52^nd Lowland Division

The 52^nd (Lowland) Infantry Division was a first line Territorial division mobilised in September 1939. After the fall of Dunkirk the division moved to France in the second week of June 1940. It was withdrawn again a week later. Back on British soil the 52nd was reorganised into a Mountain Division and trained for a mountain warfare role in the Highlands of Scotland. The Division’s major role was to lean credibility to a deception plan, known as Fortitude North that suggested a possible invasion into Norway. They trained for four years under an arduous and intense training regime learning how to operate in the Scottish mountains, manhandling all their equipments including their artillery. Major General Hakewill-Smith and most of his officers were all Regular Army, professional soldiers who demanded a rigid standard of Discipline. He boasted that the 52^nd was “the hardest, fittest and best trained Division in the British Army.” This superb fitness level and ability to operate alone in hostile conditions served them well in the arduous conditions they were soon to encounter. However, the invasion plans changed and the 52nd was then trained in air mobile warfare. Aim was that the 52nd would transform itself into an air transportable formation able to bring two of its three Brigades into action with their light mountain artillery carried in Dakota aircraft. The 52nd was originally planned to take part in Operation Market Garden. In the end the 52nd was never deployed as a mountain unit nor as an air mobile unit, but as a regular Infantry Division.

On the 9^th October 1944 Montgomery asked Brooke to assign the 52^nd Lowland Division to the First Canadian Army. The first major operations of the 52nd were not in mountainous terrain or through the air, but deployed below sea level on the flooded polders around the Scheldt Estuary of Belgium and the Netherlands. Operations Vitality and Infatuate were aimed to capture South Beveland and the island of Walcheren and to open the mouth of the Scheldt estuary. This would enable the Allies to use the port of Antwerp as a supply route for the troops in North-West Europe. It was in this vital operation that the 52nd Division was to fight its first great battle with brilliant success.                                                            

The famous territorial Regiments that were incorporated in the 52nd Lowland Division, were all drawn from the Scottish lowlands, and have a history that in some cases goes back more than 300 years. The battalions of these regiments were spread over three infantry brigades: 155th (South Scottish) Brigade, 156th (Scottish Rifles) Brigade and 157th (Highland Light Infantry) Brigade. The 155th BDE contained the 4th and 5th battalion of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and the 7/9th battalion of the Royal Scots. The 156th BDE contained the 4/5th Battalion the Royal Scots Fusiliers, 6th and 7th battalion of the Cameronian Scottish Rifles. The 157th BDE contained the 1st Battalion the Glasgow Highlanders, the 5th and 6th battalion of the Highland Light Infantry. It should be noted that these Scottish Territorial battalions were bolstered with large drafts of English soldiers and not all drawn from their traditional Regimental recruiting areas.