page_title: 51st (Highland) Division
section_title: The Mediterranean and Middle-East
hierarchical_section_title: 51st (Highland) Division / Second World War / The Mediterranean and Middle-East
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in Tunisia 1943 A patrol of the Gordon Highlanders in Wadi Zessar, 10 March 1943.
context_page_description: The 51st (Highland) Division was an infantry division of the British Army that fought on the Western Front in France during the First World War from 1915 to 1918. The division was raised in 1908, upon the creation of the Territorial Force, as the Highland Division and later 51st (Highland) Division from 1915. The division's insignia was a stylised 'HD' inside a red circle. Early doubts about the division's performance earned it the nickname of "Harper's Duds" after the name of its commander, Major-General George Harper.
  The division was renamed the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division and fought during the Second World War as part of the Territorial Army after the Territorial Force was disbanded in 1920. In June 1940, the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division was attached to French 10th Army and after a fighting retreat from the Somme the greater part of the division was forced to surrender, having being cut off at St Valery-en-Caux on the Channel coast. In North Africa, the reconstituted Highland Division was nicknamed the "Highway Decorators" in reference to the 'HD' insignia that adorned road signs along their axis of advance.
context_section_description: Arriving in North Africa in August 1942, the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division experienced its first fighting at the Second Battle of El Alamein (October–November), sustaining some 2,000 casualties. It then played a major part in Operation Lightfoot, where it was in the centre of the Northern Push, between the 9th Australian Division and the 2nd New Zealand Division. It faced the German 21st Panzer Division and some Italian units. Initially unsuccessful during Lightfoot, the minefields it cleared were key in achieving a breakout during Operation Supercharge.
  Subsequently, the division was involved in many battles of the Tunisian Campaign, including the battle of Wadi Akarit, in early April 1943, and took part in the frontal assault on strongpoints guarded by deep minefields, where it was on the far right of the line. The Commanding Officer (CO) of the 7th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Lieutenant Colonel Lorne MacLaine Campbell, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his leadership during the battle. The war in North Africa ended on 13 May 1943 with the surrender of almost 250,000 Axis soldiers as prisoners of war (POWs). Throughout the fighting in North Africa the division served under the command of the British Eighth Army, under General Bernard Montgomery.
  Later the 51st Division had a rest to absorb replacements for the heavy losses, in both manpower and materiel, suffered in North Africa and began training in amphibious warfare. In July, the division took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, suffering comparatively light casualties in the short campaign, which lasted for 38 days. Towards the end of the campaign in early August, the division was withdrawn from combat and held in reserve for the Allied invasion of Italy. Although the 51st Division as a whole did not take part in the invasion, some of the division's artillery helped support Operation Baytown, the Eighth Army's crossing of the Strait of Messina in Sicily to the Italian "toe" at Reggio Calabria.
  The division was then recalled from the Eighth Army and returned to the United Kingdom, on the wishes of the Army's old commander, General Montgomery, together with the veteran 7th Armoured and 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Divisions, to prepare for the opening of the Second Front in June 1944. Montgomery commented on the 51st "Of the many fine divisions that served under me in the Second World War, none were finer than the Highland Division" and later "It was the only infantry division in the armies of the British Empire that accompanied me during the whole of the long march from Alamein to Berlin."
  When a group of recuperating wounded soldiers of the 51st returned from their North African hospital to rejoin the division in Sicily, they were instead split up and ordered to various units and formations, mainly the British 46th Infantry Division which had suffered heavy casualties during the Salerno landings, totally unrelated to the 51st Division or its component regiments. Some soldiers of the division regarded this as administrative high-handedness and refused to follow these orders, and the result was the Salerno Mutiny. The mutineers were distributed to various units regardless, while ringleaders were sentenced to death (the sentences were later commuted and finally quashed).
caption: Men of the 5th/7th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders on patrol in Wadi Zessar, Tunisia, 10 March 1943.
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