Battlebus - Tours of the D-Day beaches and battlefields of Normandy

Because of our detailed military understanding of the battles in Normandy, we at Battlebus are the ideal people to contact if you are planning to retrace the steps of a relative who fought in Normandy in 1944. We have many maps, books and Regimental/Divisional histories that we use to plan bespoke tours, and we have good contacts with the museums and Mayors. Whether your interest is in an American, British or Canadian Unit, please e-mail us and we will let you know what sort of tour we can put together.

We also have a page about tours we can offer WWII Normandy Veterans and their families, and take a look at our Normandy Battles page for some examples of the sort of bespoke tours we can offer.

The key thing in planning a bespoke tour very different to our standard range of trips is to contact us early. With sufficient time we can put together details of an astonishing variety of American, British and Canadian units. But if we need to organise field trips for our guides to research a new area of Normandy we need plenty of notice - several months being ideal. Please note - this service is restricted to the departmants of Manche and Calvados, an area covering from Cherbourg and Avranches north-south in the west and across to Falaise and Chambois area in the east (approx 4000 square miles.) For other areas of France including Brittany and other departments I'm afraid we cannot help - sorry

If you wish to follow a deceased relative's route through Normandy there are various things you can do to help us work out where he fought. If your relative is American and was killed in the war you can order his IDPF or Individual Deceased Personnel File. There are many sites on the internet explaining how you do this - one is here. For British and Canadian personnel some archives and records can be ordered from the MOD and other records can be found at the Public Records Office - there is useful information here. We ourselves have an extensive collection of books and maps about Normandy and in the case of most Allied units we also know where to look to find more information.

If you are studying the battle of Normandy then again we can help, our knowledge of the ground and geography can aid your research and we have access to places not usually open to the public.

Of course some units are easier to trace than others, in general terms Infantry units are easier than Engineer and Artillery units. Air-force squadrons of the Allied countries are usually quite easy to research and there are reasonable records in existance of the airfields in Europe. For the various Corps level Supply and Logistics units things get a little trickier, but whatever the unit we will do our best to provide something.

Please contact us for further information.