Classic Battlefield Tours

06/09/2026

Massive waste of time and resources

06/09/2026

No. 601 Squadron RAuxAF - "The Millionaires' Squadron"

Number 601 (County of London) Squadron is a squadron of the RAF Reserves, based in London. The squadron took part in the Battle of Britain, during which the first Americans to fly in World War II were members of the squadron. It was the former squadron of Roger Bushell, the Olympic skier and Great Escaper.

No. 601 Squadron was formed at RAF Northolt on 14 October 1925 when a group of wealthy aristocratic young men, all of whom were amateur aviators, decided to form themselves into a Reserve Squadron of the RAF after a meeting in White's Club, London. The original officers were picked by the first commanding officer, Lord Edward Grosvenor, youngest son of Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster. Grosvenor tested potential recruits by plying them with alcohol to see if they would behave inappropriately. Grosvenor wanted officers "of sufficient presence not to be overawed by him and of sufficient means not to be excluded from his favourite pastimes, eating, drinking and White's". The squadron was known in its earlier days as "The Millionaires' Squadron", a nametag gained because of a reputation for filling their ranks with the very 'well-heeled'. Most of these affluent young pilots had little regard for the rigid discipline of the regular service; they lined their uniform tunics with bright red silk and wore blue ties rather than the regulation black. They played polo on brand-new Brough Superior motor cycles, drove fast sports cars (the squadron car park was said to resemble a Concours d'Elegance), and most of the pilots owned their own private aircraft.

The Squadron became a day fighter unit in 1940 and operated both the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire. Aircrew attrition and transfers to other units meant war quickly took its toll on the pre-war personnel, and as replacements were drafted in from all walks of life and all parts of the Commonwealth to cover casualties and promotions, the Squadron became as cosmopolitan as any other.

The unit reformed in 1946 as a fighter squadron within the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF), initially equipped with the Spitfire, followed by the jet-powered De Havilland Vampire and the Gloster Meteor twin-jet. The squadron disbanded along with all other RAuxAF units during the defence cuts of early 1957.

Reforming on 20 April 2017 at RAF Northolt, 601 Squadron is now a Specialist Support Squadron of the RAuxAF.

05/09/2026

What are bespoke tours?

The bespoke tours we offer work as follows:

You decide where you want to go, what you want to visit and, most importantly, what you want out of the tour. It may be to follow a grandfather, father or other relative who fought in WW1 or WW2, or it could be that you have a particular interest in a military campaign or battle or in following the route of a famous general - whatever the reason, we can help.

The dates of the tour

Subject to the expert guide on your particular requirement being available, you choose the dates. The most popular touring dates are either April/May/June or September/October, when the temperature in Europe is ideal for touring.

Length of the tour

You decide how long the tour should be to fit in with your plans. Some clients have a holiday before or after their tour.

Agreement on the itinerary

Firstly, we give you a draft itinerary, which you can change to suit your requirements. You may want to include more non-military history sites or to have more free time. For instance, if you are visiting the Normandy battlefields and arriving in Paris, you may wish to stop off at Monet’s house and gardens en route to break up the journey.

Cost

Once the itinerary and dates have been agreed, we will give you a price for your bespoke tour. After the deposit has been paid, we book your tour and send you full joining instructions a couple of weeks before the beginning of the tour.

During the tour

We keep in touch with you and the guide throughout the tour to ensure everything is going smoothly and to your expectations.

The result

Reviews such as this:

“Everything went according to your plan. Charlie, the local guide, was incredible. He went out of his way to help us, not only guiding us with Patrick, but then in the evening taking us to the restaurants he had booked for us and helping us with the menus and transport. He was also amazing in Istanbul, not only with all his guidance in the mosques and palaces, but he took us to other very interesting places, walking tours and helped us again in the restaurants and shops. He was also a lot of fun and a very lovely person. I would highly recommend using him again - also, he gets on very well with Patrick.

The boat trip was a surprise as I wasn't sure we had a private boat, but we did, and it was fabulous. We had a great time seeing Istanbul from the Bosphorus, and Charlie pointed out all the interesting places along the way, along with his stories.

The hotel was great too, and in such a fab position with great staff.”

Gallipoli Tour - March 2026

To book your bespoke tour, visit our dedicated page on our website:

Our bespoke tours are specially designed for a client and focuses on unique, highly local experiences. Every aspect of our bespoke tours is meticulously planned to give the traveller the most educational, individual experience possible. These bespoke tours can range from the individual traveller, to...

04/09/2026

The Battle of Halbe (April 24 – May 1, 1945) was a brutal final clash in which the encircled German Ninth Army attempted to break out of Soviet encirclement near Berlin, resulting in massive casualties and a partial escape of German forces.

The Battle of Halbe occurred during the final days of World War II as the Red Army advanced on Berlin. The German Ninth Army, commanded by General Theodor Busse, was trapped in a shrinking pocket in the Spree Forest region, southeast of Berlin, after the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Ivan Konev and the 1st Belorussian Front under Marshal Georgy Zhukov executed a pincer movement to encircle German forces.

The Ninth Army’s objective was to break westward through Halbe to link up with the German Twelfth Army under General Walther Wenck and surrender to the Western Allies, hoping for better treatment as prisoners.

The battle began on April 24, 1945, with the Ninth Army attempting a desperate breakout. The German forces, numbering around 80,000 troops, faced overwhelming Soviet forces of approximately 280,000 soldiers, supported by extensive artillery and air power.

The terrain of the Spree Forest, with its lakes, marshes, and dense pine forests, slowed movement and complicated the breakout attempts. Initial breakout attempts on April 25–27 were largely unsuccessful due to fierce Soviet resistance, continuous artillery bombardment, and deteriorating German command and communications. On the night of April 28, a corridor was finally created through the Soviet lines, allowing some German units to push westward, though at a high cost. The fighting involved intense close-quarters combat, with both military and civilian casualties mounting.

By the end of the battle on May 1, 1945, approximately 30,000 German soldiers managed to reach the Twelfth Army’s lines, while the remainder were either killed or captured by Soviet forces. Civilian casualties were also significant, with estimates of 10,000 civilians killed in the chaos. The Red Army claimed to have killed 60,000 German soldiers and taken 120,000 prisoners, reflecting the scale of destruction. The battle effectively destroyed the Ninth Army as a fighting force and contributed to the rapid collapse of German defences around Berlin.

The Battle of Halbe is remembered as one of the bloodiest and least-known battles of the war’s final days on the Eastern Front. It exemplified the desperate measures taken by encircled German forces and highlighted the overwhelming power and coordination of the Soviet offensive. The battle also underscores the human cost of the final push toward Berlin, with both soldiers and civilians caught in the deadly crossfire.

You can visit this battlefield site by joining our Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Tour from the 11th to the 21st October 2027. Please click on this link for further details:

Explore The rise and fall of the n**i party and the third reich on this expert led tour to Munich, Nuremburg and Berlin led by Dan hill

03/09/2026

Recommended read.

Glory Beckons and Fleeting Glory by Jean Baveystock

These books trace the lives of Michel Ney, Robert Wilson and Michael Bruce on a map of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, as far west as Lisbon and as far east as Moscow, and you would see them meet up by chance time and time again. Though extraordinarily, I discovered that the only time they were ever all in the same room was at a soirée in Paris, July 1814, in the brief time of peace between Napoleon’s first abdication and his return from Elba. The scene is recreated towards the end of Fleeting Glory.

Marshal Michel Ney is Napoleon’s famous “Bravest of the Brave”. With a secret that could destroy the Emperor’s infallible reputation, he is one of the very few to know of Napoleon’s seizures. Unhappily married, but his mistress, Ida, who follows him around from battle to battle, bed to bed. The books tell the heights and depths of his illustrious career. From plaudits to disgrace. The last Frenchman out of Russia in 1812.

Sir Robert Wilson is an English General and diplomat, ignored and impoverished at home but well respected on mainland Europe, where he was awarded Austria’s most prized medal at the age of sixteen. Friends with Czar Alexander of Russia, Queen Louise of Prussia, Hetman Platov of the Cossacks, and Emperor Francis of Austria. Now in his thirties, he fights the French from the sunbaked plains and mountains of Spain to the frozen wastes of Russia, alongside the Cossacks. He is determined to kill Napoleon and nearly succeeds twice.

Michael Bruce is a young, overly handsome, hedonistic Etonian. Determined to pursue his dream of making passionate conquests the length and breadth of Europe. But to his chagrin, his travels are interrupted by Napoleon wherever he goes. His two great loves are Lady Hester Stanhope, a truly eccentric paramour and Aglaé Ney, a renowned member of Napoleon’s Court.

Every character in the books lived—including, most unusually, the servants. Unlike so many historical novelists, I have made these as accurate as they can be. Even the love affairs.

Everyone has heard of Waterloo, but not everyone realises it was the end of some twenty years of almost non-stop war. Although the small English army went to the Peninsula, the other European nations fighting Napoleon, in ever-shifting alliances, were bankrolled in the most part by English gold. The money was raised by a new ‘income tax’. Jubilation at the victory was quite understandable; the nation was on its knees financially. The fear of invasion was ever-present; Napoleon was even more of a threat than Hi**er in 1940.

Surprisingly, Napoleonic history is no longer taught in schools despite having enough gory battles, immoral court life and elegant fashions to captivate just about everyone’s interests.

For more information, visit Jean's website:

Fleeting Glory, by Jean Baveystock The thrilling conclusion to the Three Men in A War seriesOUT NOW Click the button below to pre-order from Amazon. ORDER HERE Welcome. I’m Jean Baveystock, author of historical fiction set in the tumultuous age of Napoleon. My debut novel, Glory Beckons— Book On...

02/09/2026

Battle of Crater - Aden Emergency

The Aden Emergency was an armed rebellion led mainly by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) against the British Protectorate and Federation of South Arabia. It began on 14 October 1963 when tribes from Radfan attacked British troops and ended with the proclamation of independence of the People's Republic of Southern Yemen.

On 19–20 January 1967, the NLF provoked street riots in Aden. After the Aden police lost control, British High Commissioner Sir Richard Turnbull deployed British troops to crush the riots. As soon as the NLF riots were crushed, pro-FLOSY rioters took to the streets. Fighting between British forces and pro-guerrilla rioters lasted into February. British forces opened fire 40 times, and during that period there were 60 gr***de and shooting attacks against British forces, including the destruction of an Aden Airways Douglas DC-3, which was bombed in mid-air, killing all the people on board.

At one point, toward the end of the rebellion in early 1967, the NLF killed at least 35 members of FLOSY in 32 days. The FLOSY guerrillas first asked the British for protection, and then 80 actually flew to the UK using the British passports they had as citizens of a British Colony.

The emergency was further exacerbated by the Six-Day War in June 1967. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser claimed that the British had helped Israel in the war, which led to a mutiny by hundreds of soldiers in the South Arabian Federation Army on June 20 that spread to the Aden Armed Police. The mutineers killed 22 British soldiers and shot down a helicopter. The Sioux crashed and burned out, but all three occupants escaped. As a result, Crater was occupied by rebel forces.

Following the mutiny, all British forces were withdrawn from Crater, and Royal Marines of 45 Commando took up sniping positions on the high ground and killed 10 armed Arab fighters. However, Crater remained occupied by an estimated 400 Arab fighters. NLF and FLOSY fighters then took to the streets and engaged in gun battles, and arson, looting and murder were also common. British forces blocked off the two main entrances to Crater. They came under sniper fire from an Ottoman fort on Sira Island, but the snipers were silenced by a shell from an armoured car.

The operation began on 3 July 1967 with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders commanded by Lt-Col Colin Mitchell ("Mad Mitch") performing a night invasion of Crater, which he termed Operation Stirling Castle, after the Argylls’ regimental headquarters. The enemy was taken totally by surprise, and effective resistance ceased. A particular sign of Mitchell’s confidence was his decision to order the pipe band to march down the main street of Crater, playing regimental tunes, for which the Pipe Major was mentioned in despatches. British troops remained in Crater until the end of the Emergency.

01/09/2026

United States Space Force

The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the United States Armed Forces and was established on 20 December 2019. Part of the United States Department of Defence, it is one of the six armed forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the second independent space force to have been formed, after the Russian Space Forces; together with that of China, it is one of only two still extant.

The United States Space Force traces its origins to the Air Force, Army, and Navy's military space programs created during the beginning of the Cold War. U.S. military space forces first participated in combat operations during the Vietnam War and have participated in every U.S. military operation since, most notably in the Gulf War, which has been referred to as the "first space war". The Strategic Defence Initiative and creation of Air Force Space Command in the 1980s marked a renaissance for military space operations.

Proposals for a U.S. Space Force were seriously considered during the Reagan administration (1981-89) as part of the Strategic Defence Initiative. The National Space Council, established in 1989, began discussing plans for a Space Corps or Space Force, but these plans were suspended shortly after President Clinton came into office. These discussions were revisited in the late 2010s in response to Russian and Chinese Military Space developments. The Space Force was officially established on 20 December 2019 during the first Trump administration.

The Space Force is organised as part of the Department of the Air Force alongside the U.S. Air Force, a coequal service. The Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian secretary of the Air Force, while the U.S. Space Force is led by the chief of space operations. The U.S. Space Force's status as part of the Department of the Air Force is intended to be an interim measure towards a fully independent Department of the Space Force, led by a civilian secretary of the Space Force.

31/08/2026

Fortunate Son

"Fortunate Son" is a song by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, written by the group's frontman John Fogerty. It was released as a single with "Down on the Corner" as its B-side in September 1969, and appeared on the band's fourth studio album, W***y and the Poor Boys, released on October 29, 1969.

The song became a Vietnam anti-war movement anthem and an expressive symbol of the counterculture's opposition to executive power grabs, including opposition to the draft and solidarity with the soldiers fighting the Vietnam War. The song has been featured extensively in pop culture depictions of the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement.

The song, released during the peak period of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, is critical of the unfairness of the draft:

The thoughts behind this song—it was a lot of anger. So it was the Vietnam War going on... Now I was drafted, and they're making me fight, and no one has actually defined why. So this was all boiling inside of me, and I sat down on the edge of my bed and out came "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son!" You know, it took about 20 minutes to write the song.

In his autobiography, Fogerty stated that he wrote the song while thinking about David Eisenhower, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's grandson and President Richard Nixon's son-in-law. Eisenhower enlisted in the Navy Reserve in 1970 and served three years of active duty, most of it as an officer aboard the USS Albany in the Mediterranean Sea.

"Fortunate Son" wasn't really inspired by any one event. Julie Nixon was dating David Eisenhower. You'd hear about the son of this senator or that congressman who was given a deferment from the military or a choice position in the military. They seemed privileged, and whether they liked it or not, these people were symbolic in the sense that they weren't being touched by what their parents were doing. They weren't being affected like the rest of us.[

30/08/2026

Loyal Lusitanian Legion

The Loyal Lusitanian Legion (LLL) was a light infantry regiment of the Portuguese Army consisting of Portuguese émigrés in England which fought in the Peninsular War. It was created on the initiative of José Maria de Moura and Carlos Frederico Lecor, two Portuguese Army colonels who had gone into exile in England after the Franco-Spanish occupation of Portugal in 1807, and Portugal's ambassador to Britain, Domingos António de Sousa. The three men's idea met with a positive reception from the government of the United Kingdom.

The legion received the title "Loyal" to distinguish itself from the Portuguese Legion, a French Imperial Army formation consisting of former troops of the Portuguese Army after Napoleon disbanded it in 1807. The LLL included not only Portuguese troops, but also Britons (including its commanding officer, Colonel Robert Wilson) and Germans.

The legion was organised in Plymouth in July 1808 and landed in Porto, Portugal, in September. Between 1808 and 1811, as part of the Anglo-Portuguese Army, the LLL fought against French-led forces in the Peninsular War. It was present at the battles of Bussaco and Talavera, but was also used to conduct raids and other irregular operations in the French rear lines alongside Portuguese and Spanish forces. The LLL was disbanded on 4 May 1811 after being transferred to the Portuguese army, with its units being transformed into the 7th, 8th and 9th battalions of caçadores.
Organisation and uniform

The Loyal Lusitanian Legion was organised as a regiment of light infantry, with an attached artillery battery. Each battalion included 1,000 men in 10 companies. The artillery corps was a battery with six field guns and 80 men. When the LLL was disbanded, the 1st battalion became the 7th Caçadores and the 2nd battalion the 8th Caçadores. The 9th Caçadores was organised with the rest of the Legion's men. As a light infantry unit, the Loyal Lusitanian Legion received green uniforms similar to those of the British rifle regiments. Furthermore, green was the livery colour of the Portuguese Royal House of Braganza, to whom the Legion remained loyal.