Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of British infantry brigades of the Second World War (1–100)

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List of British infantry brigades of the Second World War (1–100)
Instructions for nominators and reviewers
 * Nominator(s): 

Next up in the British Second World War formation lists department, is the first half of all the infantry brigades that were formed or existed during the period. There is a background section to provide some context on the British Army and brigades, before providing a list of just over 100 brigades. The list includes if they existed when the war broke out or when they were formed, when they were disbanded, where they served, what branch of the army they were part of, and some additional notes about their comings and goings. The list ends with the 73rd Brigade, and another list picks up with brigade 103 onwards (there was no brigades between those two numbers). The list has also been given a pass by the GoCE. I look forward to your comments to help whip it into shape.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 10:42, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Comments Support from Hawkeye7
Hawkeye7  (discuss)  22:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * "Over the course of the war, 140 regular army brigades would be raised, although they would not all exist at the same time, and many were redesignated from one number or name to another." Source required.
 * "By the end of 1939, the Territorial Army had increased to 32 first-Line and 32 second-line infantry brigades." Source required.
 * I have added in a source for both of theseEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As a general comment, I would mention the division a brigade was part of. This will help the readers, who are likely more familiar with the divisions than the brigades.
 * Added in a whole new column to accommodate that. I have only added divisions the brigades were a part of for a couple of months, rather than what appears to be temporary attachments for a few days or weeks etc.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Avoid using code names like Operation Corkscrew. Even Operation Overlord should be "Normandy"
 * All updated, along with some additional tweaks along that column. Do these changes work?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * "Ended the war" is not entirely clear to me. I take it to be September 1945.
 * Would something the effect of the "By September 1945, the brigade was X"?
 * 1st Guards Brigade. Double-check the claim that it ended the war in the UK. It was in Palestine in September 1945.
 * The 1st Infantry Brigade (Guards)? Per Joslen, they were in North Africa from 22 November 1942 through to 3 Feb 1944 when they were deployed to Italy. He does not record any leaves back to Africa or the Middle East for this brigade, as you see with others. He records that they entered Austria in May 1945, departed back for Italy in June and were then air transported to the UK.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * 7th Motor Brigade: Did not participate in the Italian campaign, as it was redesignated the 18th Lorried Infantry Brigade before it arrived. Did participate in the Tunisian campaign though.
 * Quite! I belive this was a copy and paste error from creating the series around the 7th/18th Brigade. Fixed nowEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * 18th Infantry Brigade: Did not participate in the Tunisian campaign, as it was not formed until after the campaign had ended.
 * Updated this one too!EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * 24th Guards Brigade: Most muddled notes: "On 20 November 1940, the brigade was redesignated as an independent brigade group, until 30 October 1942 when it was redesignated as an independent brigade. On 13 March 1944, it again became an independent brigade group until 10 March 1945." The point is that was assigned to the 1st Division, then the 6th South African Armoured Division as its second infantry brigade. After South Africa provided a second infantry brigade, it was reassigned to the 56th (London) Infantry Division. Also, it participated in the Tunisian campaign.
 * I have reworded the note somewhat: it became an indy brigade prior to being assigned to the 1st Inf, for example, and maintained that role - per Joslen - until it was assigned to the 56th. The new div column includes the above mentioned divs, and I have also added in the overlooked campaign.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * 54th, 55th, 56th: should be duplicates of the 161st, 162nd and 163rd.
 * While I believe this is about accurate for some, I have not seen it spelt out as such in Joslen. I reviewed some other sources, but none have yet stated as such either. To provide an example of a "normal" entry, the 4th London Infantry Brigade page states "September 1939: A Second Line ... duplicate of 1st London Infantry Brigade". Whereas on the 54th and 55th pages, it states "A Second Line Territorial Army Infantry Brigade. (1)" Note 1 just states that both brigades were being administered by the 54th Div until the 18th was activated. The 53rd page states "Formed in the United Kingdom by redesignation of 163rd Infantry Brigade a First Line Territorial Army Infantry Brigade". Flipping over to the 161-163 pages, provides no further info on what brigades were their duplicates. The 161st is reported as being redesignated as the 163rd on 18 September. The 163rd has probably the most confusing entry I have seen in Joslen: "A First Line Territorial Army Infantry Brigade. On 18 September the Brigade was redesignated 53rd Infantry Brigade; on the same date a new 163rd Infantry Brigade was formed by redesignation of 161st (duplicate) Infantry Brigade - a Second Line territorial Army formation." I know there was a lot of leeway to how duplicates were formed, and the impression I am left with is that the 54th (East Anglian) did it a little differently to everyone else and butchered their paper trail in the process.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * 73rd Infantry Brigade" "oversea" should be "oversee"
 * Kindly fixed by Nick-DEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review and comments. I have attempted to address them all, either via changes to the article or comments above.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Polite reminderEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 19:43, 14 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Moved to support. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  20:05, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Source review from Kavyansh.Singh Pass

 * "French, David" can be linked again in "Raising Churchill's Army" source.
 * If I am not completely mistaken, David French is not linked anywhere in the article. There does not appear to be an article for the historian.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I confused "Fraser, David" with "French, David". Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 15:29, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "15 February 1944"}} erroneous curly brackets (though, not related to the source review)
 * Thank you for that catch, and now fixed!EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Rest, formatting and reliability of all sources appears to be OK. No major issues, so pass for source review. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 13:14, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review and commentsEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Image review—pass
No licensing issues found (t &#183; c)  buidhe  09:20, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Comments from AustralianRupert
Support: G'day, I have the following suggestions/comments: AustralianRupert (talk) 09:23, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "they were usually assigned to a Corps-level command": decaps corps
 * "Malta, was redesigtnated": typo
 * "Interal security unit": typo
 * "Japan captured it after the Battle of Singapore" --> "It was captured by the Japanese after the Battle of Singapore"?
 * "The brigade was formed when the expansion of the Gold Coast Regiment" --> "The brigade was formed following the expansion of the Gold Coast Regiment"?
 * "as the 1s (West Africa) Infantry Brigade on 4 September 1941": typo
 * "airborne foramtion": typo
 * "fighting in the Tunisian" --> "fighting in the Tunisian campaign"?
 * "British India, in Jungle warfare": decaps jungle
 * "Italian" --> "Italian campaign", or maybe just Italy in the notable campaigns column?
 * "Tunisian" --> "Tunisian campaign", or maybe just Tunisia as per the above?
 * "On 19 May, the brigade" --> year?
 * "to its prior title on 18 June" --> year?
 * add an endash instead of hyphen for the title of the Martin work
 * Citation 14 (Buter, Gibbs, French, Perry) is the only example of a bundled citation in the article, although there are other instances where it could be employed (for instance 118 & 119) -- suggest consistency
 * "[109][107]": suggest reordering numerically (there are a couple of other examples)
 * subheader "Infantry Brigades (1–73)" -- not sure about (1-73) here given the title of the article and given that the bold title of the table then says "1 to 100"; I would just change it to "Brigades" (decapitalised)
 * "they had concluded the territorial army could" --> Territorial Army
 * "a European War" --> "a European war"
 * "was issued with a company of nine French" --> "was assigned a company of nine French"?
 * " This change then followed suit in formations overseas" --> "This change was then implemented in formations overseas"?
 * "The plan was for the first-line formations to recruit over their establishments (aided by an increase in pay for Territorials, the removal of restrictions on promotion which had hindered recruiting, construction of better-quality barracks and an increase in supper rations)...": I'd suggest trimming this a bit - "aided by improvements in conditions of service"?
 * Thank you for your review and comments. I have attempted to action all, with the exception of the bundled citation. I wanted to clarify first. I can go through and bundle all citations together, that is not an issue. I thought general practise was something like a max of three inline cites, and thereafter things should be bundled etc.?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:48, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
 * G'day, I'm not aware of any rule regarding how many citations are required to make a bundle. WP:CITEBUNDLE just seems to say "multiple", as far as I can tell. I have seen two or more used in a bundle before. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:40, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * With that said, all cites in the article have been bundled for consistency.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 20:37, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Added my support above. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:34, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

HF - support
I hope to be able to look at this tomorrow. Hog Farm Talk 06:31, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry it took me longer to look at this than expected.


 * "or assigned to a division" - link division here
 * Link addedEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "At the outset of war, the army had 24 infantry brigades." - clarify that this is the regular army?
 * Clarification addedEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "Brigades organised in this fashion within a division, compromised the division's ability to centralise and concentrate artillery fire to support the infantry brigades" - I don't think the comma should be there
 * I have reworded the sentance somewhat, do the changes work?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I think there ought to be a definite scope statement somewhere, containing a link to the other list, rather than just relegating the link to the other list to the see also.
 * I have added a link to the top of the page and defined the scope within the first para of the lede.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * " On 11 July 1942, the brigade was redesignated as the 12th Division SDF" - is SDF the way it was officially referred to? If not, it's probably worthwhile to spell it out, as the meaning of the acronym isn't going to be obvious to many readers
 * It is the way Joslen refers to the division, while also writing out in full SDF for the brigade. I have reworded the entry, thoughts?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Link Eritrea
 * Link addedEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I see a lot of them are considered to have ended when redesignated, but the 14th infantry brigade was not considered to have ended when it became an airlanding brigade? I see the 31st brigade group is considered to have ended when it became an airlanding unit
 * That is a fair point, and I have added in an end-date (now it is consistent with the List of British airborne brigades of the Second World War too!).EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Through the 35th brigade in the table, will be back later. Hog Farm Talk 16:14, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Sources look good - a bit heavy reliance of Joslen, but I think that's unavoidable here. Hog Farm Talk 01:52, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 72nd Independent Infantry Brigade - any details about the formation in 1941?
 * Joslen does not hold any specific information about its founding. Formed in January 1941, and assigned to Northern Command for about a week. The brigade was then transferred to Northern Ireland, until it was redesignated as a para brigade and transferred to the 6th AB. Anything in particular that you think should be added to this entry?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem to be much that is helpful then. Hog Farm Talk 17:44, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to pop-in and state, I will work on your points next week. I think you are correct about the heavy reliance on Joslen being unavoidable. To the best of my knowledge, its essentially the official reference guide for British Army formations during the war, and there are no other works that go into the same level of detail.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 16:44, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Happy New Year! I am back and have tried to address all commentsEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)