Second World War
During the Second World war, the division first saw action beginning on 15–17 April 1940 when two of its brigades took part in the short and ill-fated landings in Norway that were intended to retake the ports of Trondheim and Narvik from the Germans. The division withdrew from Norway in May 1940.
The division's 146th Infantry Brigade and 147th Infantry Brigade were thereafter stationed in Iceland. As a result, a new divisional insignia, featuring a Polar Bear standing on an ice floe, was adopted. In 1942, the division was transferred back to the United Kingdom.
Just after D-Day, in June 1944, it moved to Normandy as part of XXX Corps. During the fierce fighting in Normandy, the Nazi propaganda broadcaster Lord Haw-Haw referred to the division as "the Polar Bear Butchers". During the rest of the war, the division was variously under the command of the I Corps, the II Canadian Corps, and the I Canadian Corps. Its last major contribution to the war was the Liberation of Arnhem and the fierce battles that led to it.
Read more about this topic: 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division
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The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.