning, leadership at all levels and the political aspects of warfare.  However, he has also covered maritime battles (Malta & NEPTUNE) and land battles (Monte Cassino & Berlin).

  Chris also lectures on Military History to a wide range of audiences including, recently, a lecture on the role of the Royal Artillery in the Imjin River Battle of the Korean War.

He is a Fellow of both the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Higher Education Academy, and works as a volunteer Guide at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

A member of the Guild since 2008, Chris gained his Badge in 2009, became the Chief Validator in 2015 and became the Director of Validation (now Accreditation Director) in 2017.  He was elected the fourth Fellow of the Guild at the 2020 Annual Conference.

Battles Ardennes Arras Battle of Britain ... Battle of Calais Cassino Cold War Combined Bomber Offensive D-Day Dunkirk Fall of Berlin Fall of France Monte Cassino Normandy Landings Operation Overlord The Siege of Malta

Caters For College Groups Military & Veteran Staff Rides

Des FitzGerald

Accredited guide number: 88.

Des retired from the Army in 2015 after over 30 years of service. Initially enlisting and serving as a Gunner, he was commissioned into the Worcestershire & Sherwood Foresters (later Mercian) Regiment. He is a self-employed Defence Consultant and was recently working on the STRIKE Brigade experiment, with a particular focus on Concepts and Doctrine. He is a student of the Advanced Command and Staff Course and has served in 1* and 2* Headquarters, as well as being the Chief Instructor of the Combined Arms Tactics Division. He has a MA in Defence Studies from Kings College London.

He has a keen interest in military history and is widely read. In particular, he enjoys visiting battlefields and has dragged his long-suffering wife over many of them. (Though still happily married she now refuses to follow him anymore.) He has led tours to the Crimea, Dublin, Italy and Normandy. He is now developing his expertise in the Napoleonic era. He has a particular interest in understanding how and why decisions were made; the impact of doctrine, terrain and organisational culture; as well as trying to relate the experience of the soldiers at the time.

Battles Crimean War WWI WWII

Countries Europe Russia

Dudley Giles

Accredited guide number: 26.

Dudley Giles has been an active battlefield guide for over 25 years and was an early member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides.

A former British Army officer, Dudley managed, in a career spanning nearly 34 years, to serve a third of his time in North West Europe (Germany and Belgium), a third in the UK (including three residential tours in Northern Ireland) and a third in ‘exotic’ locations such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Canada, Croatia, Kosovo and the flanks of NATO (Norway and Turkey). In 1990 he attended the Army Command and Staff Course, and, in 2001, was serving as NATO’s senior military police officer during the climactic events post 9/11. In 2006/7 he deployed to Afghanistan as General Richards’ senior police advisor and his last appointment in the Army before finally retiring in 2012 he was Deputy Provost Marshal (Army).

In 2006/7 Dudley found himself on the modern battlefields of Afghanistan and was able to help soldiers, diplomats and journalists understand the historical similarities between the present and past experience of British soldiers in that country. On his return he acted as the chief battlefield guide for the very first Help for Heroes Big Battlefield Bike Ride and continued to support the charity in that capacity until 2013. This experience eventually led him to set up a specialist touring company -‘Battlefields by Bike.

Dudley took his first degree in Law (LL.B (Hons) at the University of Leeds in 1979 and later a Masters Degree in British First World Studies (2010) – graduating with Distinction.

When not running his own tours or carrying out research, Dudley works as an independent contractor for schools, military groups, families and other battlefield touring companies.

Battles 30 Corps ANZACS on the Western Front Advance to Victory ... Anzio Ardennes Arnhem Arras Arras Aubers Ridge Band of Brothers Bapaume Bastogne Battle of Amiens Battle of Anzio Battle of Calais Battle of Halbe Battle of Lys & Op Blucher Battle of Minden Battle of Sicily Battle of The Aisne Battle of the Bulge Battle of the Somme British Civil Wars Bruneval Raid Bullecourt Cambrai Canadians on the Western Front Cassino Cold War Combined Bomber Offensive D-Day Delville Wood Dieppe Dunkirk Eastern Front - Estonia Eindhoven & Nijmegen English Civil War Fall of Berlin Fall of France Festubert Fromelles Gallipoli Gothic Line Gustav Line Hindenburg Line Kursk Le Hamel Liberation of the Netherlands London Blitz Loos Lorraine Campaign Ludendorff Offensives Messines Meuse-Argonne Middle Ages Mons Monte Cassino Neuve Chappelle Normandy Campaign Normandy Landings Normandy Preparations in UK Norway 1940 Campaign Operation Avalanche Operation Berlin Operation Blockbuster Operation Chariot Operation Dragoon Operation Husky Operation Infatuate Operation Jubilee Operation Market Garden Operation Michel Operation Overlord Operation Plunder Operation Sea Lion Operation Shingle Operation Veritable Ortona Passchendaele Polygon Wood Reichswald Forest Retreat to the Marne Rhine Crossing Salerno Sambre Crossing Scheldt Estuary - Breskens Pocket & Walcheren St Nazaire & Dieppe The Great Patriotic War The Last 100 Days The Somme 1918 Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Vimy Ridge WWI WWII Waterloo Ypres Yugoslav Wars (1990s)

Countries Afghanistan Belgium England ... Estonia France Germany Holland Italy Netherlands Norway Norway Scotland Sicily Turkey United Kingdom Wales incl. Sicily

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Studies Battlefield Walks ... Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies Corporate Tours Cultural Tours Cycling battlefield tours Evening Presentations Families Individuals Leadership & Management Training Long Tours Management Development Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups School Groups Self-drive Tours Short Tours Small Groups Staff Rides

John Patrick Hamill

Accredited guide number: 59.

I am a retired Army Quartermaster (Logistics) and have been guiding professionally since 2009.

My interest in battlefields began as a boy when I caused uproar in his father’s garden by digging trenches and having battles with model soldiers in my father’s flower/vegetable beds. I joined the Army, aged 15 as a Junior Leader in 1961. Since then, my Regular Army career has been with many different Regiments and Corps (Middlesex, Queens, Royal Army Medical Corps and the Intelligence Corps), spanned 47 years, with operational experience in Northern Ireland and The Former Republic of Yugoslavia. In June 2002 I was awarded an MBE for my service.

I have had an extensive career serving across the globe. my infantry experience, both tactical and administrative gives me a soldier’s eye for ground with its impact on various weapon systems and the logistic support needed to maintain armies in the field.

I have an interest in medieval battles such as the Battle of Lewes and Wolverhampton, as well as the English Civil War. I have researched and led a Tour of the Battle of Waterloo in the past and have added this to my list of tours. Another area I am researching is the various Battles of the Hundred Years War with France and anticipate being qualified to take Tours in these battles.

I am also well qualified to lead tours on many of the battlefields of both World Wars.

Battles Battle of Lewes Battle of the Bulge Delville Wood ... Middle Ages Napoleon Normandy Landings Passchendaele Polygon Wood Verdun WWI WWII Waterloo

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Individuals Military & Veteran ... School Groups Small Groups

Clive Harris

Accredited guide number: 39.

Raised in Hertfordshire, Clive spent much of his childhood speaking to veterans of the Great War who encouraged him to join the Army. Clive served in the Royal Signals in BAOR, Cyprus and France before taking up a permanent staff post at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. On leaving the army he joined his local Constabulary as a specialist communications officer and control room manager, in his spare time he became a trustee of the Western Front Association and joined the Committee of the Gallipoli Association.

In 1998 he began working as a speaker, writer, researcher and battlefield guide and since then has guided groups the length of the Western Front, Gallipoli, Salonika, Palestine & Italy for the Great War, alongside Normandy, Arnhem, The Italian Campaign and the London Blitz for the 1939/45 war.

Clive, who completed an MA in Great War Studies is a member of the British Commission for Military History and a co-owner of both Battle Honours & Staffride Ltd, leading specialist battlefield tour operators.

He has written three books, “Walking the London Blitz”, “A Wander Through Wartime London” & “The Greater Game – Sportsman who Fell in the Great war” alongside contributing to a number of edited works on military history.

Battles Arnhem Gallipoli London Blitz ... Normandy Landings WWI WWII

Countries Europe

John Harris

Accredited guide number: 82.

John has been interested in military history since childhood. He comes from an extended military family and his early hobbies – modelmaking, wargaming and re-enacting – all allowed him to pursue his interest.

His involvement in re-enacting has taken him to battlefields across the UK, western Europe and the USA, and he has spoken to audiences of varying types, numbering up to 10,000 in one instance, about all aspects of conflict.

After a full-time career in Royal Mail, John took early retirement in 2012. His role as a senior manager with commercial and financial responsibilities gave him a keen awareness of the importance of customer satisfaction and ideas of value for money, concepts that are a key part of his touring offerings.

He has a BA (with First-Class Honours) in War Studies, completed part-time at the University of Birmingham and then the University of Kent while he was working.

Battlefield tour guiding has long been an ambition and John joined the Guild in 2015. He undertook training on the theory and practise of all aspects of guiding – the tour management side as well as engaging audiences in historic locations. He is proud to be a member of the Guild and to have been awarded Badge Number 82 in June 2017. In progressing towards the Badge, John was delighted to receive the Guild’s David Chandler Award for work he did on sources relating to the engagements of Lexington and Concord at the start of the American War of Independence.

John is a freelance guide and a keen motorbike rider. He specialises in set and bespoke motorbike tours of First World War and Second World War sites, the former including Ypres and the Somme, the latter relating to the May 1940 campaign, Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. He is equally happy to guide those who prefer to travel on more than two wheels.

As well as the World Wars, John has a keen interest in eighteenth- and early nineteenth- century warfare, particularly during the Seven Years’ War, American War of Independence and Waterloo campaigns.

Battles 7 Years American War of Independence Ardennes ... Battle of the Bulge Battle of the Somme D-Day Napoleon Operation Market Garden WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Germany North America United States of America Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Individuals Motorbike Groups ... School Groups Small Groups

David Harrison

Accredited guide number: 103.

David Harrison is an independent battlefield tour guide who specialises in the Italian campaigns of the First and Second World War.  He organises bespoke tours to the First World War campaign in the north of Italy which include the Battle of Caporetto 1917, the fighting on the Asiago Plateau, along the River Piave and the final Battle of Vittorio Veneto 1918. He also specialises in the Allied Second World campaign on Sicily in 1943, at Salerno/Monte Cassino/Anzio 1943-44, and along the east coast against the Gothic Line 1944-45. His 30 years of service in the British Army from platoon to corps level allow him to interpret the battles for the visitor today, whilst his NATO assignments enable him to provide insights from the other main participants (Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland and USA). He has studied in detail the Battle of Ortona 1943, the role of Anders’s Polish II Corps and has a particular interest in the impact of the war on Italian society. He is educated at Masters level and has had campaign book reviews published. He received his accreditation (Badge 103) from the Guild in January 2020. He lives in Edinburgh and the Le Marche region of Italy.

Battles Anzio Asiago Plateau Battle of Sicily ... Caporetto Cassino Gothic Line Salerno Vittorio Veneto

Countries Italy

Caters For Families Individuals Military & Veteran ... Small Groups

David Harvey

Accredited guide number: 63.

I began exploring battlefields, castles and other defensive sites as a teenager. These early interests became a lifelong passion in understanding the past through battles as turning points in history and led to membership of the Guild and gaining qualification as an accredited member.

A full career in policing has trained me in a detective’s way to look for corroboration of facts. There’s a saying ‘never let facts get in the way of a good story’, however I believe the truth holds a more revealing narrative than a mere story. Revisiting the accepted course of events is a rewarding way to explore scenes of battle, encouraging discussion about accepted facts.

Graduating from the School of Ancient History and Archaeology, Leicester University in 2012, I have a familiarity with modern archaeological techniques. This enables me to explain how advances in scientific analysis may significantly add insight for battlefield tourists. An example of this has been scrutinising the recent revelations of King Richard III’s battle wounds and reassessing the conduct of the battle of Bosworth through field walking and geophysical surveys.

I have visited and studied a wide range of historical sites across the Mediterranean and Europe from ancient to modern eras. Organising private tours to interesting locations overseas and in the U.K. has become a real pleasure, providing additional research and discrete visits according to client needs.

As a local historian, I am a member of a variety of community based groups with interest in maintaining a living heritage, such as the Rutland Historical Society. My archaeological skills are maintained through field-walking, surveys and excavations with community archaeological teams and Leicester University.

Personal historical interests extend from Roman occupation of Britain through Saxon and Viking settlement to the Norman Conquest. I have particular knowledge of the English Civil War and an understanding of the Wars of the Roses with fresh interpretation of the end of medieval age with the defeat of Richard III.

Battles 20 C. Battle of Halbe Battle of the Somme ... British Civil Wars D-Day English Civil War Middle Ages Napoleon Operation Market Garden Passchendaele WWI WWII Wars of the Roses Waterloo Ypres

Countries Belgium Cyprus England ... Europe France Germany Greece Italy Netherlands Scotland United Kingdom Wales Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group College Groups ... Individuals Pilgrimage Groups School Groups Small Groups

Accredited Guide Number: 48

Jo Hook is a full time military historian and Guide and has been guiding for sixteen years.  Jo spent four years in Hong Kong in the 1980s working for the military and upon her return to the UK she spent eighteen years as a Reservist with the Royal Corps of Signals including an operational tour of Bosnia in 1994.  It was during her time as a reservist that Jo began guiding initially with military groups wanting to focus on Operation Market Garden, Normandy and the First World War.   Jo has a History Degree in Modern to Medieval History and an MA in First World War Studies under the tutelage of Professor Gary Sheffield her thesis concentrated on the involvement of I ANZAC Corps at Bullecourt in 1917.  She has also worked as a presenter with Battlefield History TV and their DVD on Operation Market Garden as well as providing articles for local papers and local radio stations.  She is passionate about military history and feels that through her work as a military historian she is able to continue the legacy of remembrance and understanding of both World Wars.

Jo presently works for Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours predominantly guiding Australian and New Zealand clients on the Western Front, Gallipoli, Normandy and Verdun and has led tours to all the major Australian First World War centenary commemorations in Gallipoli and on the Western Front.  Whilst working for Mat McLachlan Jo has also led four different Australian schools to the battlefields of Normandy, the Western Front and Verdun.  She has also been heavily involved within the UK schools battlefield study market where she works with Galloway Battlefield Tours for Schools, Battle Honours and has undertaken work with the military for Staff Ride.  As well as working for some of the major battlefield tour operators Jo also undertakes private work and regularly guides RAF Cadets to Arnhem..  She has a diverse knowledge of both World Wars and an intimate knowledge of the Australian involvement in the First World War on the Western Front and Operation Market Garden.  She is however equally at home guiding British groups to the First World War battlefields and has guided on the beaches of Normandy, at Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the Gallipoli landings.

Jo was awarded her Guild Badge in October 2010.  She is one of only a few accredited members to have never been referred during her validation.  Until 2017 she was the Membership Secretary for the Guild of Battlefield Guides and she continues to work full time on the Battlefields of Europe.

Battles Arnhem Arras Aubers Ridge ... Bapaume Battle of the Somme Bullecourt D-Day Delville Wood Dunkirk Fromelles Gallipoli Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Vimy Ridge WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium France Netherlands ... Turkey Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Studies Battlefield Walks ... Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies College Groups Corporate Tours Cultural Tours Evening Presentations Families Individuals Leadership & Management Training Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups School Groups Small Groups Special Educational Needs Staff Rides Tour Types

Accredited Guide Number: 32

Chris comes from both an RAF ( Father AC2 to Flt Lt.) and a police ( Grandfather London PC, Uncle, Met Inspector) family. Chris undertook 40 years in Radiology in the NHS as a radiographer both in clinical practice and in management.

An active member of the Western Front Association he began guiding by organising regular trips to the Western Front for his local WFA branch. Interest in developing his guiding skills led to membership of the Guild of Battlefield Guides. Chris is proud to have been accredited with Badge 32. He is also proud to have been a member of the first GBG guiding team to accompany the initial H4H Great Battlefield Bike Ride through Northern France.

The Guild has helped to widen his areas of interest to V weapon sites within the Nord Calais area.

Chris also has lately developed an interest in historic sites around his Lichfield home from the Civil War sieges of Lichfield cathedral, WW1 encampments on Cannock Chase, with the Messines Terrain model and CWGC and German cemeteries there, to the history of Castle Bromwich airfield in both world wars, with the many local burials of WW1 aviators, and their individual histories.

Chris is a regular weekly volunteer guide at the National Memorial Arboretum both for normal weekday visits and participation in the many special events held there, Armistice Day service, New name dedications, Ride to the Wall ( 5000 motorbikes on a special day), new memorial unveilings, remembrance parades and many others.

Battles WWI WWII

Caters For Battlefield Walks Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies ... Evening Presentations Families Individuals Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups Small Groups

Andy Johnson

Accredited guide number: 52.

My interest in military history started many years ago and, by the age of 12, I KNEW that I was going to join the RAF. I served with the RAF for over 28 years, including 17 years on the Boeing Sentry AWACS, with operational flying in the Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

I left the RAF in 2009 to become a full-time Battlefield Guide, and have now completed 129 tours (it should have been a lot more but COVID-19 got in the way!).

I take groups to the Western Front and, having travelling widely in India, have a major interest in the story of the Indian Corps on the Western Front. I also lead Second World War tours and have been privileged to take veterans to Normandy and Monte Cassino. What an honour! I should have taken a group to Imphal in August 2020 to commemorate VJ Day but, sadly, this was cancelled due to COVID.

Having spent so long in the air environment, I also lead tours to sites related to the Great War in the air, the Combined Bomber Offensive and the German secret weapons programme. This naturally leads to the subject of National Socialist Germany and I have explored a number of aspects of Hitler’s Germany, from the concentration camp and forced labour systems through to the Final Solution. It is a difficult but important subject.

And Germany, of course, leads to an interest in Berlin. I never served in Berlin – but I am an old Cold Warrior!

I joined the Guild of Battlefield Guides in 2008 and completed validation in November 2011.

Battles Arnhem Battle of Amiens Battle of the Somme ... D-Day Normandy Landings Operation Market Garden WWI Ypres

Countries Belgium Eastern Europe England ... Europe France Netherlands Poland Scotland United Kingdom Wales Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Individuals School Groups ... Small Groups

Malcolm Jones

Accredited guide number: 45.

Malcolm Jones BA (Hons)

Malcolm is a British Military Historian, who specializes in the campaigns and battles of Wellington in Spain during the Peninsular War. He is a member of the ‘Society for Army Historical Research’ and a Badged member of the Guild since 2009.

Malcolm has always been interested in History and the military, which developed from an early age. His main love and focus has always been the Second World War, the Indian Mutiny, and the British colonial army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His passion for the Peninsular War campaigns and its Battlefields began some 35 years ago.

After serving in the Army, and obtaining his history degree, he worked in business management in Britain and the Middle East. Over the years he has travelled extensively throughout Portugal and Spain, much of it following in the footsteps of Wellington’s men. During this time, he fell in love with the Spanish landscape, history and culture.

Malcolm now lives in central Spain, close to many of the battlefield sites, which he has visited on many different occasions and therefore knows the areas he guides very well. He is an enthusiastic historian, who is happy to share his experience with anyone who is interested; be it Wellington’s Army, the local history, culture, food or wine.

As a Badged Member of the ‘Guild of Battlefield Guides’, Malcolm has led many Military Battlefield Studies over the last ten years and has experience of leading battlefield tours since 1993 in Germany, Poland, Crete and Spain. With a rich and knowledgeable background, you can be assured of an informative tour, presented in an enjoyable and interesting manner.

Battles Almaraz Badajoz Ciudad Rodrigo ... Fuentes de Onoro Salamanca Talavera Vitoria Wellington’s Peninsular battles

Countries Crete Gibraltar Portugal ... Spain

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies ... Families Individuals Military & Veteran

Accredited Guide Number: 91

As a camp follower of an army officer father and army officer husband, Sue developed an interest in military history and battlefields. Her grandfather served with the Royal Horse Artillery in WW1 and her father with the Gordon Highlanders at the tail end of the Second World War. She has lived in several areas of ongoing conflict: Cyprus; Northern Ireland; Berlin and Korea where she was involved with the groups of returning Korean war veterans and their families on pilgrimage visits. She spent four years in the United States, visited 37 states and various American Civil War (and other) battlefields.  With her father and husband, she has lived in several parts of northern Germany. She joined the Guild in 2011 and became badged in 2019.

A qualified teacher for both primary and secondary pupils, with a BA Hons in Philosophy and politics, a PGCE, and an MPhil in History of Art, she has experience teaching and lecturing to school pupils, undergraduates, and interest groups.

Sue qualified as a City of London Guide in 2007 and a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide in 2009. She was course director for the London Blue Badge training course for six years and trained 120 guides. She also trains the site guides for Tower Bridge in London and is currently one of the course directors for the South East England Blue Badge training course.

Now qualified as a Blue Badge guide for most regions of England, she is accredited to guide many prestigious sites with battlefield connections such as the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Churchill War Rooms, IWM, NAM, HMS Belfast, Dover Castle, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Rochester Cathedral, Hadrian’s Wall, several more castles and many art galleries and museums.

Sue has developed a wide range of walks and tours in London, and beyond, with war related themes such as the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill, Blitzed Brits, WW1 and WW2 walks, Battle of Britain, The Art and Literature of War, Castles and Conflicts etc. She is happy to design a bespoke tour for a family or larger group.

In England, she has led tours connected to the Romans in Britain, Wars of the Roses, The English Civil War and Jacobite Rebellions. In France and Belgium, she has been involved as a guide in tours associated with the First World War poets and particularly with the war experiences of Wilfred Owen.

Second World War tours include sites connected to the Battle of Britain, the D Day Museum at Portsmouth, associated embarkment sites of allied troops, Bletchley Park, and several sites connected to specialist units such as the secret auxiliary units and commandos. She is a regular visitor to the D Day landing beaches in Normandy.

Battles British Civil Wars Roman Invasion of Britain The Jacobite Rebellions ... WWI WWII Waterloo Waterloo Campaign Wellington’s Peninsular battles

Countries Belgium France Germany ... Portugal Spain United Kingdom

Caters For Bespoke Group College Groups Families ... Pilgrimage Groups Small Groups

Willem Kleijn

Accredited guide number: 61.

Since 2005 we cater for national- and international groups under the brand DRG Battlefield Tours & Books. We guide both larger civilian/ military (in co-operation with fellow GBG-battlefield guides and tour-operators ) and bespoke individual battlefield tours in following areas:

• ‘Airwar 40-45’ Battlefieldtours around former Luftwaffe airfield ‘Deelen’ (near Arnhem) and ‘Lufwaffe radarsite ‘Tiger’ on Dutch Isle of Terschelling
• Market Garden 1944 battlefieldtours: Eindhoven area (101 US Airb.Div), Nijmegen area (82.US Airb.Div.) and Arnhem (1.British Airborne Div).
• Transportation available for groups up to 8 pers. Coaches for larger groups on request
• Accredited Guide of Liberation Route Europe, member of SGLO (Study Group Airwar )
• We are proud to have served to following clients in recent past (a.o): British Royal Marines, Dutch Royal Marines, 39 Signals Regiment UK, Martin Kaule Tours Berlin, Albatros Travel Denmark, LGB Battlefieldtours USA, Royal Navy/ HMS Kent, WW2 Museum New Orleans, LGB Tours USA/ WW2 Round Table Hist.Society, Dorenweerd College Doorwerth NL, Nat. Military Museum Soesterberg NL, Staff 11.Airmobile Brigade NL, DMO Dutch Army, Rijks Vastgoed NL, Lukkien Video Productions NL, Amstour Travel, Nat. Society of Reserve Officers NVRO, etc,

Battles Arnhem Eindhoven & Nijmegen Liberation of the Netherlands ... Operation Market Garden WWII

Countries Europe Netherlands Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Small Groups

Ian Langworthy

Accredited guide number: 101.

I have had a lifelong interest in history generally and military history in particular. During a 40 year career as a solicitor I organised and led, with my brother, many tours for friends and family to the battlefields of Western Europe.

As I came up to retirement I decided that I wanted to continue guiding on a formal basis. I obtained an MA in military history from the University of Buckingham, joined the Guild of Battlefield Guides and having completed the Guilds’ course for Accreditation am now the proud holder of Badge 101.

I am a freelance guide and have experience in researching for and guiding a variety of groups to western European battlefields of various eras. I also have a keen interest in Romano-British history, British history generally and the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War in particular.

Battles Arnhem Battle of the Somme Culloden ... Napoleon Normandy Landings Verdun WWI WWII Waterloo Campaign Ypres

Countries Belgium England France ... Germany Scotland Wales

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies ... College Groups Families Individuals School Groups Small Groups

Carlo Larosa

Accredited guide number: 69.

Carlo is born in the Italian town of Genoa, where he lives and works.

His interest and passion for military history and military affairs goes back to his childhood’s days, when he discovered himself as an hungry reader of them.

After his classical studies, a degree in law and a today’s job for Deutsche Bank,(where he regularly uses techniques learned by his fellow guide’s members), he concentrated his studies and researches on the long history of conflicts in the last century.

Genoa is a seaside town so, quite naturally, naval warfare is one of his expertise but, quite oddly, he is really fond of alpine warfare as well, the Dolomites being his favourite ground both for history and trekking.

Being Italian Campaigns oriented, on tour Carlo’s setting is as far as conceivable from the academic: he always try to let his audience live, more than hear to, history. The big picture of human conflicts is often mixed up with little stories of characters and human beings, without  long lists of dates and names. Letters, diaries and experiences of men at war always are placed side by side and often replace old, heavy volumes of history.

On battlefield he always let his guests smell the cordite. So, quite naturally, he found the Guild’s environment his environment. After being the first Italian Member, since 2009, he finally was awarded his Badge, n. 69, at the AGM in Bromsgrove, November 2014. On the same occasion he was the recipient of the David Chandler Award for the best Assignment Six.

Carlo regularly lectures around Italy and teaches military history at the Genoa’s Free University. The most important thing, he always says, in being an Accredited Guide and Italian is to succeed in giving to other members and guides a different perspective about some conflicts and let them know better some of the most beautiful places in the Italian Peninsula!

Battles Cold War WWI WWII

Caters For Adult Coach Groups School Groups Small Groups

Graeme MacPherson

Accredited guide number: 115.

Graeme is a serving Army officer with a background in military logistics. He has served full time and part time for over 34 years in a range of command and staff appointments.

He has been a member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides since 2014 and became a badged guide in 2021. His interest in the military started at a young age as he learned of the service of his grandfathers in the Second World War, one as a Royal Engineer, the other as a Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineer in 79th Armoured Division.

He has led a number of military group tours to the WW2 sites of Normandy, Monte Cassino, Sicily, Arnhem and Berlin before developing an interest in the Western Front during WW1.

Graeme has designed and led the Commonwealth Soldier programme taking school and community groups from SE England to the battlefields of France and Belgium to study the contributions made by Commonwealth troops in WW1. He has also delivered a number of tours in the UK and overseas has had the opportunity to lead a tour to the Falkland Islands. In 2018 he supported the Army Cadet Armistice 100 programme to the Somme and the National Muslim Armistice commemorations at Woking’s Indian Army Muslim burial ground memorial.

He is particularly interested in the human aspects of conflict and bringing the personal stories of those who served to life. In addition to leading groups, Graeme also has an interest in research and has delivered a number of WW1 community research projects, presentations and events as well as delivering individual bespoke research projects for families wanting to know more about their relatives.

He is a volunteer speaker for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and a member of the Western Front Association.

Battles Anzio Arnhem Arras ... Battle of Anzio Battle of Sicily Battle of the Somme Delville Wood Dunkirk Falklands War Fall of Berlin Loos Monte Cassino Neuve Chappelle Normandy Campaign UK Home Front Ypres

Countries Belgium Falkland Islands France ... Germany Italy United Kingdom

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Walks Bespoke Group ... Clubs and Societies College Groups Families Individuals Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups School Groups

Joris Nieuwint

Accredited guide number: 112.

Battles Ardennes Arnhem Band of Brothers ... Battle of the Bulge Eindhoven & Nijmegen Liberation of the Netherlands Operation Market Garden WWII

Caters For Adult Coach Groups College Groups Evening Presentations ... Families Individuals Military & Veteran School Groups Staff Rides

Paul Oldfield

Accredited guide number: 51.

In a military career spanning 36 years, Paul served in most of the usual hotspots, including three years in Ulster, plus the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq. Other appointments included running the MOD’s Africa team for three years, commanding a mountain and arctic warfare unit and a tour with the Gurkhas. With his military experience he is able to bring a soldier’s insight to battles of the past.

Paul was educated in Sheffield and at Victoria College, Jersey, where he became interested in the German occupation and fortifications. He ran his first tour in 1983 on the Somme and has been involved in WW1 and WW2 tours since. Paul is a member of the Western Front Association and Gallipoli Association. He joined the Guild in April 2008 and was presented with Badge 51 on 20th November 2010. He was heavily involved in the Guild’s support for Help for Heroes’ annual Big Battlefield Bike Ride from 2012, including leading the guiding team 2014-18.

In 1988 he co-authored Sheffield City Battalion in the Pals series. Cockleshell Raid was published in Pen & Sword’s Battleground Europe series in 2012 and Bruneval followed in 2013. He is currently writing a series of sixteen books, Victoria Crosses on the Western Front . The first was published in July 2014 and the final volume is expected in late 2025.

Battles 20 C. Advance to Victory Arras ... Aubers Ridge Battle of The Aisne Battle of the Somme Bruneval Raid Cambrai Cassino D-Day Dieppe Dunkirk Festubert Gallipoli Loos Messines Mons Neuve Chappelle Normandy Landings Normandy Preparations in UK Operation Frankton Operation Market Garden Retreat to the Marne St Nazaire & Dieppe The Somme 1918 WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Italy Western Europe

Caters For Bespoke Group Small Groups

Accredited Guide Number: 68

I retired from the army after a 34-year career in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. During my career, I served with a variety of regiments, including operational service in The Gulf, Bosnia and Afghanistan. From the very beginning of my career I was fascinated by each regiment’s unique history and battle honours. This soon developed into a quest for more knowledge, especially that of The Great War.

My interest in military history probably goes back even beyond my military service to my childhood, listening to my father who was a proud regular soldier who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War and saw service with the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk and later with the 8th Army at El Alamein.

I studied at Birmingham University under Professor Gary Sheffield and Dr Spencer Jones and in 2013 was awarded the MA in British First World War Studies. My thesis focused on the mechanical challenges of British armoured warfare in the Great War. I also have an MSc in Battlespace Technology gained at Shrivenham.

I have particular interests in trench raiding in the First World War and armoured warfare up to the modern day. I have been organising and guiding battlefield tours and conducting individual research for many years.

I completed the Guild’s validation scheme in 2014 and became one of the few accredited members not referred during validation. I was very proud to be awarded Badge Number 68 in 2014 by Professor Gary Sheffield.

Battles Battle of Amiens Battle of the Somme Cambrai ... D-Day Dunkirk Le Hamel Normandy Landings Villers-Bretonneux WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium France Germany ... United Kingdom

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies ... College Groups Families Individuals Military & Veteran School Groups

Anthony Rich

Accredited guide number: 74.

Based near Birmingham, my guiding centres on, but is by no means restricted to, battles of all eras in and around the Midlands & Welsh Marches. I guide for a wide range of national and local organisations, small groups and individuals. I am Secretary of the Battlefields Trust’s Mercia Region.

My guiding is always on a not-for-profit basis or to raise funds for a pre-agreed charity. When presenting a battle I focus on the human aspects, aiming to bring the drama to life through some of history’s more colourful, but often forgotten, characters, through the recorded words of participants, and through the use of original artefacts and replicas. Born into a Diplomatic Service family I grew up amidst a wide variety of cultures, observing the importance of understanding the past to explain the present. After living behind the Iron Curtain, I served with the British Reserve Forces for 22 years during the Cold War. There I learnt how soldiers behave and armies work. After commanding a rifle company I was selected for international staff and liaison duties. Leading British & foreign regulars and reservists in a multi-national HQ, I was privileged to engage with foreign traditions, cultures and military thinking vastly different to the English-speaking experience.

Battlefield visitors often want to gain leadership and management insights. In presenting these aspects I draw on my experience over some 30 years as a senior manager in the public, private and voluntary sectors as well as my formal qualifications. They include an MPA (a public & voluntary sector specific MBA), the Army Staff College’s Reserves Command & Staff course, & the Emergency Planning College’s Strategic Command Course. On the basis of my experience The Chartered Management Institute elected me as a Fellow and the Institute of Directors as a Member.

Research into all eras of military history fascinates me, as does any opportunity to present a battle from a fresh angle. For example I used a tour of Naseby as a case study on “Prejudiced Thinking” for a public sector senior training day.

In 2016 I was awarded the Guild’s prestigious David Chandler prize for my research work.

Battles Battle of Teutoberger Forest Battle of the Somme British Civil Wars ... D-Day English Civil War Marlborough's campaigns Middle Ages Monmouth Rebellion Napoleon Norman Conquest of England Owen Glendower's Revolt Roman Invasion of Germany The Jacobite Rebellions WWI WWII Wars of the Roses Waterloo Campaign Ypres

Countries Belgium England Europe ... France Germany Netherlands Scotland United Kingdom Wales Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Walks Clubs and Societies ... Evening Presentations Leadership & Management Training Self-drive Tours Short Tours Small Groups

Brian Rogers

Accredited guide number: 109.

I am a serving Army officer and qualified as a badged guide in May 2020.  I have served with the Household Cavalry both operationally and as a mounted cavalryman on state ceremonial and public duties, as well as working on the staff in the wider Army.  Military experience of the Middle East, Balkans and Afghanistan.

I have been visiting battlefields for many years and have led a number of small group tours, for military personnel, veterans and members of the general public.  Very interested in all matters involving the cavalry where I like to think I have a unique insight, as well as armoured operations where I also have significant practical knowledge.  I continue to develop and learn my craft, and I am currently studying for an MA in the History of Great Britain and the First World War.

Battles Napoleon WWI WWII

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Studies Battlefield Walks ... Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies College Groups Families Individuals Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups Reenactors School Groups Staff Rides

Tim Saunders

Accredited guide number: 06.

I was an infantry officer for thirty years and began writing military history and battlefield guiding while still in the service. Since leaving I have become a full time military historian. I have had eighteen books published, mainly on WW2, and as Director of Production for Battlefield History TV, I have made fifty full length military history documentaries on conflicts ranging from the Dark Ages through to modern times.

My real love, however, remains getting out onto the battlefields of the world and studying and talking about campaign strategy and tactics, soldiers; their weapons and equipment, plus of course the engagements and battles themselves.

In a typical year the groups I take to various battlefields range from general to private, through school groups to veterans and families with young children. All have their specific needs and research requirements.

I served a term on the Board of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides as Director of Validation.

Battles 20 C. Battle of Sicily Battle of the Bulge ... Dieppe Gallipoli German Airborne Invasion of Crete Napoleon Normandy Landings Rhine Crossing WWI WWII Wellington’s Peninsular battles Wellington’s Pyrenees battles

Countries Asia Turkey Western Europe

Caters For Bespoke Group Families Group Types ... Military & Veteran

Dr. Christopher L. Scott

Accredited guide number: 5.

Christopher Scott has been walking battlefields for over 40 years. He has guided parties around the sites of Medieval, Civil War, Marlburian and Napoleonic battles and was a trustee of the Battlefield Trust and The Guild of Battlefield Guides. He is also a member of the British Commission for Miltary History and the Royal Historical Society. He did his doctorate on the 17th century militia at Cranfield University, part of the Defence Academy, with Richard Holmes and he is well published with ten battle books to his credit; his new interpretation of Roundway Down was released in late 2018. Early in his career he worked in theatre then schools as a drama teacher. Later in Education he led departments then faculty teams, and helped set up and manage a Further Education College. As Director of Education for The Royal Armouries he designed the education and public interaction programmes for the Tower of London, Fort Nelson and Leeds Museums. Away from work he is a re-enactor who commanded the Parliamentarian Army for the Roundhead Association; he is a theatre director, wargamer and stamp collector.

Currently Chris is a trustee of the Museum of Military Medicine and writing the story for the projected new museum in Cardiff Bay. He is also a freelance battlefield guide, lecturer, consultant and writer; he is also a good storyteller and won the Cameron Mackintosh Contemporary Playwright Award.

Battles English Civil War Marlborough's campaigns Middle Ages ... Monmouth Rebellion The 100 Years War Waterloo Campaign Wellington’s Peninsular battles

Countries Belgium France Netherlands ... Portugal Spain United Kingdom

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Families ... Individuals Small Groups

Accredited Guide Number: 40

Mike is a member of the Guild of battlefield Guides Board, holding Accredited Guide status having earned Badge No. 40. His first tour as a guide was in the early 1980’s and he has led groups all over the world since then. Mike spent nearly thirty years in education, ending his career as a member of the Senior Leadership Team at one of the most prestigious schools for girls in the country.

Mike now works full time as a tour manager, historian, battlefield guide, consultant and researcher. He tours across the battlefields and historical locations of Western and Central Europe leading large groups and small private tours with guests from many countries. He considers his special interests to be the WW1 battlefields, Berlin and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, the Holocaust. However, having led groups in India and southern Africa he also considers this to be areas of interest and experience.

Mike is a public speaker on cruise ships and conferences across the world as well as organisations in the UK. Mike has experience as a Tour Manager for Cultural Tours across the world. He is also a published author with books on the battlefields of the Western Front.

Mike is a member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides, the Western Front Association, the Institute of Travel and Tourism and European Tour Operators Association.

Battles Battle of the Somme British Colonial Conflicts Cold War ... Normandy Landings Operation Berlin Verdun WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Asia Eastern Europe England ... Europe India Scotland South-East Asia United Kingdom Wales Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Cultural Tours ... School Groups Small Groups

Accredited Guide Number: 53

After retiring from a varied and rewarding career policing in the Metropolis, he embarked on a part time second career as a Safety Officer in the sporting and music events industry.

Having more free time on his hands allowed Scottie to seize the opportunity to pursue his real interest and passion in life for military history and Battlefield touring. Having organised numerous trips to the Battlefields of Europe for friends and colleagues since the mid 80’s he joined the Guild of Battlefield Guides to hone his skills in this area. He achieved their ‘Badged’ accreditation in 2012 and during this process he was honoured to receive the Guilds ‘David Chandler’ Award, as recognition for the best sources presentation in 2011 from the Guild patron Professor Gary Sheffield.

He is fortunate to be very well travelled and has experience of guiding not only in the UK and Europe, but some far flung battlefields in Asia, North America, North and South Africa, his interest in the later continent has resulted in him building up an extensive knowledge of both the Anglo Zulu and Boer Wars.and a love for that country, its culture and its people .

Battles Agincourt Anglo/Zulu War Boer War ... WWI WWII

Countries Europe South Africa United Kingdom

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Walks College Groups ... Families Individuals School Groups

Accredited Guide Number: 18

Brian Shaw is an Ex Warrant Officer in the Parachute Regiment who has been leading battlefield tours for the past twenty years. Born in Nottingham in 1958 he joined the Army in 1974 as a Junior Soldier, progressing through a busy career specializing in Battlefield Communications. Brian become a Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1995 and retired from the Army in January 2013 after 38 years’ service.

Brian has had an extensive career serving across the globe, in Northern Ireland on operations and from South Africa to the Arctic Circle and from California to Hong Kong, the long way round, on training. This long Infantry experience and knowledge of tactics, give him a soldier’s eye for ground and the implications of terrain on the weapon systems of any chosen period.

Brian has a long-held interest in military history, particularly the Second World War. He combines his own experiences and his knowledge of history to put his audience on a tour within the experience of what the soldiers of the day saw, felt and experienced. Whilst Brian’s passion is for the Second World War and specifically NW Europe 1944/45 (D–Day to the war’s end) but with a wide military history knowledge he is happy working with groups on the battlefields of the Great War or others.

Brian has assisted in and personally planned and led tours on the Battle of Waterloo, The Western Front, Gallipoli, France and Belgium 1940, Malta, the fighting in Normandy, Operation Market–Garden, Aachen, the Hurtgen Forest, the Rhine Crossing (Plunder and Varsity) and the Ardennes Offensive. Italy – Anzio and Cassino.

Battles Aachen Battle of Anzio Battle of the Bulge ... Battle of the Somme Belleau Wood Cassino Fall of France Gallipoli Hürtgen Forest Meuse-Argonne Mons Napoleon Normandy Campaign Normandy Landings Operation Blockbuster Operation Market Garden Operation Veritable Rhine Crossing St. Mihiel The Siege of Malta US Operations on the Western Front 1917 - 1918 Verdun Vimy WWI WWII Waterloo Campaign Ypres

Countries Belgium France Germany ... Italy Malta Netherlands Turkey

Robert Shaw

Accredited guide number: 106.

Robert Shaw is an accredited Battlefield tour guide and has written military history books on the SAS, SOE and the Cold War. He retired from the British Army after a career spanning over 25 years where he worked in the fields of IEDD, logistics and intelligence, working for UKSF and DIS. He subsequently managed training for the UN and NATO in Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Nigeria and Somalia. His battlefield tour expertise and experience includes the American Civil War, WW1, WW2 and the Cold War in UK, USA, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Sicily, Crete, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland and the Balkans. Robert has a Master’s degree in Global Security from Cranfield University and lectures at UCL on intelligence and defence matters and counter proliferation.

Battles American Civil War Cold War WWI ... WWII

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Studies Bespoke Group ... College Groups Military & Veteran School Groups Staff Rides

Accredited Guide Number: 38

Mike St Maur Sheil has been guiding since 2007 and specializes in the American and French battlefields of WW1. Since 2011 he has guided the annual tours for the US National WW1 Museum and Memorial as well as numerous tours and pilgrimages for American families and universities as well as the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library.

He spent his career working as a photo-journalist in over sixty countries around the world and this experience led him to create a a series of outdoor photographic exhibitions, entitled ‘Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace’. During the centennial period of 2014-18 these exhibitions were viewed by an audience of over 12 million people in numerous cities including Atlanta, Berlin, Chicago, Dublin, Edinburgh, Istanbul, London, New York, Paris and Washington.

In creating these exhibitions, Mike visited battlefields and photographed places generally only mentioned in books and has thus acquired an extraordinary knowledge of the ‘battlescapes’ of the conflict. In 2014 his photography was published by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in their centenary commemoration book entitled ‘For the Fallen’. In 2016, the collection of his work, entitled ‘Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace’, won the accolade of the European Federation of Professional Photographers as the best book of landscape photography published in that year.

In 2016 he was commissioned by the US National WW1 Museum and Memorial to create an especial ‘Doughboys 1917-1918’ exhibition describing the American experience of the conflict which has given him an especial insight into the US involvement in WW1 and the battlefields of Belleau Wood, the Marne, Meuse-Argonne and St. Mihiel.

In 2018 Mike was awarded a Masters Degree in WW1 studies by Wolverhampton University for a dissertation on the role of aerial photography in the development of Air Power in WW1. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the British Commission for Military History.

Battles Battle of The Aisne Gallipoli Meuse-Argonne ... Retreat to the Marne US Operations on the Western Front 1917 - 1918 WWI

Countries Europe France Germany ... Italy Turkey

Caters For Bespoke Group Families Individuals ... Pilgrimage Groups Small Groups

Steve Smith

Accredited guide number: 17.

I qualified as a Guild Guide in 2004, having left the RAF in 2003, where I served for 18 years as an RAF Police NCO at various bases in the UK and abroad and completed tours in Northern Ireland, the Falklands and in Macedonia on a NATO Peace Keeping mission. At present I assist students in attaining diplomas at various levels of education.

I have had an interest in military history since the age of 13 when I was introduced to my Great Grandfather Private G/5203 Frank Smith who served in the 7th and 8th Buffs in WW1 at the Pozieres Memorial on the Somme. Since then I have traced his war from 1915 to 1918 and now assist others in doing the same thing. It is both a passion and a calling to me.

I now work for Adaptable Travel where I am lucky enough to conduct battlefield tours with school groups and I also specialise in taking adult groups across as well. One of my main areas of focus is taking families on small battlefield pilgrimages to locate where their family members served. It is something I love doing.

I am an author having had two books on Norfolk in WW1 and WW2 published in 2012 and 2014 and I am currently working on my third book which will be about the Norfolk Regiment on the Western Front.

One of my other passions is the air war in both WW1 and WW2 and I conduct tours looking at aspects of these aerial battles. Living in Norfolk provides me with access to subjects such as the Zeppelin raids carried out over the county in 1915 and the Commonwealth and US bomber wars in WW2. I also love guiding the Battle of Britain having been brought up with stories of that time whilst growing up in East Kent.

I am comfortable guiding all aspects of WW1 and WW2 in Europe and revel in being provided with new challenges where I am offered the chance to study and walk the ground for specific unit actions.

As one gentleman said once said to me when I took him to see where his father had fought on the Western Front,

‘You helped to put the meat on the bones of my dad’s story.’

Battles Arnhem Battle of Britain D-Day ... Gallipoli Operation Market Garden WWI

Countries Turkey Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Families Individuals ... School Groups

Accredited Guide Number: 57

I come from a family that saw service in both the World Wars. My mother’s father was in  France during the First World War and her two brothers fought in the Second War – one in  the Royal Air Force, successfully evading capture at Dunkirk in 1940, and another with the  Royal Navy in the Atlantic. On my father’s side of the family, my grandfather saw service in  the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First War and later became an Air Raid Warden in  Burton on Trent in World War II, whilst his brother was with the Royal Air Force in the Far  East.

Talking to them sparked my own interest in military history which then developed to reading  about battles and military campaigns – it was the part of the history lessons at school I liked  most! When I had some pocket money I would buy books about battles and would always be  scouring ‘junk shops’ for military cap badges, medals and the like.

Medal collecting led to me undertaking research into the lives of the individuals that had won  them and in turn to research the battles in which they had fought. The next logical step was  visiting some of those battlefields. Initially alone but later with friends and family, the visits developed into small guided tours with an emphasis on the human side of war and its effect  on the people involved, not just the combatants but those back home or in the countries where the campaigns and battles were fought.

As well as general tours of the Western Front battlefields I also have a particular interest and knowledge in the involvement of the Canadian and Australian forces in both World Wars and have led a number of tours to the European battlefields where they fought as well as in the UK where they trained.

I also particularly enjoy taking small groups on family pilgrimages and undertaking the research that is involved in developing these tours. In particular, I have led a number of American groups and families to the Normandy battlefields of World War II. This led to the development of tours around particular American units including the 29th Division in the drive from the Normandy beachhead to St Lo and the Division’s battle to capture Brest in Brittany. In the UK I have also researched and developed tours around the US forces in the West Country in the run up to D Day including the Slapton Sands disaster and the development of the Woolacombe Infantry Training Centre in Devon.

I have significant experience of working with school groups and  was recently part of the guide team that delivered the Government initiative to take two students and a teacher from every English state school to the battlefields of France and Belgium between 2014 and 2019. I am currently a volunteer speaker for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and also help to clean and maintain CWGC headstones in local churchyards.

“Once again you’ve made our battlefields trip and amazing experience. Thank you for all the extra special investigations you do. We can’t imagine these trips without you!” Teacher – School group

“Our trip has been the trip of a lifetime experience – your part made it absolutely awesome!” Guest – Canadian Adult group

Battles Ardennes Arnhem Bastogne ... Battle of the Bulge Battle of the Somme Cambrai Charleroi Cornwall in the Civil War D-Day Delville Wood Dieppe Dunkirk Eindhoven & Nijmegen Fall of France Liberation of the Netherlands Messines Mons Napoleon Normandy Landings Normandy Preparations in UK Operation Michel Operation Overlord Passchendaele Quatre Bras Scheldt Estuary - Breskens Pocket & Walcheren St Nazaire & Dieppe Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Vimy Ridge WWI WWII Waterloo Waterloo Campaign Wavre Ypres

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Germany Netherlands United Kingdom Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Battlefield Walks Clubs and Societies ... Evening Presentations Families Individuals School Groups Small Groups

Iain Standen

Accredited guide number: 24.

Iain Standen is CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, the organisation that runs Bletchley Park the historic site of secret British code breaking activities during WWII and birthplace of the modern computer.

A former Regular Army officer in the Royal Corps of Signals, he served in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Cyprus, as well as on operational deployments to Northern Ireland (where he was Mentioned in Despatches), Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Iraq. He commanded at troop, squadron, unit and group level, graduated from the Army Staff College and served in a range of staff appointments. This extensive military experience allows him to provide a wide–ranging soldier’s insight on his battlefield tours.

As the son of an RAF officer and the grandson of an Army officer it could be said that the military and military history are in his blood. His interest in battlefields stretches back to his childhood, and he visited his first, Bosworth Field, over 30 years ago. Since then he has toured the battlefields of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the United States, covering battles and campaigns from the Seven Years War to the Second World War. Whilst maintaining a broad interest in a range of campaigns, the American Civil War remains his favourite era. He began leading military battlefield tours with the troops under his command in 1987 and led military tours and staff rides throughout his Army career.

Iain has been working commercially for Anglia Battlefield Tours since 2001 and has guided tours for them on the battlefields of Waterloo, Ypres, Somme and Normandy.

He is a member of the American Civil War Roundtable (United Kingdom) and lectures on American Civil War subjects. He also maintains an interest in military history and battlefield preservation through membership of The Battlefields Trust, the Western Front Association and the Civil War Preservation Trust. He was an early member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides (member number 28) and completed his Validation in August 2006.

Battles American Civil War American War of Independence Antietam ... Battle of Minden Battle of the Somme Bull Run Franco-Prussian War Gettysburg Meuse-Argonne Monocacy Napoleon Verdun WWI Waterloo Ypres

Countries Belgium Europe France ... North America United States of America Western Europe

Glenn Stennes

Accredited guide number: 102.

My fascination with military history ignited during my primary school years, thanks to a teacher who had been a Spitfire pilot in the Second World War. His stories were utterly captivating. In my early teens, I had joined the Air Cadets, firmly ensnaring my interest in the military. I enlisted in the Canadian Army, where I embarked on operational tours in Egypt, Israel (Golan Heights), and undertook two tours in the former Yugoslavia. My military career was diverse, ranging from instructing recruits, providing trades level training for soldiers, to conducting leadership training for NCOs and officers.

After my second tour in the former Yugoslavia, I transitioned to a role with the United Nations, which took me back to the Balkans. Here, I served in Croatia, Bosnia, and North Macedonia in senior management positions, further broadening my experience and understanding of international military operations.

Currently, I live in the Republic of North Macedonia, where my passion for military history continues to thrive. Remarkably, the Dojran Battlefield is literally in my backyard. I am proud to be a founding member and the President of the Macedonian Front Society, a local Non-Government Organisation dedicated to the protection, preservation, and promotion of the battlefields that remain from the Macedonian Campaign.

My expertise and primary interest lie in the Macedonian Campaign of 1915-1918, known by various names such as the Salonika Front, Front d’Orient, Southern Front, or Macedonian Front, depending on the country the soldiers who served were from.

This lesser-known campaign offers a rich and fascinating tour experience for anyone interested in the First World War. Whether you’re looking for a family pilgrimage or wish to conduct a detailed battlefield study, I am committed to providing a custom-designed tour that meets your specific interests and requirements.

Battles WWI

Countries Greece Republic of North Macedonia

Caters For Corporate Tours Families Individuals ... Military & Veteran Small Groups

Tim Stoneman

Accredited guide number: 65.

Tim has guided tours to battlefields and Remembrance sites since 2008, leading schools parties, groups of veterans, serving military and the general public.

Before this he served in the Royal Navy for 35 years as a Gunnery and Air Defence Officer. This included service at sea in the Falklands and in the First Gulf War, as well as deployments afloat to many other parts of the world, and shore postings working with colleagues from the British Army, Royal Air Force and other nations. During his naval career, his life-long interest in naval history led him to take part in several battlefield studies, initially as the maritime expert, and subsequently broadening his interests to encompass land and air campaigns of the 20th Century.

Whilst preferring to look at battlefields with a nautical or amphibious flavour, such as Gallipoli, Dunkirk or Normandy, he is equally at home guiding on the Somme, in Flanders or other land-locked regions.

He is a Westcountryman by birth, with, perhaps not surprisingly, something of a maritime interest from an early age. After many years in Portsmouth, enjoying living near a major focus of the nation’s naval heritage, he has recently returned to his Devonshire roots. He joined the Guild in 2008, was awarded his Badge in 2014 and became the Guild’s Validation Secretary in 2015, a role he relinquished in 2020 when he joined the Management Board and was appointed as Guild Secretary.

Battles Arnhem Arras Arras ... Battle of Calais Battle of Sicily Battle of the Somme Bruneval Raid D-Day Delville Wood Dieppe Dunkirk Fall of Berlin Gallipoli Le Hamel Loos Messines Mons Neuve Chappelle Normandy Campaign Norway 1940 Campaign Operation Husky Operation Jubilee Operation Market Garden Operation Overlord Passchendaele Polygon Wood The Somme 1918 Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Vimy Ridge WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Italy Norway Norway Turkey Western Europe

Joël Stoppels

Accredited guide number: 70.

Joël Stoppels is a battlefield guide and founder of the Battlefield Tours in the Netherlands. He did research in different allied operations during the Second World War in the Netherlands. By means of the Battlefield Tours he shares his knowledge with other people who are interested in the Second World War. “ The battle to liberate Holland was so severe and heavy, it took so many lives, that it should not be forgotten ”, is Joël’s conviction.  In the summer of 2012 he started with guided tours under the name ‘Battlefield Tours Groningen’.

The young historian has a mission: he believes it is very important to keep the memories of the war alive. Every year there are less people who actually experienced the war. Young people should be aware that freedom is the most important condition for individuals and for a country. It can be lost very quickly, but you do not get it back easily. In the Second World War soldiers from other countries helped us, they did fight for our freedom and many died for it. Let us never forget and be grateful that we live in freedom in this country until today.

Joël Stoppels organizes battlefield tours for military and civilian groups on Market Garden, the 1st British Airborne division, the 101st and 82nd US Airborne Divisions, the French SAS participation in Operation Amherst in April 1945 and the Canadian operations in the Netherlands and Germany (March/ April 1945).

Besides being a member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides with badge no. 70, he is also the coordinator for the international guide network of the Liberation Route Europe.

Battles Arnhem Operation Amherst Operation Market Garden

Piers Storie-Pugh

Accredited guide number: 12.

Piers has been guiding groups consisting of veterans, students, relatives and military groups to battlefields and war cemeteries of Europe, The Far East, The Mediterranean and North Africa for the past 35 years. He started his tour operating career with Major & Mrs. Holt’s Battlefield Tours before setting up Remembrance Travel in 1985, for the MoD/RBL, which he continued to run for 25 years. In 2011 he was appointed Chief Executive of The Not Forgotten Association, a tri-service charity for the wounded.

Piers is a qualified guide, badged no. 12, with The Guild of Battlefield Tours, qualifying on The Ypres Salient 1914-1918; The Somme 1916; The Chindit Operations of Burma 1943-44; The Battle of Hillman in Normandy 1944 and The Battle of Arnhem 1944; just some of the World War battles of which Piers is an undoubted expert.

He has taken thousands of relatives to their chosen war cemetery as part of the Government funded War Widows Grant in Aid Scheme, 1985-2010. He wrote the blueprint for the Big Lottery/MoD initiative “Heroes Return”.

Piers comes from a military background, his grandfather serving in the Great War, wounded at The Battle of Loos; and his father, having been captured a number of times in the early part of WW2, was sent to Colditz for four years. Piers himself served in both regular and territorial armies, enabling a personal military perspective to be brought to his tours.

His public speaking topics include “Escaping from Coldtiz”; “Chindit Operations of Burma 1943-44” and “War Cemeteries and Memorials Worldwide”.

Piers is one of the most experienced battlefield and remembrance guides, whose speciality is to personalise his tours to his audience and specific requests for family connections to those who fell.

Countries Asia Belgium Europe ... France Myanmar Netherlands South-East Asia Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Bespoke Group Clubs and Societies ... College Groups Families Individuals Long Tours Military & Veteran Pilgrimage Groups Short Tours Small Groups

Andrew Thomson

Accredited guide number: 14.

I am a historian, tour operator and private guide based in Canterbury. I run my own company Dr Thomson’s Tours full-time, specialising in tailor-made tours with a historical and cultural theme in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

Battlefield guiding accounts for around two-thirds of my business. Battlefield tours are particularly special to me as they combine history (asking what happened, why it happened then, there, and in that way), people (both empathy with those who fought, and on–the–spot interactions with one’s clients), landscape, and travel – all great interests of mine. Where History and Place overlap is at the heart of the buzz I get from history and explaining it to others.

After graduating with a degree in American Studies in 1979 I was briefly a civil servant, then a university administrator for fifteen years. I was Administrator of University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory (the UK’s first and largest university space research group), then moved to Canterbury in 1992 to be Administrator of the new Canterbury Business School. Meanwhile I was taking my love of history forward by completing a PhD in American History in my own time; the subject was the experiences of ordinary American troops in France in 1944 and 1945 and their interactions with the French people. On completion of this I set about my aim of doing something ‘useful’ (i.e. productive!) with a History PhD and set up Dr Thomson’s Tours in 1997. This allows me to teach ‘in the field’, to take my study of history forward, and to meet a fascinating and varied mix of people.

References (see Trip Advisor, for instance) pay tribute to my relaxed but authoritative style, the high level of organisation of tours, and my ability to personalise a tour and make the complexities of war understandable to audiences with very varying degrees of pre–existing knowledge.

I was very proud to obtain the Guild of Battlefield Guides’ badge in November 2004.

Battles 20 C. Ardennes Arnhem ... Bastogne Battle of the Bulge Battle of the Somme Bullecourt Cold War D-Day Dieppe Eindhoven & Nijmegen Fall of Berlin Fall of France Fromelles Meuse-Argonne Peenemunde US Operations on the Western Front 1917 - 1918 Verdun Villers-Bretonneux Vimy Vimy Ridge WWI WWII Ypres

Countries Belgium Europe France ... Germany Luxembourg Western Europe

Caters For Adult Coach Groups Families Small Groups

Frank Toogood

For over three decades Frank has had a successful career within the creative industry as a designer and creative director.

During that time, Frank also served 10 years in the 70 (Essex Yeomanry) Signal Squadron, part of 71st (Yeomanry) Signal Regiment (V), and had the distinction of having been the youngest qualified tradesman in the regiment by 12 months, at the age of 19.

Frank’s interest in battlefield guiding came from his father who served in BAOR and grandfathers who fought in WW2 – one in the Royal Artillery on the Western Front and the other in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.

Frank has been battlefield guiding since 2006, specialising in Waterloo, the Great War, WW2 and more recently, Berlin, where in 2019 he was licensed to guide at the Sachsenhausen Memorial.

He also played an active role within the Guild and has held several positions on Council, including Members’ Representative, Brand Manager and Guild Secretary. 

In 2011 he was proud to be the first recipient of the Richard Holmes Memorial Award for Services to the Guild.

Frank is also a member of the Essex Yeomanry Association and a Life member of the Royal Signals Association.

Battles Arnhem Battle of the Somme Cassino ... D-Day Napoleon Normandy Landings Peenemunde WWI WWII Waterloo Ypres

Vivien Whelpton

Accredited guide number: 72.

Vivien gained her B.A. in English Literature at Bedford College London, and trained to become a teacher. She taught for thirty-eight years in a variety of secondary schools and colleges, heading up departments of English and of Media Studies.

It was through teaching the literature of the Great War and taking her sixth-form students to the battlefields of the Western Front that Vivien became fascinated by the history. After retiring from teaching in 2006, she undertook the M.A. course in War Studies at Kings College London. She also began a new career as a writer. She has published a two-volume literary biography of the First World War poet and novelist Richard Aldington. She lectures on the literature of the First World War and is a regular contributor of articles to journals. Vivien joined the Guild of Battlefield Guides in 2011 and became an accredited guide in February 2014. She works for the tour company ‘Battle Honours’. She has conducted, under the auspices of ‘Battle Honours’, a series of literary battlefield tours, aiming to explore the nature of the various conflicts on the Western Front in which the combatant poets took part and the roles they played, and to use this context to explore their writing. In November 2018, the hundredth anniversary of the death of Wilfred Owen, she conducted a tour of the battlefield sites where he served. She has also guided a series of literary tours for secondary school students under the government’s First World War Centenary Schools Programme and finds it particularly rewarding to introduce young people to the battlefields of the First World War.

Vivien’s knowledge of the literature of the war is extensive and she is happy to lead literary tours of the Western Front for both student and adult groups. But she also has a thorough grasp of the military history of the war and an awareness of how understanding is enhanced by visiting and walking the battlefields.

Vivien is a member of the Western Front Association, the Wilfred Owen Association and the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship.

Caters For Adult Coach Groups School Groups

Julian Whippy

Accredited guide number: 31.

Julian has had a passion for military history since his childhood and has led tours across the battlefields of the globe from Beesheva to Spion Kop. He has a particular interest in both Normandy and Arnhem having spent years researching and travelling the beach and inland battles of 1944. He enjoys leading groups to uncover lost or seldom-seen sites of battle from all wars. He has a military background, having served with the Royal Anglian Regiment as a member of the Territorial Army. A published author, he is a badged member and validator within the Guild of Battlefield Guides. Julian lectures on military history widely including in Whitehall for the Royal United Services Institute. Julian is today employed full time in military history as co-owner of both Battle Honours & Staffride Ltd, two leading specialist battlefield tour operators.

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Ray Wilkinson

Accredited guide number: 58.

Ray is especially interested in the British volunteers of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, the Roman Invasion of Britain in 43 AD, in particular the activities of Titus Flavius Vespasianus (Vespasian), and the military career of Major General James Wolfe; he also has a broad interest in the Roman Occupation of Britain, land warfare during the First and Second World Wars, the American Civil War, and the British Civil Wars.  In addition to leading battlefield tours in Europe he has led business study tours to the USA and throughout the UK facilitating best practice learning by client organisations from the Middle East, the Far East, and the UK.

He is a romantic idealist at heart and a firm believer in the power of the human spirit, with a heartfelt dislike of DIY born of much unfortunate experience, it is the actions and motivations of individuals in the context of military history and battlefields that interest him the most – and it is on those aspects that he focuses his attention.  His aim as a battlefield guide is to encourage clients to consider events and situations from a fresh perspective learning lessons from the past to be applied in the future.

He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London (DL), a former Army Reserve Officer and having been awarded the Territorial Decoration (TD) in 1993, he was awarded the Queen’s Volunteer Reserves Medal (QVRM) for services to Defence in 2011.

Ray was a Council member of the Army Records Society and has a CMS, DMS and an MBA from the Open University Business School; he is a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of The Drapers Company.

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Adam Williams

Accredited guide number: 56.

I served with the Army Air Corps for 24 years as a Helicopter Pilot/Instructor and Examiner and was first introduced to Military History during this time.  I come from a ‘Military Family’ with a Great Grandfather who fought in the Zulu War of 1879, a Grandfather that saw active service with the Fleet Air Arm in WW2 and a Father in the RAF.

I was first introduced to the Battlefield in 1984 on an Operational Tour to the Falkland Islands.  Fortunately, there were many veterans of Op Corporate on this tour and much of my spare time was spent with them on the battlefield.  It was during this tour that I developed an interest in Military History, but it would take a further 20 years before I started Battlefield Guiding.

Being a Pilot meant that I was fortunate enough to see the Battlefield from an aerial perspective.  I have since conducted tours from the air, ranging from the Somme to Normandy and even Iraq! After reading a book about 9 Parachute Battalion called ‘The Day the Devils Dropped In’, I found my interest being directed towards Normandy and the D Day Landings of WW2.  I have led many tours of the Normandy Landing Beaches with a particular interest in 6th Airborne Division and the 1st Battalion The Suffolk Regiment.

I have a developing interest in the SAS/SOE Operations in WW2 and have also led tours of the SAS action in Oman in 1958/9 on Jebel Akhdar.  I currently live in the Middle East where I continue to fly Helicopters.

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David Wilson

Accredited guide number: 81.

David’s background includes 45 years of military service in both the Regular Army and Reserve. He graduated from the Royal Military College Duntroon in December 1975 into the  Royal Australian Infantry Corps. He has completed a wide variety of regimental, training and  staff postings, including operational tours of duty in Uganda with the Commonwealth Military  Training Team (1983) and in Cambodia with the UN (1991-92). In 2006-07 he was deployed  as an Operations Analyst in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2004-05 he served as the ADF  Liaison Officer to the USMC-led headquarters with other international assistance forces  based in Thailand during the tsunami relief operation.

His keen interest for military history is long-standing and widely varied. This includes being  involved as a specialist technical adviser to the movies “Breaker Morant” and “Gallipoli”  which were filmed in South Australia in the early 1980s where he was posted at the time.

While researching various aspects of family involvement in WW1, he was invited to co-  author the history of the 19th Infantry Battalion AIF. It was one of the many untold stories of  the Great War and “Fighting Nineteenth” was published in June 2011. As a result of this  work, he has set up his own business AIF Research Services which assists families and  other interested groups to track their First AIF ancestors both in Australia, as well as  providing advice for potential battlefield tourists. David is regularly booked to speak to local  historical societies on a variety of WW1 topics.

David’s interest in battlefield guiding was sparked by a 1981 visit to the Gallipoli area which  was at that time relatively untouched since 1915. Here he fell in with a small group of fellow  countrymen also making that pilgrimage. At that time he was teaching military history at the  Officer Cadet School Portsea, and the role of de facto battlefield guide fell to him. Since  2006 he has regularly guided at Gallipoli and also on the Western Front where he gets to  practise his French. He is also involved in the planning for some 2018 memorial events to  be held in the Péronne and Mont St Quentin areas. He has recently added colonial forts of  New South Wales to his portfolio of guiding locations.

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Accredited Guide Number: 46

David has been guiding the battlefields since 1997, with his main interests in WW1 & WW2.

His enthusiasm for military history originated from several sources, not least his 20 years in the British Army, predominantly with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, serving in many parts of the world. Also, his father was a Battle of Britain pilot, while his mother was one of the decoders on the Enigma machine at Bletchley Park. Hence his desire to become passionately involved in military history, and especially the personal stories of those who partook.

Though he works as an independent guide, he is presently guiding for four companies, including one in America and another in Canada, taking schools, universities, adult and military groups (including Staff Rides), and offering private bespoke tours. All tours always include any research to meet client requirements.

As one company recently requested, when they contacted David. ‘Can you do a Normandy tour in one day? The reply being, ‘but it takes at least 4 hours just to drive there’ (from England). The company’s response being; ‘no, it’s only 45 minutes by private aircraft’. What a tremendous tour!

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Accredited Guide Number: 66

Allan served for 22 years in the Regular Army in the 17 th /21 st Lancers and Queens Royal Lancers, a career which ended at the Armoured Fighting Vehicle Gunnery School, Lulworth.  Allan was later commissioned into the TA serving for a further 9 years firstly with the Dorset and later the Royal Wessex Yeomanry in Bovington where he began guiding battlefield tours.

Allan’s first battlefield tour as a guide was for the Yeomanry to Normandy in 1999.  He has since guided nearly 200 battlefield tours for both Regular and Territorial Army units, schools and numerous adult groups to the Western Front, North West Europe plus other campaigns outside of the two World Wars including Waterloo and Agincourt.  Allan has guided many ANZAC focused tours of the Western Front, 1916-1918.  Allan retired from teaching to give himself the time to be an active Battlefield Guide and works freelance for several companies and organisations.  Allan also regularly gives talks on Military History to a wide variety of audiences from those including very senior serving officers to local groups in the Dorset area and wider afield.

Allan is an Accredited Member of ( Badge Number 66 ) of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and a current Validator for candidates on the Path to their own Badge.  He is a member of the Western Front Association, Royal Lancers Regimental Association and a Trustee for the Dorset Yeomanry Association.

Allan is an Alumnus of the Duke of York’s Royal Military School, Dover.  Whilst in the Army he studied and graduated through the Open University, later training as teacher at the University of Bath after which he taught History in a secondary school in Poole.  Allan was later appointed as the Headteacher of the Compass, the school responsible for providing Alternative Provision for young people in Weymouth, Dorset. Allan still lives in Weymouth with his wife Angela, who tolerates both his guiding and golf in exchange for holidays in the sun!  They have two grown up children.

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Accredited Guide Number: 90

I was born and brought up in Jersey, Channel Islands and from an early age became passionate about its history.

My maternal grandfather, apart from serving from 1914 to 1919 with the Canadian Infantry on the Western Front, held the government position of Guardien of Gorey Castle for 25 years. He was responsible on a day to day basis for Gorey Castle, which is an 800-year-old ancient monument, and he acted as a guide to its many visitors from members of the Royal Family to French day-trippers. He taught me after he retired, without me knowing at the time that I would effectively follow his footsteps, how accurate history and humour make for the best tours.

With both of my paternal great-grandfather and grandfather being career soldiers and seeing service in both World Wars, it was inevitable that military history would help form my interests and I even contemplated a military career myself. However, that didn’t happen, and I followed a career as a lawyer for 35 years.

I got into guiding accidentally as a result of our law firm entertaining some visiting conference lawyers on a coach tour. I thought that the “pre-taped” commentary was so bad that I grabbed the microphone and gave my first guided tour! I did it again when we next had visiting clients and then again for a big family birthday coach tour. Then came a family “pilgrimage” back to the Western Front which I researched with the assistance of my grandfather’s battalion’s war diary and his 90-page military record (the Canadian ones are very full and now are all online) and by then I realised that once I had finished practising as a lawyer, there was another career!

I set up Jersey Military Tours (and its sister brand, History Alive!) in 2016 and I focus on providing personal service for small groups, although I am happy to guide larger parties. I believe in providing a complete experience to my clients to help them get the best of their exploration of a battlefield or fortress. This generally involves getting to know individual participants through their stories, the impact on them and the local population, as well as introducing other disciplines like archaeology and geology to better understand the topography.

I particularly enjoy the educational element of battlefield guiding – be it for individual clients, a class of school children or a military unit undertaking a conceptual study exercise. My mother was a teacher, so I suppose that is where I get that from!

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• Dec 5, 2017

Canadians to Italy 75 - Part 1: The Invasion of Sicily

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Instructions being signalled to waiting landing craft by semaphore at dawn of the opening day of the invasion of Sicily, 1943

To the 1st Canadian Division, it felt as if they had been forgotten and sidelined. High Command wanted something to involve the whole Division. What followed is to this day one of the most inspiring of Canadian victories.

Canadian Mindset

I n the summer of 1943 the 2nd World War was in its 4th year, and for almost all of that time the men of the 1st Canadian division were based on english soil, held back by the Canadian High Command. The Canadian Command was waiting for a campaign which could commit all 26,000 men. In the meantime, the troops were kept busy on base. The Canadian Command held endless sporting events many military parades, and countless hours of training, all while other Allied armies were in the fight. Had the Canadian Division been forgotten?

In June 1943, the Canadians would finally have the opportunity that High Command had been waiting for. Just over 26,000 troops of the 1st Canadian Division would board more than 50 ships and depart England. They were apart of a large scale seaborne force set to attack the enemy lines. The destination, though, is kept secret until they set sail to ensure utmost secrecy.

On June 28th the Canadians finally made eyes at a large convoy starting to building around them. The next day around noon a message was posted on all notice boards, it wrote, “Following message has been received from the Rear Admiral: ‘We are on our way to the Mediterranean to take part in the greatest combined operation ever attempted.’”

Allied ships make their way to the Sicilian coast, 1943

The Enemy Force

By this time in the conflict, the Allies had driven the Italian and German forces out of South Africa, forcing them to retreat back into Italy. This paved the way to the next Allied objective; the Southern Italian island of Sicily. Canadian troops join in a convoy with other ships containing over 160,000 American and British troops off the western shores of Sicily, and form up for the seaborne invasion codenamed “Operation Husky”. The goal: to take Sicily by seaborne and amphibious landings, knocking the Axis powers back further into Italy. This would ensure clear seaways for reinforcements, plus, it would allow the Allies to take over air bases in Sicily, supporting the invasion of mainland Italy.

Unbeknownst to the Allies, German submarines are monitoring their approach to the Sicilian coastline. The German submarines attack, and strike. Three ships go down, and with them, 58 Canadians are killed. With it, much of the Canadian’s transport are lost, almost 500 vehicles and guns. Once the Allied ship’s counter, the German boats are taken out, and the men remain in high spirits as the convoy bears on.

The average age of a Canadian soldier sailing to Sicily was 24, although many who claim to be 20 looked about 18, some recalling that the Canadian Army to be was “looking like a bunch of boy scouts”. Many found it hard to believe that these young and naive troops were considered by the newspapers as “Assault Troops”. The only experience the Canadian Army had ever had in an amphibious invasion was the disastrous raid on Dieppe, France, only a year prior, where in just hours 3,367 were wounded, missing, killed, or taken prisoner.

German Luftwaffe pilot flying over occupied Europe

Sicilian Invasion

I n the early hours of July 10th, Allied forces containing British, Canadian and American troops land on the beaches of the southeast coast of Sicily, in a seaside town, called Pachino. The Allies know that more than 200,000 soldiers of the Italian Army, and another 60,000 battle hardened soldiers from the German Army, are there waiting for them.

At 0400h, hundreds of ships opened fire on the Italian and German positions along the Sicilian coast, aimed to soften the defences in preparation for the pending beach invasion. The Canadian landing zone was on a stretch of beach known as the “Amber Coast”, just southwest of the Sicilian City of Pachino. As the men wade ashore expecting heavy resistance, they were met with few Germans scattered across the beaches, who attempted to retaliate. Despite this, the beach landings were a success, and only 7 Canadians lost their lives to take their zone. The overall landing invasion had been a success, and it became obvious the Germans and Italians had retreated inland to prepare for battle.

In the middle of the summer, with the heat of the Italian sun, the Canadians advance into a landscape of vineyards and small houses, with temperatures reaching that of 40 degrees celsius. Along the way, Italians put up almost no resistance against the marching Allies. They were tired of this war in which they never wanted, and they line up to surrender.

The Allied plan is to cut the Germans off before they can reach their escape route out of northeastern Sicily. Only one set back - the Canadian’s vehicles and equipment had been sunk in the amphibious convoy - the Canadians were left to carry on primarily by foot. As the dust roads were kicked up by the tanks ahead of the troops, it is said that they looked like they had been dipped in flour as they marched on.

In the first week, the Canadians march 50 kilometres - on foot - into central Sicily. The terrain and weather is what took the largest toll. Sicily is known to be extremely sunny and hot in the summer, the landscape covered in mountains and ridges with only windy roads to travel along. In addition, the Germans had every hill and corner pegged - trying to fight a war in these conditions would seem like a torture camp.

It had taken 5 days after the landing for the Canadians to encounter the German Army. These would be small ambushes, but violent nonetheless. The ambushes were not meant to hold ground against the Canadians, but delay their attack on the German strongholds; Leonforte, Assoro, and Agira. These strongholds were crucial to the Germans because they protected the German escape route through the Port of Messina, back to mainland Italy.

An example of the Sicilian landscape the Canadians had to overcome

Battle of Assoro

O n July 17th, the Canadian advance came to a halt. They came to a position where the Germans decided to take a stand. The spot the Germans chose was thought to be impenetrable, and chosen strategically by the Germans - nowhere else was more formidable than Assoro.

Assoro’s so strong, that in its thousand year history, it had never been successfully attacked. It stands on the ridge of a mountain, 900 metres high, with its neighbouring mountainside towns of Leonforte and Agira. A formidable defensive position in all directions, Assoro made for an Army with an already incredible reputation for their defense, a wonderful place to stave off their retreat.

As the Canadians approach Assoro, the Germans spot them, looking on confidently from the height of the cliffs. The German spotters from the highest points could see any and all movement going on down below, watching the roads mainly, but with such a clear sight, they could see everything, even a single man in an orchard.

Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Sutcliffe set out on his reconnaissance run, along with him was his Intelligence Officer, Maurice Cockin. Crouching in the open, with binoculars and map boards,a German crew of an .88 watched them closely. The Germans fired at the two men, killing Sutcliffe instantly. Cockin died as well from his injuries soon after. The Canadians were enraged by this - killing before the battle had even begun was seen as evil, vicious and obscene. The Germans would slowly discover that they had lighted a fire inside the hearts of the Canadians - and it would be the eventual end to their demise.

The Canadian plan from here was simple on paper: make a night attack, single file. Filing through the hills and across a gully, then up a final steep hill to the foot of the ruins of the Norman castle that lay on the top of the Assoro Ridge. The only flaw was if the Germans caught on to this plan - should the Canadians be found out they would become be easy targets crawling up the steep hills in single file.

Nonetheless, in the early hours of July 20th, the Canadians found themselves on their final ascent of the steep hill on the Assoro Ridge. Every man used whatever strength they had left to claw at the rocky slope. When a man faltered, they clinged on and waited for a man from behind to push them up, or from above to pull them forward. Not a single soldier made a single noise, none fell or dropped even an ammo clip in the dirt. The slightest noise would have alerted the Germans, ruining the surprise. Just after 4am, the Canadians surprised a small German garrison at the top of the slope, and within 10 minutes, the peak before the Norman castle was stealthy in Canadian hands. More soldiers hurried up the ridge, to the point where they had almost 500 altogether, clinging to the ridge. At this point, the Canadians are actually positioned directly behind the German lines, and have taken a high point in the German defences. The Canadians also knew the Germans could no longer be on the defensive now with the the highest vantage point, Assoro, being in Canadian hands. The Germans could not lose Assoro, and are forced into an offensive.

Map of the Battle of Assoro

The Germans called in their artillery from the surrounding villages in an attempt at knocking the Canadians off the hill. The Canadians dig in as best they could into the rocky mountaintop and hold off the German counter attacks. Being above the Germans vantage point gave the Canadians a great advantage, forcing the Germans to abandon their strong points at Leonforte and Agira to aid in fighting the Canadians at Assoro.

An intense barrage counterattack led by the Germans lasted all day. The Canadians, still holding onto the ridge, continued to fight back. After the long day of fighting there fell a silence on the ridge. Through silence could be heard the immense sounds of vehicles. The Germans were fleeing Assoro. The Canadians successfully defeated the Germans, while also avenging the death of Sutcliffe.

Liberation of Sicily

T he Battle of Sicily lasted 38 days. It was a great success for Canada, showcasing the troops ability to fight against the best the Germans had, while also gaining much needed battle experience. This experience will come in handy for the invasion of mainland Italy.

The Canadians hold a parade in the main square of Agira, the first liberation parade in occupied Europe since the start of WW2. The Germans though, have completed their main objective in the impending attack, fleeing across the Port of Messina and into Italy. Their army of 60,000 soldiers has been saved and is ready to fight another day.

The liberation of Sicily will always be looked at as a great victory for the Canadians, with 38 days of cross country walking, and rough terrain fighting. This victory ensured the Mediterranean seaways were clear of German fleets, as well secured an air base to support the invasion of mainland Italy, but this victory did not come without cost. In total the Canadians would lose 2,226 men, 562 who gave their lives for the battle, and 84 of which would become prisoners of war.

Artwork from the Canadian War Museum depicting the Canadian march through Assoro

Commemorate With Us

W ith the 75th Anniversary of Canada’s Invasion into Italy, let us join together, in celebration and thanks for the Canadians who sacrificed so much for us. In their honour, we travel to Sicily for the 75th Commemorative events. Join us to remember the bravery and vigour of our boys on the battlefields of Sunny Italy. Embrace the Italy that we know and love today, and help us honour the sacrifice endured by keeping our Canadian story alive.

If you would like to join us on the upcoming program commemorating the 75th Anniversary of Canadians in Italy , or if you would like more information in regards to the events taking place in Italy for the anniversary click here

References:

https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/history/battlehonours/italiancampaign/assoro.htm

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/second-world-war/canada-and-the-second-world-war/sicily

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak3PoKDL9XQ&t=1658s

#CanadianstoItaly

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1. Strutture di Difesa Italo-Tedesca nel Territorio di Gela

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Ancient ruins, city tours and cannoli on a family tour of western Sicily

Start in Palermo and head west for a family adventure featuring street food, ancient ruins and a magical night tour of the city.

Italians may flock to Sicily’s soft sands in summer, but this far-flung Mediterranean island is far more than just a beach destination. Families can scale Mount Etna in giant off-road jeep buses, feast on classic Sicilian sweets and delve into archaeology at well-preserved ruin complexes like the Valley of the Temples. Older kids, meanwhile, can satisfy any gangster fascination by exploring mafia heritage in Palermo and seeking out The Godfather filming sites in the quiet mountain villages. And with the island lying closer to Africa than Rome, its southerly climate makes it a great choice for off-season travels around Easter and October.

Palermo by night

To beat the heat of the Sicilian capital in summer, try venturing into town after dusk for a guided night tour , when Palermo’s landmarks are magically illuminated. The walk can take in city highlights such as the medieval Kalsa district, the Arabesque domes of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, the Norman cathedral of Monreale and UNESCO-listed Zisa palace.

Gangster’s paradise

Unpick the island’s deep-rooted connection with the Sicilian Mafia, known locally as Cosa Nostra, at Palermo’s No Mafia Memorial museum . It explains the origins of the crime cartel and the government’s efforts to quash the organisation after the Second World War. If you’ve got more time, there are also Mafia-related tours taking in the eastern villages of Savoca and Forza d’Agro, which were key filming locations for The Godfather — a good bet if you’ve got any movie-mad teens in tow.  

Street-food specialities

Sicily’s original thick-crusted pizza is a must try. There’s a topping for every palate so picky eaters are bound to find something they like; the more adventurous should go for the classic, which includes anchovies, herbs and strong cheese on a passata base. For dessert it’s cannoli, deep-fried pastry tubes filled with sweet ricotta, that take centre stage. Arancini — fried risotto balls — are another favourite for a cheap meal on the go. A Palermo street-food tour is a fun way to explore for those whose kids love to try new dishes.  

Sicily’s sweet-making centre

With its sloping cobbled streets and crowning castle, Erice — around 70 miles west of Palermo — has a fairytale quality. But in Sicily this town is best known for its almond pastries — especially those made by local pastry chef Maria Grammatico , whose stories have been immortalised in the biography Bitter Almonds, by Mary Taylor Simeti. Follow the sweet scent of powdered sugar down winding lanes to find her old-fashioned bakery and encourage the kids to order belli e brutti — ‘beautiful and ugly’ — a buttery bite-size pastry laced with almonds and lemon.

Archaeology discoveries

Sicily has more than its fair share of ruins and many of the best are in the west of the island. Closest to Palermo is the fifth-century Segesta Archaeological Park , around 47 miles west of the capital, which offers panoramic views from a Hellenic theatre atop Monte Barbaro. But Sicily’s finest ruins can be found at the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento on the southwest coast — a UNESCO World Heritage site with one of the world’s best-preserved Greek temples.  

Volcano tours to Mt Etna

  The east of the island is famed for its succession of exquisite baroque towns in the south and the cone of Mount Etna on the east coast. Towering 3,329 metres high, Europe’s tallest volcano is also one of Sicily’s seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites — and a family favourite because of how close kids can usually get to the fuming calderas. The trip starts with a cable-car ride up to 2,500 metres, from where 4x4 jeep buses carry travellers higher on guided tours of the lunar-like landscape and smoking volcano craters. Tours are available from Catania, Taormina or Messina, but keep an eye on the local news — Etna last spewed lava as recently as November 2023.  

Where to stay

Villa Igiea Restored at the end of the 19th century by famous Italian architect Ernesto Basile and revamped by Rocce Forte Hotels in 2021, the 124-room art nouveau-style Villa Igiea in Palermo is rich in character. It still retains its frescoes, original furniture and decor with a modern twist, all of which are guaranteed to make kids feel like they’ve stepped into a fairytale. Rooms are individually decorated with lovely hardwood floors and luxury marble bathrooms, and it’s located near the port, overlooking an ancient Greek temple.

Verdura Resort Set on more than 500 acres of southwestern Sicilian coastline, the 205-room Verdura Resort offers uninterrupted views of the sea from private balconies or terraces, designed in a fresh and contemporary Sicilian style. The hotel is packed with facilities to make life easy for families, including a 60-metre infinity pool, a handful of clay tennis courts and four restaurants – plus five bars and a massive spa for the adults.  

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The 10 best things to do in Sicily

I n Sicily, sightseeing is always more than 'just' sightseeing. The combination of history, a balmy climate and a vibrant contemporary eating and drinking scene gives this ancient island all-year-round appeal.

Don't underestimate driving distances, summer temperatures, or the extent of sprawling archaeological sites such as the Valle dei Templi in Agrigento. And try to factor in plenty of off-piste exploration and some of Sicily's ever-growing roster of visitor experiences, from cooking classes to wine tastings and Etna treks.

For further Sicily inspiration, see our guides to the island's best hotels , restaurants , nightlife , beaches and things to do .

Discover a historical melting pot in the capital

Ruled through history by Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards, Palermo is a fascinating historical mish-mash – and, with its palm trees, prickly pears and banyan trees, a botanical melting pot too. Don't miss the glorious 12th-century mosaics in the church of La Martorana (aka Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio) or Roger II’s private chapel, the Cappella Palatina ; and set aside half a day for the trip up to lofty Monreale , whose cathedral boasts yet more dazzling Norman-era mosaics. For a complete change of register, hit the Palazzo Riso contemporary art gallery before exploring the Kalsa area just back from the port, full of weathered Baroque churches and palazzos, and peppered with stylish bars and restaurants.

Insider tip: Many of Palermo's treasure-packed churches come under the umbrella of the ' Circuito del Sacro ': make sure you keep your full-priced ticket at the first one you visit as you’re eligible for a discount at all the others.

Explore town beaches and Norman architecture

East of Palermo on Sicily's north coast is Cefalù. The city occupies a striking position on a promontory beneath a high ruined-castle-topped bluff, its long seafront – part built-up, part sandy in-town beaches – washed by the azure Mediterranean. The narrow streets of its medieval centro storico pulse with life. Towering above are the twin towers of the town's remarkable Duomo , a Norman cathedral begun in 1131. You can feel the Arab influence in the architecture of this beautiful church, but the superb mosaics in the apse and along the side walls are pure Byzantium.

Insider tip: On the western edge of the centro storico, the simple medieval Porta Pescara is the only one of Cefalù's historic town gates left standing. On the pretty beach beyond, sunworshippers lounge among brightly painted fishing boats. It's the place to watch the sun go down.

Visit a pretty town with a vibrant ancient theatre

Discovered by European travellers and winter-sun seekers as long ago as the 18th century, Taormina has an appeal which is not hard to understand, combining a breathtaking position – on a distant spur of Etna, dominating the island's eastern coast – with a balmy climate that allows jasmine and bougainvillea to flower even in December. Its recent TV incarnations and the picture-postcard views of Etna from the town's Greek Theatre (actually a predominantly Roman construction from the first century AD), make it Sicily's most visited town: in high season (Easter through to late October) there are days when it bursts at the seams. But it's still an undeniably pretty place to while away a few days, and its proximity to Etna means it's easy to combine with eastern Sicily's other great visitor attraction – the ascent of the volcano.

Insider tip: Taormina's ancient theatre still performs its original function, with a hugely eclectic programme of classical and contemporary concerts, opera, theatre and dance running through the summer months. Check the programme and purchase tickets through this website . 

Hike around Europe's highest volcano

Sicily bubbles with volcanic activity but Mount Etna, which dramatically dominates the island's east coast, is its rumbly, spewy epicentre. You can drive up to the Sapienza mountain refuge at Nicolosi on the southern flank, and hop on the cable car almost to the summit – to ski in winter, or tramp across eerie black lava fields in warmer months. Footpaths are rugged and often poorly waymarked, so a qualified guide is advisable. The excellent Sicily Into Nature  offers a great range of volcano hiking adventures.

Insider tip: Vines have been cultivated in the volcano's mineral-rich soils since ancient times, but only recently have Etna wines become high quality and very chic. Learn all about them at the Etna Wine School , where American sommelier Benjamin Spenser offers a range of customised tours and tastings.

Explore an ancient Greek power base

In the fifth century BC Siracusa was as large, and almost as important, as Athens – the Mediterranean’s main powerhouse. In recent years it has undergone something of a renaissance, as visitors and second-home seekers discover the charms of its old town Ortygia, which is surrounded by the sea on all sides and connected to the city's 'modern' westward extension by three short bridges.

Essential sights include the Parco Archeologico , with its fifth-century BC theatre where ancient Greek plays are still performed in summer (information and booking here ), and the Duomo , a Baroque cathedral made by filling in the gaps between the columns of the Greek temple of Minerva – eloquent testimony to this beguiling town’s depth of history.

Insider tip: Valiant knights battle Saracens in Siracusa's age-old traditional puppet theatre. Experience it at the Teatro dei Pupi  which runs puppet-making courses for all ages.

Roam around sandstone towns and go chocolate-tasting

The Baroque triangle of Sicily's deep south has exquisite honey-coloured sandstone towns, built in harmonious style by the island's Spanish rulers after the devastating 1693 earthquake. Modica drapes its splendours across two valleys and their confluence. Ragusa is a town divided: bridges across a ravine link lower Ragusa Ibla to higher Ragusa Superiore. Views across the surrounding countryside are superb: catch them from the Parco Ibleo in Ragusa. Even more striking are vistas down the steep staircases that link Ragusa's upper and lower towns.

Insider tip: Modica is celebrated for its grainy-textured chocolate, made according to what people claim is an Aztec recipe brought back by the conquistadors. The oldest and best producer, Antica Dolceria Bonajuto , offers tours and tastings.

Wander through the columns of an ancient Greek temple

For sheer splendour, the Greek temple complexes of western and southern Sicily rival anything you’ll find in Greece, and those at Agrigento are arguably the most impressive of all. The Valle dei Templi archeological site spreads over a vast area and includes two almost complete temples and the partly reconstructed ruins of three others. Accessible from inside the archaeological site (but under different management, with an extra ticket) the dreamy Gardens of  Kolymbethra contain a marvellously restored example of a traditional Sicilian giardino , or citrus orchard.

Insider tip: Watch the sun rise over the temples, explore underground tunnels and necropoli or visit at night for splendid illuminations: there's a range of special-access guided tours, in English, via the Valle dei Templi website . It’s a good way to avoid the crowds.

See exquisite mosaics inside a Roman villa

The Roman mosaics unearthed in the 19th century at Casale, three miles south of Piazza Armerina, are among the richest and most intricate in situ collection anywhere in the world. A huge complex that was in use from the fourth century BC right through to the 12th century AD, the villa most probably belonged to the owner of a large estate, and would have been used to entertain guests and as a base for hunting parties. The site is well worth a detour. The artists (possibly from Africa) who designed these floors had a real flair for colour and composition, and the friezes depicting marine animals, hunting scenes, the circus and the famous bikini-clad female gymnasts are all utterly delightful.

Insider tip: Reminders of the Normans' 12th-century kingdom in Sicily are everywhere, including the superbly austere Gran Priorato di Sant'Andrea, 3km outside Piazza Armerina, a crusader church built by the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Piazza Armerina's mid-August Palio dei Normanni  is a fine re-evocation of knights-against-Saracens battles.

Enjoy archaeology by the beach

Selinunte, located on Sicily's south coast between Mazara del Vallo and Sciacca, stands proud on a coastal promontory carpeted with wild flowers and the celery that gives the site its name. Just one magnificent temple (of seven) has been reconstructed here, overlooking an endless expanse of shimmering Med. Seven miles north-east of the archeological park, Cave di Cusa (open daily, by appointment through the Selinunte site office) is where the stone used in Selinunte's temples was quarried. Suddenly abandoned in 409 BC, it's a fascinating place, with great column sections, carved in situ, still anchored in the mother rock.

Insider tip: It can be hot visiting Selinunte – at 270 hectares, Europe’s largest archaeological park – so take water, wear a hat and bring swimming things for a post-culture dip from the miles of sandy beaches east of the site in the Foce di Belice nature reserve.

Contact:   parchiarcheologici.regione.sicilia.it

Discover ruins near the north coast

As classically Greek-looking as any of Sicily’s temples, the one at Segesta is in fact an imposter, built (though never quite completed) in the Doric style by a Hellenised local tribe around 420 BC. Near the north coast, it’s a pleasant day trip from Palermo or Trapani. A well-preserved temple perches romantically on the crest of a hill. Across a small valley on a facing rise, the still-active dig continues with the remains of a Roman theatre, a Norman castle, a mosque and a 15th-century church – testimony to Segesta's long and very varied history. Visit in spring and the whole area is a riot of wildflowers.

Insider tip: Ruined mosques aren't the only reminder in these parts that the island was ruled by Muslim emirs from the ninth to the 11th century. The area around Trapani is famous for its couscous, traditionally served with a delicious mix of seafoods. You'll find it on the menu in most local trattorie. But if you're here in the last week in September, check out the CousCousFest in San Vito lo Capo.

Contact:   parcodisegesta.com

How we choose

Every attraction and activity in this curated list has been tried and tested by our destination expert, to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets and styles, from world-class museums to family-friendly theme parks – to best suit every type of traveller. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest openings and provide up to date recommendations.

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