Classic Battlefield Tours

21/10/2026

We will add this to the forth coming tour

21/10/2026

Ludlow Castle

Ludlow Castle is a ruined medieval fortification in the town of Ludlow in the English county of Shropshire, standing on a promontory overlooking the River Teme. The castle was probably founded by Walter de Lacy after the Norman Conquest and was one of the first stone castles to be built in England. During the The Anarchy a civil war of the 12th century, the castle changed hands several times between the de Lacys and rival claimants and was further fortified with a Great Tower and a large outer bailey. In the mid-13th century, Ludlow was passed on to Geoffrey de Geneville, who rebuilt part of the inner bailey, and the castle played a part in the Second Barons' War. Roger Mortimer acquired the castle in 1301, further extending the internal complex of buildings.

Richard, Duke of York, inherited the castle in 1425, and it became a symbol of Yorkist authority during the Wars of the Roses. When Richard's son, Edward IV, seized the throne in 1461 it passed into the ownership of the Crown. Ludlow Castle was chosen as the seat of the Council of Wales and the Marches, acting as the capital of Wales and it was extensively renovated in the 16th century. By the 17th century the castle was luxuriously appointed, hosting events such as the first performance of John Milton's masque Comus. Ludlow Castle was held by the Royalists during the English Civil War of the 1640s, until it was besieged and taken by a Parliamentarian army in 1646. The contents of the castle were sold off and a garrison was retained there for much of the interregnum.

With the Restoration of 1660, the council was re-established and the castle repaired, but Ludlow never recovered from the civil war years and when the council was abolished in 1689 it fell into neglect.

20/10/2026

On a recon trip for a Tewksbury, Ludlow and Shrewsbury War of the Roses tour.

19/10/2026

FIM-92 Stinger

The FIM-92 Stinger is an American-designed man-portable air-defence system (MANPADS) that operates as an infrared homing surface-to-air missile (SAM). It can be adapted to fire from a wide variety of ground vehicles, and from helicopters and drones as the Air-to-Air Stinger (ATAS). It entered service in 1981 and is used by the militaries of the United States and 29 other countries.

The Stinger's combat debut occurred during the Falklands War. At the onset of the conflict, soldiers of the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) had been clandestinely equipped with six missiles, although they had received little instruction in their use. The sole SAS trooper who had received training on the system, and was due to train other troops, was killed in a helicopter crash on 19 May.

Nonetheless, on 21 May 1982 an SAS soldier engaged and shot down an Argentine Pucará ground attack aircraft with a Stinger. On 30 May, at about 11:00 a.m., an Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma helicopter was brought down by another missile, also fired by the SAS, in the vicinity of Mount Kent. Six Argentine National Gendarmerie Special Forces troops were killed and eight more were wounded.

Afghanistan
In late 1985, several groups, such as Free the Eagle, began arguing the CIA was not doing enough to support the Mujahideen in the Soviet–Afghan War. Michael Pillsbury, Vincent Cannistraro, and others put enormous bureaucratic pressure on the CIA to provide the Stinger to the rebels. The idea was controversial because up to that point, the CIA had been operating with the pretence that the United States was not involved in the war directly, for various reasons. All weapons supplied up to that point were non-U.S. sourced weapons, including Kalashnikov-style assault ri**es made in China and Egypt.

The final say-so came down to President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, through whom the CIA had to pass all of its funding and weapons to the Mujahideen. President Zia constantly had to gauge how much he could "make the pot boil" in Afghanistan without provoking a Soviet invasion of his own country. According to George Crile III, U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson's relationship with Zia was instrumental in the final go-ahead for the Stinger introduction.

Wilson and his associates at first viewed the Stinger as "just adding another component to the lethal mix we were building."Their increasingly successful Afghanistan strategy, formed largely by Michael G. Vickers, was based on a broad mix of weapons, tactics, and logistics, not a 'silver bullet solution' of a single weapon. Furthermore, the previous attempts to provide MANPADs to the Mujahideen, namely the SA-7 and Blowpipe, hadn't worked very well.

18/10/2026

Twin Pimples raid

The Twin Pimples were a defensive strong point outside Tobruk, on two hills close together which overlooked the Tobruk perimeter. It was held by the Italian Army, and the 18th King Edward's Own Cavalry (normally part of the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade) held the perimeter opposite. No. 8 Commando was selected to carry out an attack on the Twin Pimples, and conducted patrols for several days with the Indians, to reconnoitre the ground. The 18th Cavalry Regiment was to mount a diversion, while 43 members of No. 8 Commando and some Australian Engineers crossed the Italian forward positions and a supply road, to attack the Twin Pimples from behind.

The Commandos advanced at 11:00 p.m. on the night of July 17 and 18 and crossed the Italian lines undetected. At the supply road they took cover, waited until 1:00 a.m. and edged forward just before the diversion by the 18th Cavalry. The diversion attracted Italian machine-gun fire and Very lights, as the Commandos got within 30 yd (27 m) of the Twin Pimples before challenge, at which the Commandos attacked. The password Jock was used when a position had been taken, and the Italians were swiftly overcome. The Australian engineers planted explosives on several mortars and an am******on dump. The plan assumed it would take 15 minutes for Italian artillery to open fire on the captured trenches, and the raiders were only about 100 yd (91 m) away when shelling began to fall on the position they had just left.

The cost of the raid to the Commandos was five wounded, one of whom later died of his wounds. The No. 8 Commando, together with the rest of Layforce, was disbanded soon after. The operational difficulties exposed, combined with the high command's inability to fully embrace the commando concept, largely rendered them ineffective. Two members of No. 8 Commando, David Stirling and Jock Lewes, would form the Special Air Service by the end of July 1941. Tobruk would remain under siege until relieved by Operation Crusader in November 1941.

17/10/2026

RAF Club Lunch and Talk

Teddy Peacock-Edwards, one of the few and a fighter ace during World War Two.

Talk by his son, Rick Peacock-Edwards

5th November 2026

A South African, Teddy Peacock-Edwards, took part in the Battle for France (September 1939 - June 1940) at the beginning of World War 2 flying the Fairey Battle. After conversion to the Hurricane, he fought in the Battle of Britain (1940), in Malta (1941), and against the Japanese in Ceylon (1942). He is a World War 2 Ace (five or more enemy victories). The story is told by his son, Rick, himself a well-known ex-RAF fighter pilot. Rick will give a fascinating insight into a Battle of Britain pilot who came from a farming background in South Africa and Rhodesia.

What's included

12.30 Pre-lunch Drinks

13.00 Three-course lunch with W**e

14.30 Talk begins, followed by questions and answers

16.30 Event finishes

What's not included

Travel to the event

Cost is £195 per person

Please follow this link to book:

A South African, Teddy Peacock-Edwards took part in the Battle for France (September 1939 - June 1940) at the beginning of World War 2 flying the Fairey Battle. After conversion to the Hurricane, he fought in the Battle of Britain (1940), in Malta (1941), and against the Japanese in Ceylon (1942). H...

15/10/2026

Dr James Stagg

15/10/2026

Valour Road

Valour Road is a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) street in the West End area of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Originally called Pine Street, it was renamed Valour Road in 1925 to recognise three young men—Corporal Leo Clarke, Sergeant-Major Frederick William Hall, and Lieutenant Robert Shankland—who all lived in the 700-block and individually received the Victoria Cross for acts of bravery during the First World War.

Shankland was the only one to survive the war; the other two men were awarded the medal posthumously. Shankland attended the ceremony for the renaming of Pine Street to Valour Road. All three medals are now on permanent display at the Canadian War Museum in Ontario. The three medals were loaned to the Manitoba Museum in 2014 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War. This marked the first time that all three medals were in Winnipeg at the same time. A memorial statue of the three men is located at the corner of Valour Road and Sargent Avenue. The inscription on the Victoria Cross is "For Valour".

The Valour Road Commemorative Plaza is a Victoria Cross-shaped plaza, located at the corner of Valour Road and Sargent Avenue, commemorating Clarke, Hall, and Shankland. Designed in 2005 by David Wagner Associates, it features four bronze plaques mounted on Tyndall-stone bases accompanied by three metal silhouettes, one for each of the three soldiers. (The fourth plaque commemorates the significance of the Victoria Cross.)

A one-minute Heritage Minute short film titled "Valour Road" recounted the heroic actions of these three men.[

14/10/2026

White Man Runs Him (1858 – June 2, 1929) was a Crow scout who served with George Armstrong Custer's 1876 expedition against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, which culminated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

He was born into the Big Lodge Clan of the Crow Nation, and at the age of about 18, he volunteered to serve as a scout with the United States Army in its campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, traditional enemies of the Crow.

On June 21, 1876, he was transferred to Custer's 7th US Cavalry as part of a contingent of six Crow warrior/scouts, including Goes Ahead, Curly, Hairy Moccasin, White Swan, and Half Yellow Face, the leader of the scouts. He scouted for Lieutenant Charles Varnum's column in the days preceding the battle.

In the early morning hours of June 25, 1876, he and other Crow scouts accompanied Varnum and Custer to the Crow's Nest, a high point on the Little Bighorn/Rosebud Creek divide, from which the Little Bighorn Valley could be viewed at a distance of about seventeen air miles. The scouts could see indications of a large horse herd and the smoke of many morning fires, though the encampment was hidden from view on the valley floor. The Crow scouts advised Custer that the encampment was vast. Custer prepared to attack, however. Custer was concerned that during the morning of June 25, Sioux/Cheyenne warriors had detected the presence of his 650-man force, and if he did not promptly attack, the villagers would scatter, thus denying the army the confrontation it sought with the Sioux/Cheyenne forces.

According to White Man Runs Him's accounts, after sending Major Marcus Reno's column to attack the settlement first, Custer headed down Medicine Trail Creek to engage the Sioux and Cheyenne. White Man Runs Him recounts that he and the other Crow scouts intended to follow Custer down into battle but that their chief scout, Mitch Boyer, ordered them to rejoin the pack train instead.

Another, more colourful version of the story relates that the Crow scouts were convinced they were about to die in battle against such a large force of Sioux, so they took off their uniforms and donned Crow war clothing. When Custer demanded to know why, they responded that they wished to die as warriors rather than soldiers. Custer was angered by what he perceived as fatalism and relieved them from further service about an hour before engaging in the final battle.

After the battle, he lived on the Crow reservation near Lodge Grass, Montana. He was the stepgrandfather of Joe Medicine Crow, a Crow tribal historian who used his grandfather's stories as a basis for his later histories of the battle, and grandfather to Pauline Small, the first woman elected to office in the Crow Tribe of Montana. His status as a Little Big Horn survivor made him a minor celebrity late in life, and he even made a cameo appearance in the 1927 Hollywood movie The Red Raiders.

13/10/2026

All the tours for the last six months of 2027

North Wales through the ages

Guided by Michael Garnett

3rd & 4th July2027

Battle of Waterloo Tour

Guided by Pete Smith

5th to 8th July 2027

RAF Club Lunch and Talk on the French Resistance during World War Two

Talk by Francelle Bradford White, BEM

8th July 2027



WWI 1918 Crisis to Victory Tour

Guided by Dan Hill

7th to 11th September 2027

Operation Frankton and Claret Tour

Led by James Stewart-Smith

21st to 25th September 2027

Peninsular War Tour

Guided by Mark Crathorne and Stephen Drake-Jones

2nd to 8th October 2027

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Guided by Allan Wood

11th to 21st October 2027

Memorial Plaque

RAF Club Lunch and Talk

By Paul Quilliam

11th November 2027

For further details and to book, please visit our website:

Welcome to our page of 2025 Tours. At Classic Battlefield Tours we are delighted to present our expert-led battlefield tours. We continue to work with the best battlefield guides across all our trips to deliver the best itineraries and interesting travelling companions.