The 2nd Battalion was serving with the 2nd Gibraltar Brigade as part of the garrison there, upon the outbreak of war in 1939. On 1 December 1943, the brigade was redesignated the 28th Infantry Brigade, which also included the 2nd King's Regiment (Liverpool) and 1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (later 2/4th Royal Hampshire Regiment). On 24 December, the brigade became attached to the British 4th Infantry Division. The 2nd Somersets, with the rest of the division, arrived in Italy in March 1944 and served in the Italian Campaign as part of the British Eighth Army in many battles such as that of Monte Cassino, one of the worst battles of the Italian Campaign, in 1944, where they played an important role alongside 2nd King's and fought in Operation Diadem and on the Gothic Line from August–September 1944. In November, the 4th Division, with the rest of III Corps, was sent to Greece to help calm the Greek Civil War, which was caused after the German Army withdrew from the country.