After two years spent on home defence, the 6th Battalion left the United Kingdom, still as part of the 138th (Lincoln and Leicester) Brigade in the 46th Infantry Division, in January 1943 to participate in the final stages of the Tunisia Campaign. In September 1943, the battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Yates, took part in the landings at Salerno in Italy as part of Mark Clark's U.S. Fifth Army, suffering heavy losses and later captured Naples, crossed the Volturno Line and fought on the Winter Line and in the Battle of Monte Cassino in January 1944. The battalion returned to Egypt to refit in March 1944, by which time it had suffered heavy casualties and lost 518 killed, wounded or missing. It returned to the Italian Front in July 1944 and, after more hard fighting throughout the summer during the Battles for the Gothic Line, it sailed for Greece in December to help the civil authorities to keep order during the Greek Civil War. In April 1945, the 6th Lincolns returned to Italy for the final offensive but did not participate in any fighting and then moved into Austria for occupation duties.