TourGuide

During the course of his work as a military historian, John Norris has been able to utilise his knowledge, gained through research and interviews, and develop skills to work as a tour guide in order to conduct specialist tours. The interest in visiting battlefields is a growth area in military studies and since the early 1990s John Norris has been escorting groups of military enthusiasts to visit a wide range of historical sites connected with either the First World War or the Second World War. For example, he has taken civilian and military groups to visit and explain events at sites such as the Normandy Beaches for the D-Day landings. On other tours he has taken groups to examine the launching sites for the dreaded German V-Weapons and discuss the rockets themselves. The itinerary for this particular tour travels through the Pas de Calais region in France and visits some of the lesser-known, but still important, launching sites.

Included among the range of itineraries which John Norris has visited and conducted groups on battlefield tours are the following:

D-Day Landings: Operation Overlord.

V-Weapons: Operation Crossbow.

Malta: Operation Pedestal.

South of France: Operation Dragoon.

Arnhem: Operation Market Garden.

Dunkirk 1940: Operation Dynamo.

Channel Islands 1940-1945.

This last tour is of personal interest to John Norris, because his family were on the island of Jersey for the duration of five year-long occupation by the Germans. Having been born and educated on Jersey John Norris grew up surrounded by the reminders of the war and has long been fascinated by the period, and in particular the defences built by the Germans. The itinerary for the Channel Islands Occupation tour looks not only at the German Occupation 1940-1945 in overall terms, it also examines many of the defences, some of which are of amazing complexity and size. The tour also discusses the impact of the period on the civilian population and how the military occupying power and civilian Government co-existed.