The 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division was an infantry division of the British Army, part of the Territorial Force, which saw service in the trenches of the Western Front, during the later years of the Great War and was disbanded after the war.
The division was created at the end of August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War as the 2nd East Lancashire Division, a second-line formation of the East Lancashire Division, composed primarily of soldiers from eastern Lancashire and the industrial towns around Manchester. After training and home service, it went to the Western Front in early 1917 and on 9 October, fought at the Battle of Poelcappelle. In March 1918, it suffered extremely heavy losses during Operation Michael the German spring offensive and was withdrawn from the line and reduced to a cadre to be rebuilt. It returned to the front in time for the Battle of Cambrai, part of the Hundred Days Offensive and the Battle of the Selle. Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918, it was stationed in Belgium, where it was demobilised in March 1919. The division was not reformed after the war.
History Formation and home service
The division was created at the end of August 1914, as the 2nd East Lancashire Division, a second-line formation of the East Lancashire Division. Territorial Force soldiers could not be deployed overseas without their consent and the Territorial units were accordingly split into a "first line", with men who had volunteered for overseas service and a "second line", which was intended for home service, by the ten per cent who refused to volunteer on 12 August. The second line units also served to absorb the large number of recruits who had joined the Territorial Force following the outbreak of war. The first commander was Brigadier-General Charles Beckett, a 65-year-old retired officer, who had commanded a Yeomanry brigade some years earlier.BECKETT, Brig.-Gen. Charles Edward, in Who Was Who (2008)
As with the original East Lancashire Division, the 2nd East Lancashire was organised in three infantry brigades of four battalions each. These were later numbered as the 197th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade, composed of the 2/5th, 2/6th, 2/7th and 2/8th Lancashire Fusiliers; the 198th (East Lancashire) Brigade, composed of the 2/4th and 2/5th East Lancashire Regiment and the 2/9th and 2/10th Manchester Regiment; and the 199th (Manchester) Brigade, composed of the 2/5th, 2/6th, 2/7th and 2/8th Manchester Regiment. The 197th Brigade drew its men from Bury and Salford, Greater Manchester; the 198th Brigade from Blackburn, Burnley Ashton-under-Lyne and Oldham and the 199th Brigade from Wigan, Manchester and Ardwick. The division also raised second-line Territorial artillery, Royal Army Medical Corps and Royal Engineer units, all from the Lancashire–Manchester recruiting area and had an attached squadron of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry.
For two years, the 2nd East Lancashire Division (numbered the 66th Division in August 1915), provided trained replacements for its parent unit and carried out home defence duties in England. Elements of the division assembled near Southport in late 1914, then moved south to the Kent–Sussex area in May 1915 and to Essex in early 1916. In early 1915, the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, a second-line battalion, was detached for overseas service and joined the 51st (Highland) Division. The battalion was replaced by another duplicate battalion, the 3/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, which became one of the few third-line territorial battalions to see active service. One of the three companies of Royal Engineers, was sent to France in 1915 to join the 48th (South Midland) Division and during 1916, three of the four heavy and howitzer artillery batteries were withdrawn or broken up. Following the Military Service Act of January 1916, all Territorial soldiers were deemed liable for overseas service and in February 1917, the 66th Division was instructed to prepare for a move to continental Europe and received a new and experienced commander, Major-General Herbert Lawrence.
Flanders and Poelcappelle, 1917
The division arrived in France in early 1917 as part of the last batch of second-line Territorial divisions to be sent from Britain, and was attached to the First Army. On 12 April, Brigadier-General Godfrey Matthews, a former Royal Marine officer commanding 198th Brigade, was wounded by shellfire and died the next day. In June, the division was transferred to the XV Corps of the Fourth Army on the relatively quiet coastal sector in Flanders. During the summer, XV Corps was held ready for Operation Hush, an amphibious landing by the 1st Division and a coastal offensive by the rest of XV Corps, which was planned to support an advance from Passchendaele Ridge east of Ypres, by the Fifth Army. The operation was postponed several times and was cancelled in October. At the end of September, the 66th Division was relieved by its parent unit, the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division. After a few days of overlap, where many men were able to meet friends and relations they had not seen since 1914, the division moved south to the Ypres area. The division was assigned to II Anzac Corps, a predominantly Australian formation and the 199th Brigade moved into the front line to replace the 3rd Australian Division on 5 October. The relief was badly mismanaged, leaving the Australian staff officers doubtful of the efficiency of the division. On 9 October, the division made its debut in the Battle of Poelcappelle.
On the night of the 197th and 198th brigades had begun to cover the to the front line, which usually took about hours. Despite starting ten hours before the attack, the 197th Brigade was late. At zero hour, the 198th Brigade attacked on the left flank of the divisional front, into defences which had been little damaged by the artillery bombardment, advancing behind a meagre creeping barrage and were held up short of the first objective. The 197th Brigade arrived late on the right flank, exhausted and disorganised after a twelve-hour march through mud but attacked as soon as it arrived. The brigade rapidly advanced over drier sandy ground and reached the final objective, short of Passchendaele village at an officer's patrol entered the village and found it empty. Around midday, the 197th Brigade battalions near the village withdrew their flanks, to gain touch with the units on either side at the first objective; the troops in the centre misinterpreted this and also withdrew the same distance. A German counter-attack was repulsed at and before nightfall, the divisional commander ordered a short withdrawal, to link with the 49th Division on the left and to avoid enfilade fire from the Bellevue Spur. The brigade ended the day beyond the start line for the loss of the division was relieved by the 3rd Australian Division on the night of
A second senior officer was killed in action, when Brigadier-General Arthur Lowe, commanding the divisional artillery, was killed near Ypres on 24 November. In late December 1917, a new commanding officer, Major-General Neill Malcolm was appointed to the 66th Division. Malcolm was a decorated veteran of several colonial wars, who had served in staff posts since being wounded in the Second Boer War and had most recently served as chief of staff of the Fifth Army. The division was reorganised over the winter, with the brigade machine-gun companies being consolidated into a battalion and a pioneer battalion, the 1/5th Border Regiment joining the division. The most substantial change was the loss of three battalions, the 3/5th Lancashire Fusiliers and 2/8th and 2/10th Manchester Regiment, one from each brigade. This was a change made in all British divisions, to bring the remaining battalions in France up to strength and to increase the ratio of artillery to infantry. At this point, there was a general exchange of men between the 42nd and 66th Divisions; the core of the 1/6th Lancashire Fusiliers, 1/4th East Lancashires, and 1/9th Manchesters were transferred to the 66th Division, where they amalgamated with their second-line counterparts, while the 42nd Division received the men from the disbanded battalions in the 66th Division. The division remained in the Passchendaele area until February 1918.
Battle of St. Quentin
In March 1918, the 66th Division was assigned to XIX Corps in the Fifth Army, holding an area north of Saint-Quentin, bordering the 24th Division of XIX Corps on the right and 16th (Irish) Division of VII Corps on the left. The corps sector was between the River Cologne in the north and the Omicron in the south. Under a new defence in depth scheme, small strongpoints in a "forward zone" was to delay and disrupt an attack, harassing it with machine-gun fire. The main body of the division remained in a "battle zone" further back, to make local counter-attacks into the forward zone or in reserve in a third "rear zone". The British were used to deliberate attacks in trench warfare conditions, not the rapid counter-attacks on the defensive that the German army had perfected since early 1915 and felt vulnerable in what they saw as exposed positions. Combat units were still kept too close to the front line (across the front, 84 per cent of battalions were in the two forward zones), leaving them vulnerable to an attack and a lack of manpower meant that very few of the defensive positions necessary for the scheme to work had been prepared in the rear zone of the Fifth Army.Carpenter, pp. 51–52
On the morning of 21 March, the German spring offensive began at the Battle of St. Quentin. Elements of the German 25th Division and 208th Division attacked through a thick fog at dawn, overrunning the two battalions (4th East Lancashires and 2/8th Lancashire Fusiliers) which held positions in the forward zone. By 10.30 am, they had reached the "battle zone", where the fighting intensified. On the right flank, near the boundary with 24th Division, a reserve company of 2/7th Manchesters held a defensive position from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, when they surrendered, having lost 70 per cent casualties and run out of ammunition. To their left, the 2/6th Manchesters held out until the early afternoon, when the 160 survivors were forced to retreat further into the battle zone. The northern element of the division's defensive plan was a fortified quarry outside the village of Templeux-le-Guérard, held by the 2/7th Lancashire Fusiliers and 1/5th Border Regiment but this had been quickly surrounded and bypassed by the attackers, to be mopped up later in the day, with only a few men escaping. The village was defended by the 2/6th Lancashire Fusiliers and an artillery battery; in the course of the day, the battery was destroyed while the fusiliers were pushed back towards the edge of the village, clinging on to their positions as night fell. During the day, 711 men of 66th Division had been killed; while detailed figures are not available this would suggest around 1,000 men were wounded and another 2,000 captured.Carpenter, p. 55 British casualties for the day were 7,500 killed, 10,000 wounded and 21,000 captured; 66th Division is known to have lost 711 men killed.