24th Infantry Brigade (United Kingdom)

The Brigade was first formed as part of the 8th Division by battalions returning from overseas stations to reinforce British forces on the Western Front in France. The Brigade moved to France with the rest of the 8th Division in November 1914 and fought there for the entire war.

The 24th Infantry Brigade (Guards) was formed on 13 February 1940. In April 1940, the brigade was part of the unsuccessful British force sent to fight in the Norwegian Campaign. The brigade arrived in Narvik on 15 April 1940, and was evacuated on 8 June 1940.

Men of the 1st Battalion, Scots Guards, marching along St Pauls Cray Road near Chislehurst in Kent, 15 June 1942.

In 1942-1943, the brigade formed part of the 1st Infantry Division and the 6th Armoured Division during the Tunisia Campaign. From 7 December 1943 to 31 August 1945, it served in the Italian Campaign with the 1st Infantry Division, and fought at the Battle of Anzio from January to March 1944. By the time the brigade was relieved, it had suffered 1,950 casualties. From March 1944, the brigade supported the 6th South African Armoured Division until March 1945, and then joined the 56th (London) Infantry Division. The brigade helped liberate Trieste in 1945. After the end of the war, the brigade lost its 'Guards' title, and was redesignated as the 24th Independent Infantry Brigade. The brigade formed the infantry element of the Trieste Garrison - BETFOR (British Element Trieste Force).

The Brigade was withdrawn from Trieste in October 1954. It later moved to Kenya. In 1960, as the 24th Infantry Brigade Group, the brigade's commander, Brigadier D.G. Horsford, was rushed from Kenya to Kuwait to take command of the British land forces assembled to dissuade President Kassem of Iraq from invading the country (Operation Vantage). On 12 December 1963 Kenya gained its independence. While 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders at Gilgil, were in the process of relocating to Redford Barracks Colinton, Edinburgh, having sent their advance party ahead, trouble started to brew in the newly-independent East African armies.[5] Thus 24th Brigade was reduced to two battalions: 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards and 1st Battalion, Staffordshire Regiment, both at Kahawa, plus 3rd Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery and the remnants of the Gordons when the alerts started coming. The brigade was involved in putting the indigenous army mutinies which sprang up in Zanzibar, Tanzania, in the Uganda Army, and Kenya itself in January 1964. Brigade Headquarters left Kenya for Aden at the end of October 1964, and stayed there until the final British evacuation of Aden in November 1967. On its return home it joined 3rd Infantry Division in 1968 as part of Army Strategic Command and was based at Crownhill Fort in Plymouth.[6]

The Brigade arrived in Northern Ireland at the start of The Troubles in mid-1969 and was back again in June 1970. The brigade was soon afterward reorganised as the 24th Airportable Brigade at Streatlam Camp, Barnard Castle, County Durham. At this time the Brigade headquarters consisted of elements from various units.[7]

The brigade became the only Regular brigade in the reorganized 2nd Infantry Division, stationed in the north, after the army reorganization which implemented the findings of John Nott's 1981 Defence White Paper. Later that decade, after the successful trial conversion of 6th Armoured Brigade to 6th Airmobile Brigade, it was decided to change over 24th Brigade into a permanent airmobile anti-tank formation.[8] Its war role became the rapid barring and blocking of any Soviet breakthrough of I (BR) Corps defences in Germany. In 1990 several Members of Parliament described the brigade as "no more mobile than a bicycle battalion", due to a lack of available helicopters.[9]

1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment pioneered this new airmobile role and served with UNPROFOR in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, as part of the 'Rapid Reaction Force'.[10]

Under the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, as a cost cutting measure, the brigade was merged with elements of 5th Airborne Brigade to become the new 16th Air Assault Brigade.[10]

• Becke, Major A. F. (1935). Order of Battle of Divisions Part 1. The Regular British Divisions. London: HMSO. ISBN 1-871167-09-4.
• Beevor, Antony (1991). Inside the British Army. Reading, Royal County of Berkshire, United Kingdom: Corgi Books. ISBN 978-0552138185. OCLC 1109590043.
• Boraston, J. H.; Bax, Cyril E. O. (2001) [1926]. The Eighth Division 1914–1918. Uckfield, East Sussex: Naval & Military Press. ISBN 978-1-84342-189-4.
• Chappell, Mike (1987). The British Army in the 1980s. Long Acre, London, United Kingdom: Osprey Publishings. ISBN 978-0850457964. OCLC 944154518.
• Lord, Cliff; Watson, Graham (2004). The Royal Corps of Signals : unit histories of the Corps (1920-2001) and its antecedents. Solihull, West Midlands, England: Helion & Company. ISBN 978-1-874622-92-5. OCLC 184820114.
• Naylor, Murray (1995). Among Friends: The Scots Guards, 1956–1993. Pen and Sword. (Via Google Books.)
• Watson, Graham E.; Rinaldi, Richard A. (2005). The British Army in Germany (British Army of the Rhine and After): an Organisation History 1947–2004. Tiger Lilly Publications. ISBN 978-0972029698. OCLC 241300352.
• Gregory Blaxland, The Regiments Depart: A History of the British Army 1945-70, William Kimber, London, 1971
• Formation of North West expeditionary Force
• "24th Infantry Brigade (Guards)". Orders of Battle.com.