61st Infantry Brigade (United Kingdom)

The 61st Infantry Brigade was an infantry brigade of the British Army raised in both the First and Second world wars. In World War I it was raised as part of Kitchener's New Armies and served with the 20th (Light) Division on the Western Front from July 1915 onwards. In World War II it fought mainly in the Italian Campaign under the command of the 6th Armoured Division.

History

The brigade was raised as the 61st Brigade in the Great War in September 1914 as part of Kitchener's Second New Army and was composed mainly of service battalions from light infantry regiments. The brigade saw service on the Western Front with the division throughout the war. Both were disbanded in 1919. Harry Patch, later to become the last surviving combat veteran of the trenches, served with the 61st Brigade in 1917 when he was just 19 years old with the 7th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) where he was wounded by shrapnel in September. He would survive both world wars and lived until 2009 when he died, on 25 July, at the age of 111.

The brigade was raised again in the Second World War, now as the 61st Infantry Brigade, in Italy on 21 May 1944. From May 1944 to August 1945 it was part of the 6th Armoured Division and the British Eighth Army. It fought in the Liri Valley, Arezzo, advance to Florence, on the Gothic Line and the Argenta Gap and the Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, Operation Grapeshot.

Structure in World War I

Structure in World War II

World War II Commanding officers

External links