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.

Battle

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tony Smith

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

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.

David Winn

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!

ArrasBattle of AnzioBattle of the Somme...CambraiCassinoDieppeDunkirkMonsNormandy LandingsSalernoVerdunVimyWWIWWIIYpres

EuropeWestern Europe

Adult Coach GroupsBespoke GroupGroup Types...IndividualsMilitary & VeteranSchool Groups

Allan Wood

Accredited Guide Number: 66

Allan served for 22 years in the Regular Army in the 17th/21st 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.