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I am a freelance guide, historian and heritage professional. After retiring after 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.

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

In 2012 I was elected to the British Commission for Military History. My published work includes chapters in British Army Guide to the Western Front, and articles in military history journals. I write a military history blog www.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.

I am writing the official history of the Normandy campaign for the Royal Regiment of Artillery and have battlefield guides to Artillery on the D Day beaches and 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

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 involved in many projects to preserve, interpret and present many of the Battlefields of Britain, including the re-discovery of the battlefields of Bosworth.

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 farther 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.

I have been a guide for over 24 years and a military historian since leaving school. I gained my Guild badge in 2004, receiving it from our late patron Prof. Richard Holmes. I come from a family with a long tradition of military service in both world wars, Korea and Aden, and it was hearing the menfolk of the family talking ( and shooting lines ! ) at family gatherings which ultimately started me off down the road to becoming a guide.
I studied modern history at “S” level at school, studying the Rise and Fall of the third Reich, and took an especial interest in the actions of the RAF and the Royal Navy during WW2 as a result of close family involvement, one uncle a gunner on Lancasters, the other a Chief Petty Officer on HMS Renown.
My interest in the Great War came from talking to my two great uncles, both of whom served throughout, one gaining the MM and MSM and MID twice, the other being cited for a VC ( which he didn’t get, much to his relief ! ). Knowing them as I did, I got to thinking about the ordinary man at war and wanted to visit the places they had been, fought and existed from day to day.
I have an passion for the paraphernalia of war, collecting militaria, uniforms, equipment, and ephemera and I belong to two Living History Groups portraying the ordinary soldier of WW1, and the Home Guard of WW2. I occasionally do film extra work and outreach to schools. I love maps and interpreting the ground fought over, so important in understanding what happened, and more importantly why.

I would like to think that I can bring the events of the past alive for visitors, getting them, as our founder Graeme Cooper would say, to “smell the cordite” !

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.

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 Wg Cdr 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 Gp Capt, 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 Imjin River Battle in 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 the Director of Validation in 2017.

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.

As a retired Royal Netherlands Army colonel, I will offer you a window into history by taking you along the principle locations of what is known as the Battle of Arnhem, as a part of the Allied operation Market-Garden.

Before I started conducting tours in the area, I discovered that there exists a personal relationship with the Battle. Samuel Swarts, then a sergeant of the Dutch Domestic Forces, is a distant relative of my wife. He is one of only three Dutch people who have the honour of being buried at the Airborne Cemetery in Oosterbeek. He died at 09.00 am on September 20, 1944, behind the wheel of a civilian car in front of the Hotel Schoonoord. He was on his way to the British Medical Dressing Station of 181 Airlanding Field Ambulance at the Hotel Tafelberg with water in steel milk churns for the British wounded. The car was hit by a German mortar grenade. He died instantly but his co-driver was rescued by, among others, Colonel Graeme Warrick, the Divisional Medical Officer. Of course this story raised my interest in the events of those days and telling about it, so others can remember as well.

During the tour, I will use my 39 years of army experience in tactics, strategy and doctrine to provide you on the spot explanations. You will be able to visualize the situation as it most likely has occurred between September 17th and September 26th 1944 in the surroundings of and in Arnhem itself. With a special interest in the German side of this battle, I am able to provide a good inside view into both opposing forces in this battle.

Depending on your own schedule I can arrange your tour schedule in such a way that it will maximize your Battle of Arnhem-experience.

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.

Mike St Maur Sheil spent his career working as a photo-journalist in over sixty countries around the world. In 2005 he began a collaboration with the late Prof Richard Holmes, the renowned British military historian, documenting the battlefields of the First World War as they are today.

Since 2014 this work has been presented as a series of outdoor photographic exhibitions, entitled ‘Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace’, which have been viewed by an audience of over 10 million people in nine countries. In creating these exhibitions, Mike has 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’ and, 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.

He has led numerous tours to the familiar British battlefields of Ypres and the Somme but his extensive knowledge of terrain has led to numerous tours of Gallipoli, northern Italy including the Dolomites and the Isonzo valley, the mountains of the Vosges, the Aisne and Marne and the Champagne regions of France.

Furthermore, in 2016 he was commissioned by the US National WWI 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 WWI and the battlefields of Meuse-Argonne, Belleau Wood and the Marne.

Mike is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the British Commission for Military History and currently writing a Masters dissertation on the importance of the aerial photography in the development of Air Power in WWI.

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.’