Are you looking for a professional guide to take you on a battlefield tour? Are you working as a battlefield guide, would you like to find out more about becoming validated as a battlefield guide?
The International Guild of Battlefield Guides is the foremost organisation dedicated to touring the battlefields. We enable guides and historians to share information, expertise and knowledge; we help visitors to find accredited battlefield guides who can help them to explore the past. We all have one thing in common: a love of military history and a desire to ensure the sacrifices of past generations in war are not forgotten.
Our Honorary Members include Tonie and Valmai Holt, the pioneers of battlefield guiding, and our Guild President is the award-winning historian and author, Dr. Spencer Jones.
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Find out more about the International Guild of Battlefield Guides’ Accrediation Progamme, and all the associated benefits of being a Guild Member.
Coming Up
Annual Golf Championships 2023
Every year the Guild of Battlefield Guides holds its Annual Golf Championships; more details nearer the time from James Davis.
Accredited Guides’ Annual Dinner
The annual Badged Guides Dinner will be held in London on 18 August 2023. Further details from Tony Scott in due course.
Cold War Recce
A Cold War recce is planned for September 2023. It will be held in the former East Germany (GDR) and will study both NATO and the Warsaw Pact Naval capability, Air capability, Land capability, the use of Special Forces, Intelligence gathering and the Soviet plan to invade Berlin and Western Europe. The event would have the usual quiz, prizes and a visit to Colditz Castle.
Normandy Recce
The Guild will be running a recce in Normandy in November 2023. Dates are Friday 3 November to Sunday 5 November. The aim is to cover the British and Canadian break out battles. Please note the dates in your diary for now.
Full details will be available in the New Year and we will be asking for names then.
We are looking for three or more experienced guides to volunteer, one to lead each day. Once we have the leads for each day or part of a day we can then pull the programme together. We can split the days up between lead guides if we need to.
The general topics for each day are likely to be:
- Day 1 – Op GOODWOOD, TOTALIZE and TRACTABLE.
- Day 2 – Op EPSOM, Hill 112 and Villers Bocage.
- Day 3 – Op BLUECOAT and Mount Pincon.
There is an option to do either Falaise, or Op COBRA and the Americans at St Lo, and if someone wanted to volunteer to do one of those we could drop one of the other topics.
If you would like to volunteer to take on one of the main topics as lead guide please get in touch with Simon Burgess on sfb22@hotmail.com.
Annual Conference & AGM 2024
Our Annual Conference and AGM weekend will be held in the Doubletree Hotel, Lincoln. We will include the usual mix of activities – validation opportunities, Guild AGM (Saturday afternoon), Guild Awards Dinner, a quiz, bring-and-buy stall, and a range of speakers.
There will be a pre-Conference visit to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, with a hangar floor visit.
More details can be found in the overview here. Note that applications, and a deposit, must be with the Secretary by 1 July 2023; the application form is here.
Ypres Recce
The Guild will conduct an Ypres recce 11-15 March 2024 , very much along the lines of the 2022 Guild Somme recce. The purpose will be to focus on some of the lesser known aspects of the Immortal Salient. The outline programme will be:
- 11 March. Deploy
- 12 March. The Indian Corps in the Salient 1914-1915
- 13 March. The Logistics of 3rd Ypres 1917
- 14 March. The Battle of the Lys 1918
- 15 March. Recover
Transport will be in shared cars
Please indicate interest to John Cotterill on john.cotterill@btinternet.com, so that he can look at accommodation in Ypres , which is always difficult to arrange for large numbers at short notice.