Guided Battlefield Tours offers a unique insight into the events on the battlefields of World War One and World War Two. At the same time, our tours also offer a deeply moving insight into the heroism and personal sacrifice of the men involved. Veterans of the D Day Normandy Landings still join battlefield tours to the sites of the landings, to sites such as Pegasus Bridge and the sites of the fierce fighting for Normandy. Families of WW1 soldiers also travel to the 1st World War battlefields to share in their past and often to visit the cemeteries where they are buried. The Thiepval Memorial on the Somme and the Last Post ceremony, which takes place every day in Ypres at the Menin Gate, are poignant reminders of the sacrifices of a generation, made in order to preserve the freedoms which we take for granted.
On the first day of the Battle of the Somme some 57,000 British soldiers were either killed or wounded and their remains were often lost forever on the battlefields where they fell. Our battlefield tours visit sites such as the unforgettable cemetery at Tyne Cot which brings home powerfully the sheer numbers who died in Flanders field. As well as the allied servicemen of the First World War who lost their lives or were injured, the Langemark German Cemetery containing over 44,000 German graves and the site of bitter fighting is also a poignant reminder of the loss which occurred on both sides.
Our battlefield tours also include sites, which remind us of the sheer scale of the fighting on The Western Front. We visit Fromelles, which witnessed major Australian losses and is now the last resting place of soldiers lost for so long on the battlefields. On the battlefield tour of Loos we see the site where Britain first used gas and Kitchener’s recruits took part in a major battle for the first time.
Books, TV programmes and magazines, as well as internet websites, offer a view of the battles of World War One and Two. However, to see the ground and walk in the footsteps of the soldiers who fought and often died will transform your understanding of what these men experienced and endured. Our walking battlefield tour of the Somme will enable you to walk the trench lines and explore in detail the ground where soldiers fought.
On a Second World War tour you will be able to visit Pegasus Bridge in Normandy, the scene of one of the most daring operations of the war, which took place in the first few hours of the 6th of June 1944. Taking the bridge was essential to the success of the D Day landings, protecting the beaches from German counterattacks, and, therefore, essential to the eventual victory over the German occupation Forces.
We visit the remains of the Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches and the museum commemorating the landings. In addition we visit Omaha beach, the site of heavy American loss, and the Hillman bunker system which was an essential element in the German Army’s defences along the coast. History is real; the true scale of the battles and the price paid by so many can be vividly imagined when you are following in the path of their history.
Our new Dunkirk tour in 2013 will take you to the sites of the battlefields where so many gallant soldiers gave their lives to hold back the German advance and allow their comrades to board the boats which took them back home. See the beaches where such heroism was shown by the flotilla of little boats that came alongside the navy to rescue our troops. Our new Arnhem battlefield tour will also take you to the scene of one of the most dramatic episodes from the last months of World War 2.
Let us take you on a journey into history, a history which Guided Battlefield Tours will bring alive, a history which is still in living memory and still reverberates in our collective consciousness. A journey into the battlefields of the First and Second World War is a journey few forget, and one which we are proud to be able to offer.