D-Day Anniversary Tour 2020: WW2 Battlefield Tours 2020

Major Frank Baldwin

About Frank:

After serving ten years in HM forces as a Royal Artillery Officer, Frank worked in the business services sector in sales and marketing. During this time he became increasingly involved in battlefield heritage. He started working for The Royal British Legion as a tour guide from 2003 and on the staff of the Poppy Travel (official travel department of The Royal British Legion) between 2006-2012.

Frank holds Badge No 8 awarded by the International Guild of Battlefield Guides in 2004 and part of the validation team, responsible for assessing guide’s competence, since 2008. He has instructed on courses teaching battlefield guides.

He was elected a member of the British Commission for Military History in 2012. He is the author of chapters on the battles of the Aisne, Verdun and the Nivelle Offensive for the British Army guide to the Western Front, and a contributor to military history journals. He is writing the official history of the Royal Artillery in Normandy for the Royal Regiment of Artillery as has battlefield guides to Artillery on the D Day beaches and the First Day of the Somme in publication.. He writes a blog www.threobservationpost.com

He is a founder member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides and was amongst the first to qualify for the Guild's prestigious guide badge #8 (there are presently 78 Badged guides with over 720 members of the guild). Frank’s GBG Logbook contains 175 entries for tours taken. These were for a wide range of groups, including Royal British Legion Pilgrimages, battlefield tours for members of the public, private groups seeking bespoke tours, off site management meetings, Staff rides for Army HQs Battlefield studies for units and Realities of War tours for soldiers under training.

Frank is always pleased to design tours that will appeal to a broad range of interests, particularly those following family history queries. He and his colleague Colonel Christopher Newbould were responsible for winning the Realities of War MOD contract which took over 15,000 army recruits to Ypres and other locations. He also lectures widely to historical societies and community groups around the UK on subjects related to the battlefields of the world.

Areas of expertise (conducted tours to):	British Battles Ancient & Medieval: Romans across the Medway (AD 43), William the Conqueror’s wars (1066): Fulford, Stamford Bridge, Hastings, Siege of Rochester , Lewes & Evesham, Stirling, Bannockburn, Falkirk. Wars of the Roses & the Tudors: St Albans, Ludlow, Mortimer’s Cross, Wakefield, Northampton, Edgecote, Barnet, Tewksbury, Bosworth and Flodden The Civil Wars and Stuarts : Edgehill, Brentford & Turnham Green, Lichfield, Marston Moor, Naesby, Worcester, Maidstone, Siege of Colchester and Killicrankie Britain’s WW1 and WW2 military and aviation heritage 1st World War Mons – le Cateau – the Aisne – Ypres – Somme – Cambrai - 1918 battles Aerial warfare over the west front in the Great War 2nd World War France, Belgium and the Netherlands 1940, Sicily, Italy, (The Gothic line battles, Monte Cassino, The Sangro and Ortona, Salerno & Anzio) Normandy, Patton in Lorraine Market Garden, Peel Marshes and the Rhineland, Ardennes, Alsace and the Vosges, Rhine Crossing. V weapons and the Atlantic wall. Aerial warfare over the low countries in 1940, the Battle of Britain, over Normandy, the Netherlands and Germany, and against the V weapons	Other European Battles: 1066 and all that: Mont St Michel, Dol de Bretagne, Magna Carta and Flanders: Bouvines, Coutrai, Cassel Hundred Years war: Crecy, Calais, Agincourt, Orleans Formigny, Thirty Years War: Lutterberg, Rotenburg ad Tauber, Donauworth King Louis’ wars: Dunkireque, Turkheim, Malplaquet, Oudenaarde and Lille. Seven Years War: Hastenbeck, Krefeld, Minden, Warburg & Vellinghausen Kolin & Prague French Revolution: Napoleon in Italy: Castiliogne, Rivoli, Arcola, Caldiero, Marengo Napoleonic: Ulm, Austerlitz, Durnstein, Aspern Essling, Wagram, Dresden, Penininsular war and the Waterloo Campaign Mid C 19th Wars: Solferino, Custozza, Konnigratz, Sedan, Mars – le-Tour, Gravelotte Cold War: Boer and UK Cold war installations and plans.
Interests	Designing tours

Guild of Battlefield Guides	Member and Badged guide number 08
Criminal Record Bureau Checked: (cleared to work with all age groups)	YES
Available for:	Group and personal tours for all age groups