8th Infantry Division (United Kingdom)
The 8th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the British Army that was active in both the First and Second World Wars. The division was first formed in October 1914 during the First World War, initially consisting mainly of soldiers of the Regular Army and served on the Western Front throughout the war, sustaining many casualties, before disbandment in 1919. The division was reactivated in Palestine, under the command of Major-General Bernard Montgomery, in the late 1930s in the years running up to the Second World War before being disbanded in late February 1940. It was briefly reformed in Syria in an administrative role during 1942-3.
Infantrymen of the Royal Irish Rifles, 25th Brigade during the Battle of the Somme, 1916.
Memorial to the 8th Infantry Division in Aldershot dedicated in 1924
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein,, nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and the Second World War.
Montgomery in 1943
Captain Bernard Montgomery (right) with Brigadier-General J. W. Sandilands, commander of the 104th Brigade, 35th Division. Montgomery served as brigade major with the 104th Brigade from January 1915 until early 1917.
The Minister of Munitions, Winston Churchill, watching the march past of the 47th (2nd London) Division in the Grande Place, Lille, France, October 1918. In front of him is the 47th Division's chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Montgomery.
Lieutenant-General Alan Brooke, GOC II Corps, with Major-General Bernard Montgomery, GOC 3rd Division, and Major-General Dudley Johnson, GOC 4th Infantry Division, pictured here in either 1939 or 1940