23rd (Northumbrian) Division
The 23rd Division was formed in October 1939 as a second-line duplicate of the 50th Motor Division. It was made up of two brigades, unlike regular infantry divisions that were composed of three, with battalions hailing from the north of England. The division spent little time training and its soldiers were dispersed and used to guard strategically important and vulnerable locations across North East England. In April 1940, the division was sent to France to defend the Canal du Nord, the only defensible position at which to stop the German attempt to encircle the BEF. The men of the division conducted delaying and rearguard actions around the perimeter before being evacuated on 31 May 1940.
About 23rd (Northumbrian) Division in brief
The 23rd Division was formed in October 1939 as a second-line duplicate of the 50th Motor Division. It was made up of two brigades, unlike regular infantry divisions that were composed of three, with battalions hailing from the north of England. The division spent little time training and its soldiers were dispersed and used to guard strategically important and vulnerable locations across North East England. In April 1940, the division was sent to France to defend the Canal du Nord, the only defensible position at which to stop the German attempt to encircle the BEF. By the time the division arrived at the canal, the Germans had already crossed south of their sector where French forces had yet to take up positions. The men of the division conducted delaying and rearguard actions around the perimeter before being evacuated on 31 May 1940, having suffered heavy losses. In Britain, the unit was disbanded and its units were transferred to other formations to bring them up to strength. The process was dubbed “duplicating the second cadres” and was complicated by a lack of central guidance and issues regarding lack of facilities, equipment and instructors. It took no more than six months to recruit the initial cadre of 25 officers and 25 men for each battalions, each based around an initial base of Durham Light Infantry Regiment. In March 1939, the British Secretary of State for War Leslie Hore-Belisha announced plans to increase the part-time Territorial Army from 130,000 men to 340,000, doubling the number of divisions.
This led to the creation of the 23rd Division to be created as a duplicate of the first-line formation, the first 50th Motor Division. Despite the intention for the army to grow, the expansion and duplication process was complicated. It had been envisioned by the War Office that the duplicating process and recruiting the required numbers of men would take more than 6 months, but the process took less than a year. The 23rd Division was disbanded in May 1940 after suffering heavy losses in the Battle of Arras and the evacuation of Dunkirk. It has been described as one of the most successful divisions in the history of the British Army, and is one of only a handful of British divisions to survive the Second World War. It is the only British division to have fought in both the First and Second World Wars, and the only one to have seen action in both world wars. The Division was disbanded after the end of the war in 1945, when the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was reduced to a strength of just over 100,000. The BEF and French armies moved to meet the attack, leaving behind the 23th Division to continue guarding airfields. When the German attack came through the Ardennes and moved to cut off the British and French forces in northern France, the men were assigned to aid in the construction and guarding of air fields. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Edmund Ironside, secured a promise from theBEF that the division would not be used in action owing to it being untrained and incomplete.
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