167th (1st London) Brigade

The 167th (1st London) Brigade was an infantry formation of the British Territorial Army that saw active service in both the First and Second World Wars. It was the first Territorial formation to go overseas in 1914, garrisoned Malta, and then served with the 56th (London) Infantry Division on the Western Front. In the Second World War, it fought in the North African and Italian campaigns in the Second World War.

The Territorial Army, and therefore the brigade and the rest of the division, was mobilised between late August and early September 1939, and the German invasion of Poland began on 1 September, and the Second World War officially began two days later, after Britain and France declared war on Germany. Mobilised for full time war service, the brigade was brought up to War Establishment strength in late October 1939 with large drafts of militiamen, men had been called up earlier in the year with the introduction of conscription in the United Kingdom and had just completed their basic training. The division was destined not to be sent to France to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) but instead remained in the United Kingdom under Home Forces in a home defence role and was sent to Kent in April 1940 to come under command of XII Corps. Like most of the rest of the British Army after the events of Dunkirk, the division spent most of its time in an anti invasion role training to repel an expected German invasion. In July 1940, after receiving the 35th Infantry Brigade from the recently disbanded 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division, the division was reorganised as a standard infantry division and later in the year, on 18 November, the division was redesignated and converted into the 56th (London) Infantry Division and was replaced by 15th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, a hostilities only battalion raised only a few months before, making the brigade, temporarily, an all Royal Fusiliers brigade. However, the 15th Fusiliers were posted elsewhere in February 1941 and replaced by 7th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, a battalion created in September 1940, by the redesignation of 50th (Holding) Battalion. In November 1941 the brigade was sent to Suffolk and in July 1942 was preparing for a move overseas and was inspected by General Sir Bernard Paget, at that time Commander in Chief, Home Forces, and also His Majesty King George VI. The 56th Division, now composed largely of a mixture of Territorials, Regulars and wartime volunteers, left the United Kingdom on 25 August 1942, moving to Iraq and, together with 5th Infantry Division, became part of III Corps under the British Tenth Army, came over underall control of Persia and Iraq Command. The brigade left for Egypt on 19 March 1943 and covered the journey by road, arriving there on 19 April 1943, and was then ordered to Tunisia, a distance covering about 3,200 miles. The division came under command of X Corps, part of the British Eighth Army, and saw only comparatively minimal service in the Tunisia Campaign, which ended in mid May 1943 with the surrender of over 230,000 German and Italian soldiers, a number equal to Stalingrad the year before, who would later become prisoners of war. However, the 167th Brigade had been blooded, and all three battalions had suffered over 100 casualties each. Unable to see service in Operation Husky (the Allied invasion of Sicily), the brigade was destined to see almost two years service mountain warfare in the Italian Campaign and began training in amphibious warfare. Now under command of Lieutenant General Mark Wayne Clark, the youngest three star general in the U. S. Army, and his U. S. Fifth Army, the 167th Brigade, with most of 56th Division (minus the 168th Brigade, temporarily replaced by 201st Guards Brigade), landed at Salerno on 9 September 1943, D Day, where they were involved in tough fighting almost from the landing, with the 8th Royal Fusiliers in particular being battered by German Tiger tanks. Throughout the fighting the brigade, supported by A Squadron of the Royal Scots Greys, had suffered heavy casualties (roughly 360 per battalion) and, after being relieved by other units, secured the Salerno beachhead and later advanced up the spine of Italy, crossing the Volturno Line and later fought at Monte Camino and crossed the Garigliano river in January 1944. With the rest of the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI), however, the brigade, by now very tired and below strength, was held up by the formidable German defences known as the Gustav Line (also the Winter Line). In January 1944, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill envisioned an attempt to outflank the Winter Line, by way of an amphibious assault near Anzio, to capture Rome, the current objective which was being fought for in the Battle of Monte Cassino. As a result, after fighting at the Bernhardt Line and crossing the Garigliano, the division was pulled out of the line, and was transferred to Naples, to come under command of U. S. VI Corps. Arriving at Anzio on 12 February, they were almost immediately involved in heavy combat in the Battle of Anzio in very tough and severe fighting to secure the beachhead, and sustained very heavy losses, which could not easily be replaced. In late March the division was relieved by the 5th British Division and moved to Egypt to rest, refit, retrain and absorb replacements, after sustaining devastating casualties and enduring terrible conditions similar to those of the trenches of the Western Front during the First World War. By the time they were relieved, casualties in the brigade, and the rest of 56th Division, by now very weak, had been so severe that one unit, the 7th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, were reduced to 60 all ranks, less than a company, from an initial strength of almost 1,000 officers and men. Both Royal Fusiliers battalions had also suffered heavy casualties. In particular was the case of the 8th Battalion when, on 16 February during a heavy counterattack, X Company, was reduced to only one officer and 20 men. All that remained of Y Company was merely a single officer and 10 other ranks, after being heavily attacked by German infantry and Tiger tanks, which had fought against the battalion at Salerno. The battalion had, overall, suffered nearly 450 casualties at Anzio, more than half the strength of the battalion. During the fighting on 18 February, the worst day of the counterattack, Second lieutenant Eric Fletcher Waters was killed and his son, Pink Floyd star Roger Waters, wrote a song in his memory–When the Tigers Broke Free–which describes the death of his father. Whilst in Egypt the 167th Brigade, which had been reduced to less than 35% effective strength, and division were both reinforced and brought up to strength largely by retrained anti aircraft gunners of the Royal Artillery who had been transferred to the infantry, and had now found their original roles largely redundant, due largely to the absence of the Luftwaffe. While they were there the brigade was inspected, again, by General Sir Bernard Paget, now Commander in chief (C in C), Middle East Command, and who had inspected the division nearly two years earlier, shortly before the 56th ("The Black Cats") departed for overseas service. The 56th Division, now commanded by Major General John Yeldham Whitfield, returned in July to Italy, where they were inspected by another man who had also inspected them two years prior, H. M. The King George VI. Almost as soon as it arrived the brigade, now under Eighth Army command, found itself fighting on the Gothic Line, throughout the summer, in Operation Olive (where Eighth Army suffered 14,000 casualties, at the rate of nearly 1,000 a day) at the Battle of Gemmano, where the brigade and division suffered particularly heavy casualties. Due to these heavy losses suffered by the division (nearly 6,000) in August and September and a severe lack of British infantry replacements in the Mediterranean theatre (although large numbers of anti aircraft gunners were being retrained as infantry, they had only began their conversion in August and would not available until, at the earliest, October), the 8th Royal Fusiliers and 7th Ox and Bucks were both reduced to cadres and transferred to the 168th (London) Brigade, They were replaced in the brigade by 1st Battalion, London Scottish and 1st Battalion, London Irish Rifles, both from the 168th Brigade, although 1st London Irish had originally been with 167th Brigade at the outbreak of war. This, however, was not actually enough to keep them at full strength and the battalions were placed on a reduced establishment of only three rifle companies. In April–May 1945 the brigade and division, with the rest of 15th Army Group, took part in the Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, where the 56th Division fought alongside 78th Battleaxe Division in the Battle of the Argenta Gap. The offensive effectively ended the Italian Campaign, and the brigade ended the war in Austria with the Eighth Army.