History
The 23rd (Northumbrian) Division was raised in October 1939, and was sent to France on 22 April 1940 on Labour and training duties, without any of its artillery, signals, or administration units.
On 20 May 1940 the division suffered heavy casualties trying to delay the German advance at Arras. On its return to Britain, after Dunkirk, the 23rd Division was disbanded due to the heavy losses it had suffered.
Its component units, however, would go on to see further action; the 69th Brigade was assigned to 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, the division's first-line counterpart, and the 70th Infantry Brigade was assigned to 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division.
Its Machine Gun and Motorcycle battalions, the 8th (Motorcycle) and 9th (Machine Gun) Battalions the Northumberland Fusiliers, would also survive with the 9th surviving until February 1942 as the Machine Gun Battalion for the 18th Division until its capture at Singapore and the 8th would survive until the end of the war having been converted to the 3rd Reconnaissance Regiment the Reconnaissance Corps under the 3rd British Infantry Division right up till the end of the war.
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