Lieutenant-Colonel Wade Hamilton Russell was born in Manchester in 1945 and educated at Ripon Grammar School and Bradford University, qualifying as a graphic designer. After a year as a TA officer cadet in the Manchester Regiment, he joined the King’s Regiment before attending RCB. In 1968, as a JUO at Mons OCS in Aldershot, he received a short service commission (SSC) into 3RTR, then an armoured reconnaissance regiment in Tidworth. 

Following his troop leader’s course at Bovington where he was awarded the Armourers & Braziers’ prize, he was posted with B Squadron to Sharjah in the then Trucial Oman States in 8 Inf Bde. A year later, after his RSO course, he rejoined 3RTR in BAOR and part of 1 (BR) Corps’ covering force in Wolfenbuttel. When the regiment converted to Chieftain in 1972 and moved to Fallingbostel, Russell became RSO to Lt Col Jack Dixon. 

In 1973, with 3RTR in Northern Ireland, he commanded a ‘rifle troop’ made up entirely of MT personnel that, against the odds, had dominated the pre-Op BANNER troop training and tests. The troop served first at HMP Maze and then at the RUC station in Kinawley, County Fermanagh.

On returning to Fallingbostel, he was made the youngest MTO in the RAC if not the army. By this time, he had applied for a regular commission but with his year-of-birth being full, he had to accept a limited Special Regular Commission (SRC).

Following a Regular Careers Course at Sandhurst, he was posted to Nicosia in Cyprus as Adjutant UNFICYP Logistics Battalion arriving during the latter stages of the 1974 Turkish invasion. Whilst there, he passed the staff/promotion exam and on being selected for the Army Staff College, Camberley, the first SSC/SRC officer to be so, he secured an immediate regular commission.

On returning to BAOR, he was appointed SO2 G3(Ops) HQ 4 (UK) Armd Div in Herford before attending ASC 19 in 1978. It was on the Staff College ‘bottlefield’ tour to Normandy that he first met the legendary Maj Bill Close RTR and learned first-hand of 3RTR’s major role in Operation GOODWOOD. Years later, Russell would return to lead others over the same battlefield.

Post-Camberley, he commanded B Sqn 3RTR in Tidworth and Paderborn. During this tour, being in the ERSP (Emergency Reinforcement Standby Pool), he was posted in 1980 to BMATT (British Military Advisory Training Team) in post-elections Rhodesia to train a battalion of the new Zimbabwe National Army made up of former Mugabe and Nkomo guerillas. After a demanding eleven month tour in Bulawayo in Matabeleland, not without its excitement, he returned to 3RTR in Paderborn to resume command of B Squadron taking it to BATUS in Canada. 

After regimental duty, there followed staff tours at HQ SWDIST Bulford and QMG2 MoD London before a posting as Ops/Trg Offr Royal Hong Kong Regiment. It was in Hong Kong that Russell developed a further interest in battlefield guiding.

On returning to UK, he became SO2 (RAC) All Arms Tactics Wing, School of Infantry Warminster for two years instructing on the then Combat Team Commander’s Course. After six months instructing at the Tactics Wing RAC Centre Bovington, he was appointed British Exchange Officer to the Command and Staff School, US Army Armor Center at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Whilst at Fort Knox, he led numerous civil war battlefield staff rides. On promotion to lieutenant colonel, Russell returned to UK as SO1 (Land Warfare) Joint Warfare Staff at RM Poole Dorset until 1993.

Having taken redundancy, his last tour was in Vienna with the Initial Operations Planning Group, the military component of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE now OSCE). In post-cold war Europe, this took him extensively to Russia and the troubled former USSR states of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh. 

On leaving the regular army in 1994, he immediately joined CVHQ RA (TA) Woolwich as SO1 Chief LNO to 1 (UK) Armd Div in Herford BAOR. He remained in that post for over six years serving under numerous GOCs with his final CR commenting that Russell was “probably the best known officer in BAOR.”

During this period, he was posted to Bosnia as Chief LNO 3 (UK) Div at HQ ARRC in Sarajevo. Early in the tour, he was CASEVAC to UK for two months with severe pneumonia the legacy of which never left him. He left the service in 2001 after thirty-six years.

By now, however, Russell had already begun to forge a second career albeit part-time, as a military historian and guide working for Holts Battlefield Tours, the field-leader in its day. He led over seventy professional tours mainly to the Great War battlefields including Verdun and Gallipoli and was a leading council member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides being the first to be awarded its prestigious guide badge in 2003. Later, he was Chairman of the Manchester Regiment Officers Association and President of the Loyal Georgean Society. He was also a member of the RUSI and Western Front Association.

Lieutenant Colonel Wade Russell married first in 1967, Valerie Barker and secondly in 1994, Sarah Riddle with a daughter Charlotte and a son William from his first marriage.