The 2nd Battalion, DCLI was serving in 10th Infantry Brigade, which also included the 2nd Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment and 1st Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, part of the 4th Infantry Division, and was sent overseas to France shortly after the outbreak of war, where they arrived on 1 October 1939 as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The battalion remained in France for many months until May 1940 when the German Army invaded Holland, Belgium and France, where they, along with the rest of the BEF, were forced into a retreat to the Dunkirk perimeter where they were subsequently evacuated to England.