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John Cotterill is a self employed battlefield guide for families ,military groups, veterans, civilian clubs, 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. He became a Fellow of the Guild in 2025. 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 specialities are taking families to retrace the steps of their Great War or WW2 ancestors and, for military groups, 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.

Michael’s interest in battlefields started whilst researching his great uncle, whose name was on the local war memorial in his home town. This took him on a long journey through the UK and France. He eventually found his grave in Belgium, bringing closure to a family mystery of over 80 years and allowing family members from as far as Australia to visit his grave and pay tribute to his memory.

This discovery led Michael into researching many battles and physically walking the ground enhancing his knowledge and understanding of tactics used on both sides. Armed with this knowledge, he began organising individual, group and bespoke tours to Ypres in Belgium, Normandy in France and Arnhem in Holland which he continues to this day.

As a former Warrant Officer, with over 38 years in the British Army, his operational tours included Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, and exercises in Canada, Cyprus, Kenya and Poland. He has worked with many multinational forces giving him a thorough understanding of how other countries’ militaries operate. He was employed in many roles in the training, administration and welfare of over a hundred strong workforce during peace time and on operations. He was often called upon to plan, conduct and deliver intense training packages for servicemen as part of their continuous personal development and annual mandatory training.

In 2010, Michael gave evidence as part of the Iraq Enquiry, headed up by Sir John Chilcot, regarding the problems incurred during Operation Telic.

In 2020, together with his wife Jane, he set up their company “Avalon Tour de Force” which specialises in family research, bespoke group and individual battlefield tours, military history presentations and living history shows where they travel to schools, public and private events.

Michael was awarded Badge No 117 after completing the Guild’s validation scheme in November 2024.

My interest in military aviation and military history started many years ago and, by the age of 12, I knew that I was going to join the RAF; this dream was realised in 1981. My RAF experience included 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. I completed the International Guild of Battlefield Guides validation programme in November 2011 and hold Badge No 52.

I visit Second World War battlefields, with a particular interest in Normandy, including the D-Day beaches, the airborne operations, and the frequently neglected fighting inland, which led to the crossing of the Seine in late August 1944. I also visit the campaigns across Northwest Europe to the 1945 battles on and across the Rhine. I have also led tours to Salerno, Cassino and Crete.

Having spent so long in the air environment, I have a huge interest in the air war and I have led tours to sites related to the Great War in the air, Fighter Command, the Combined Bomber Offensive and the German secret weapons programmes.

An interest in the Air War naturally leads to the subject of National Socialist Germany. I have taken groups to many sites in Hitler’s Germany, from the development and deployment of the V-Weapons, through the concentration camp and forced labour systems 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!

For most of my adult life, I have been a traveller and my favourite locations are those where major historical events have taken place. I have travelled widely in India and this led to a deep interest in the history of Great Britain’s involvement in that country. I have led groups looking at the story of the Indian Corps on the Western Front.

I’m Joris Nieuwint, a battlefield guide from the Netherlands with a lifelong passion for World War II history. Since 2012, I’ve been guiding individuals, school groups, military units, and history buffs across the battlefields of Western Europe — from Arnhem and Nijmegen to Bastogne and the Hürtgen Forest. My main focus is Operation Market Garden, which took place right in my own backyard.

Growing up near the drop zones and crossing points of Market Garden, I developed an early fascination with the stories of those who fought here. Over the years, I’ve turned that passion into a profession, creating tours that mix storytelling with historical context, using maps, photos, and video to help bring the past to life.

In 2018, I joined the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and became an accredited guide in 2020, earning the David Chandler Award in the process. I also help with remembrance projects like the Stolpersteine in Veghel and take part in living history with the Screaming Ducks, portraying the 101st Airborne. On weekends, you might spot me in my WWII Dodge Weapons Carrier, still running strong.

Through my YouTube channel and virtual tours, I aim to make WWII history accessible to a wider audience — because the stories deserve to be remembered.

Mike is a freelance Battlefield Guide and Historian with over 30 years of military service in the Army Air Corps. Commissioned from the ranks, he has served on numerous operational tours on the ground and in the air, in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. Experience that informs his presentation of events on the battlefields that he leads tours to. Mike’s intent is always to give the battlefield visitor a 360 degree view of their chosen battle, while also presenting the battle from the soldier’s perspective – from the inside out.

Mike has been a Battlefield Guide since his early twenties, during this time he has had the good fortune to lead battlefield tours all over the world, to destinations ranging from from Berlin to Beersheba. Equally at home with a military or civilian audience he has experience leading tours and studies focused on medieval battles, the campaigns of Napoleon, the Great War, and the Second World War. Mike regularly works with Australian, American and British groups. His aviation background enables him to lead specialist tours focused on Airborne forces or the Air War of any period. Most recently he has worked with the US National WWII Museum, leading their Masters of the Air Tour around East Anglia and Southern England.

Author of several books on the Glider Pilot Regiment and the US Eighth Air Force Mike is a regular speaker at the National Army Museum in London, and the UK Army Flying Museum. He co-hosts ‘The Mighty Eighth Podcast’.

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, 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.

He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London (DL) and a former Army Reserve Officer.  He was awarded the Territorial Decoration (TD) in 1993 and the Queen’s Volunteer Reserves Medal (QVRM) in HM The Queen’s Birthday Honours 2011; HM The King sanctioned his appointment as a Member of the Order of St John (MStJ) in 2024.

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 the Priory Lead for London of the Order of St John, the Chair of Voluntary Action Surrey East (VASE), a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of The Drapers Company.  He has been the Chief Validator for the Guild of Battlefield Guides since 2022.

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.