The 47th (London) Infantry Division was an infantry division of the British Army that was formed during the Second World War and remained in the United Kingdom until the end of the war. In March 1939, after the re-emergence of Germany as a significant military power and its occupation of Czechoslovakia, the British Army increased the number of divisions in the Territorial Army (TA) by duplicating existing units. The 2nd London Division was formed in August 1939 as a second-line duplicate of the 1st London Division; its battalions were all initially London-based.
The division was established as a motor division and was fully mobile, with two infantry brigades rather than the usual three for an infantry division. The intention was to increase battlefield mobility, enabling the motor divisions to follow armoured forces through breaches in the opposing front line rapidly to consolidate captured territory. Following the Battle of France, the motor division concept was abandoned. The division was then allocated a third infantry brigade, becoming an infantry division. In November 1940, it was renamed the 47th (London) Infantry Division.
The division was to remain in the United Kingdom to complete training before being deployed to France within twelve months of the war breaking out. Instead, after Dunkirk the division was dispersed to protect strategically important locations and undertake anti-invasion duties and was moved to Wales to defend the country from invasion. In early 1941, it was transferred to the southern English coast on anti-invasion duties. During this period, the division developed training methods that were disseminated throughout the British Army within the United Kingdom. In 1944, parts of the division assisted in Operation Bodyguard, the deception efforts in support of Operation Overlord, as well as providing administrative services during the build-up to invasion. Manpower in the division was slowly reduced as it reinforced combat formations within the 21st Army Group. The division was disbanded in August 1944.
In September 1944, the division was reformed as the 47th Infantry (Reserve) Division, which was composed of personnel from the disbanded 76th Infantry (Reserve) Division. The division, now a training formation, was made responsible for providing final tactical and field training once soldiers had passed their initial training. After five additional weeks of training, the soldiers would be posted to fighting formations overseas. The 47th Infantry (Reserve) Division was disbanded as part of the demobilisation of the British Armed Forces after the Second World War, in 1946 and was not reformed when the TA was reconstituted in 1947.
Background
Throughout the 1930s, tensions built between Germany and the United Kingdom and its allies. During late 1937 and 1938, German demands for the annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia led to an international crisis. To avoid war, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in September 1938 and signed the Munich Agreement, which accepted that Germany would annexe the Sudetenland. Chamberlain had intended the agreement to lead to a further peaceful resolution of differences but relations between the countries soon deteriorated. On 15 March 1939, Germany breached the terms of the agreement by invading and occupying the remnants of Czechoslovakia.
On 29 March, the British Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha, announced plans to increase the strength of the part-time Territorial Army (TA) from 130,000 men to 340,000, doubling the number of divisions. The plan was for existing TA divisions, referred to as the first-line, to recruit over their establishments. This would be accomplished by an increase in pay for territorials, the removal of restrictions on promotion that had hindered recruiting, the construction of better-quality barracks, and an increase in supper rations. The units would then form a new division that was referred to as the second-line from cadres. This process was dubbed "duplicating". The 2nd London Division was to be created as a second-line formation, a duplicate of the first-line 1st London Division. Despite the intention for the army to grow, the programme was complicated by a lack of central guidance on the expansion and duplication process, and issues regarding the lack of facilities, equipment and instructors. It had been envisioned by the War Office that the duplicating process and recruiting the required number of men would take no more than six months. In April, limited conscription was introduced; at that time 34,500 men, all aged 20, were conscripted into the regular army, initially to undergo six months of training before being deployed to the forming second-line units. The process varied widely between the TA divisions; some were ready in weeks while others had made little progress by early September 1939, when war on Germany was declared.
History Formation
Due to a lack of official guidance, newly formed units were at liberty to choose numbers, styles, and titles. The 1st London Division created the 4th London Infantry Brigade as a second-line duplicate of the 1st London Infantry Brigade, and the 5th London Infantry Brigade as a second-line duplicate of the 2nd London Infantry Brigade. These newly formed brigades were assigned to the 2nd London Division, which became active on 24 August 1939 and was assigned to Eastern Command. Command of the 2nd London was given to Major-General Harry Willans, who had previously commanded the 2nd London Infantry Brigade. and On formation, the 4th London Brigade consisted of the 11th and 12th Battalions, Royal Fusiliers, and the 2nd Battalion, London Irish Rifles (Royal Ulster Rifles). The 5th London Brigade was made up of the 2nd Battalion, Queen's Westminsters (King's Royal Rifle Corps), the 2nd Battalion, London Scottish (Gordon Highlanders), and the 2nd Battalion, London Rifle Brigade (Rifle Brigade). To denote the division's association with London, the formation insignia represented the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church.
The division was formed as a motor division, one of five such divisions in the British Army. British military doctrine development during the inter-war period resulted in three types of division by the end of the 1930s; the infantry division, the mobile division (later called the armoured division), and the motor division. Historian David French wrote, "the main role of the infantry ... was to break into the enemy's defensive position". This would then be exploited by the mobile division, followed by the motor divisions that would "carry out the rapid consolidation of the ground captured by the mobile divisions", therefore "transform[ing] the 'break-in' into a 'break-through'." According to French, the motor division "matched that of the German army's motorized and light divisions. But there the similarities ended." The German motorised divisions contained three brigades and were as fully equipped as a regular infantry division; while their smaller, light divisions contained a tank battalion. The British motor division was fully motorised and capable of transporting all of their infantry. However, it was "otherwise much weaker than normal infantry divisions", or their German counterparts. This was due to it being made-up of only two brigades instead of three, having two artillery regiments as opposed to an infantry division's three, and due it having no tanks.
Home defence
It was planned that the TA divisions would be deployed intact to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France as equipment became available, and that all 26 TA divisions would be deployed by the end of the first year of the war. Instead, the division was dispersed around London to protect strategically important locations, known as vulnerable points, including the London Docks. C. Northcote Parkinson, author of the Royal Fusiliers history of the Second World War, wrote that the 11th Battalion fired "some of the first shots of the war", a "hair-triggered" reaction to intruders near the Waltham Abbey explosives factory, which it was assigned to guard. At the end of the year, the division moved to Hertfordshire to conduct training exercises. In May 1940, the majority of the division's men were relocated to Cambridgeshire, leaving two battalions to defend London. In Cambridgeshire, the division was made Eastern Command's reserve formation, which was to be used as a counterattack force against any German airborne landings. Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces, General Walter Kirke, believing the East of England was under threat of invasion as a result of the German operations in mainland Europe, transferred several divisions to defend the coast. Part of this effort involved temporarily splitting the division into two brigade groups. One moved to the Suffolk coastline, to supplement the 55th (West Lancashire) Motor Division on the east coast. The other remained in Cambridgeshire, with troops assigned to varying duties that included the protection of vulnerable points, construction of defensive positions, and defending Royal Air Force (RAF) airfields. On paper, an infantry division was to have seventy-two 25-pounder field guns. On 31 May, the division had eight-such modern guns, four First World War-vintage 18-pounder field guns, and eight howitzers of similar vintage. The division lacked the motor vehicles it needed to fulfil its motor division role and had to rely heavily on commandeered civilian transport.
As a result of the German victory in the Battle of France and the return of the BEF following the Dunkirk evacuation, the division was not deployed overseas per the original TA deployment timeline. As soon as the Battle of France ended, the British Army began implementing lessons learnt from the campaign; this included basing the standard division around three brigades and the abandonment of the motor-division concept. This process involved the break-up of four second-line territorial divisions to reinforce depleted formations and helping change the Army's five motor divisions – each of which consisted of two brigades – into infantry divisions made up of three brigades. As part of this process, the 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division was disbanded and its units were dispersed to other divisions to bring them up to strength. The 114th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery and the remnants of the 36th Infantry Brigade were assigned to the 2nd London Division at this time. The 36th Infantry Brigade was being reformed after suffering heavy casualties during the Battle of France; it was removed and assigned to III Corps shortly afterwards. The 25th Infantry Brigade, which had been part of the BEF's line-of-communication forces and then attached to a string of divisions during the fighting in France, was permanently assigned to the division on 25 June. A newly raised Royal Engineer field company, the 222nd, also became part of the division. With the addition of a permanent third brigade, and the additional artillery and engineer units, the 2nd London Division became an infantry division.