Shoulder flash Royal West Kent

The 1st Battalion was part of the 4th Infantry Division of the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1940, returning to Britain via Dunkirk. It remained in Britain until 1943, leaving to take part in the Tunisia Campaign, the Italian Campaign and the Greek Civil War that broke out after the German withdrawal in 1944.

The 2nd Battalion was part of the garrison of Malta during its protracted siege. It then formed part of the 234th Infantry Brigade in the abortive assault on the Italian-heldDodecanese islands in 1943, being captured by the Germans on the island of Leros. (Kenneth Probert - one of the many soldiers captured - states that a British submarine took officers away before capture, leaving those left behind to serve in prisoner of war camps in Germany. These prisoners were transported in cattle trucks from Greece to Wernigerode in the Harz Mountains where they were forced to work in support of the German war effort). It was reconstituted in 1944 by redesignation of the 7th Battalion.